💊Daily Pill: Gluconeogenesis
Fuel from Within
The Daily Pill is a series of very short daily posts where I share the definition of a medical term I think we should all know. Read it every morning and build up your medical vocabulary.
Metabolism is a complex topic, but after many sleepless nights in college, it all finally clicks at the end. There's no better feeling than understanding how the body manages energy as a whole and understanding how the entire thing works together.
While undergraduate biochemistry tends to focus on fuel metabolism, medical school biochemistry shifts the attention to the specific pathways that can lead to disease states via mutations, nutrient deficiencies, or something else. There is more of a focus on the symptoms of these disorders, the overall clinical presentation of these patients, and management strategies, of course.
Anyway, I figured we can spend some time this week learning about metabolism. The first term I wanted to define is Gluconeogenesis: the process through which our bodies make glucose from scratch whenever glucose not available - whether due to fasting, low carb diets, or maybe an extended exercise session. TL;DR: It comes from fat and muscle, and that’s why we get skinny and weak when we don’t eat for a long time. (Continue reading)
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