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I have a few clarifying questions: What else are fatty acids used for? What are the metabolic pathways involved and how do different fatty acids impact our cel

• garganzol 4y ago
  > What else are fatty acids used for? Energy storage, hormone synthesis. > What are the metabolic pathways involved and how do different fatty acids impact our cells? Triglycerides are used as a substrate for energy production by mitochondria. Short-chain fatty acids with chain lengths < 22 can readily enter mitochondria and be turned into energy. Long-chain fatty acids cannot enter mitochondria; but they can be shortened by peroxisomes, another cellular organelles, to more feasible lengths which then can enter mitochondria. This whole "fatty" metabolic pathway is called beta-oxidation. Both glucose and lipids are transformed into substance called Acetyl-CoA which is then used by mitochondria to produce ATP. Acetyl-CoA is a common denominator of our energy production pathways. We can also imagine a software pattern when there is a main implementation (mitochondria working internally from Acetyl-CoA) and two adapters for glucose -> Acetyl-CoA (glycolysis) and lipids -> Acetyl-CoA (beta-oxidation) to simplify the whole thing. Trans fats cannot be processed neither by mitochondria nor peroxisomes because they belong to a different class of fatty acids. This causes their accumulation inside the cell and a gradual development of a metabolic dysfunction because mitochondria cannot produce enough ATP (energy) from trans fats. If the accumulation is large enough it starts to block other metabolic pathways including glucose pathway. The mitochondrial "hunger" increases even more. Because glucose cannot enter mitochondria anymore, its level is rising leading to a condition known as insulin resistance. What happens next? A person may develop quite a few secondary conditions such as T2DM, hyperlipidemia, neurological and cognitive impairment, various cardiovascular and autoimmune diseases. > Can you cite sources for your claims? Research is a passion of mine and I would love to read some literature on the topic if you have any to share. I would gladly do that, but the list would be enormous. Materials on Krebs cycle are probably the best starting points. The next important milestone is to read information about Beriberi and Pellagra diseases because those conditions are caused by mitochondrial dysfunction which in turn is caused by nutritional deficiencies. The next thing to study is that metabolic dysfunction can be acquired not only from nutritional deficiencies but from a condition known as oxidative stress, which in turn can be caused by viruses, bacteria, poisons and so on. It can be acquired from the pathological excess of sugar during 10-20 years. Metabolic dysfunction can also be caused by genetics because some enzymes in metabolic pathways do not work as they should. To get a grasp of that, you can watch "Lorenzo's Oil" movie to see how it happens and what kind of sufferings a person may have. As you can see, the amount of materials is quite enormous and hardly fits into a web-page-with-links format.
  • feet 4y ago
    I'm surprised you don't mention lipid modifications of proteins or membrane fluidity, are those not significant functions?