I read somewhere that a significant fraction of the energy budget of the human body is spent on ion pumps (the difference is that ion channels are passive and i

I read somewhere that a significant fraction of the energy budget of the human body is spent on ion pumps (the difference is that ion channels are passive and ion pumps uses energy in form of ATP). That's because keeping an electric potential[1] across the cell membrane drives the mechanism described in this post (and others, like muscle contraction) Anyway an overview of ion transport mechanisms across the cell membrane is [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemical_gradient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemical_gradient [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_transport_protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membrane_transport_protein