Fitness

Let us now see how all nutrients help the body by imagining that we can watch one of your cells. Let us say that you are in perfect health; therefore all the processes of this cell are perfect.

The cell is the shape of an egg. Foods can pass through its walls just as spilled juice might pass through a tablecloth. Every moment from birth until death there is poured in and sucked out a continuous surf of blood plasma, or tissue fluid. The incoming surf is pushed in by the force of the blood pressure from capillaries branching from arteries; the outgoing surf is withdrawn by the attraction of the tiny particles of a protein, albumin, in the capillaries joining the veins. The incoming wave carries fresh supplies; the outgoing wave removes wastes.

We can see through this ever-moving fluid as a diver can observe sea life about him when he walks the floor of the ocean. As we gaze into the cell itself, we see endless particles in fantastic and ceaseless motion. First we notice the business center of the cell, the nucleus. It is made of amino acids from the proteins you have eaten and of nucleic acid, obtained perhaps from yeast or liver; with the help of at least three B vitamins (biotin, pantothenic acid, and vitamin B6) these substances are formed into what are known as nucleotides; they in turn are combined into genes and chromosomes carrying your hereditary pattern, the life program of this cell. Surrounding the nucleus are ever-changing clusters of protein particles, or molecules, formed into what are known as colloids; these protein clusters make up the tissue of the cell, the cytoplasm. The whole, or the nucleus and cytoplasm together, is called protoplasm.

There is so much to observe that we scarcely know what to look at first. Before us are molecules of fat and glucose, both combined with phosphorus; bits of the body starch, called glycogen, made up of dozens of glucose molecules; tiny globules of the fat-like materials, cholesterol and lecithin. We see every known vitamin and mineral.

Our eyes fall on the worker ants in this amazing anthill, the carpenters who build, the demolition crews who tear down; these workers are the enzymes. Your genes carry the blueprint of the enzymes in your body; it is by enzymes that heredity is made possible. If you have blue eyes and brown hair, some of your enzymes are different from those of the person having hazel eyes and black hair. All enzymes are made of protein, but many also contain a vitamin and/or a mineral, such as magnesium or cobalt. They have been named according to the work they do, just as a family might originally have been named Smith because the father worked as a blacksmith.

We watch an enzyme family called phosphatase breaking phosphorus free from molecules of glucose and fat, thus beginning to change them into energy. By the help of other enzymes containing vitamin B1 or pantothenic acid, the particles of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen which form the sugar and fat are tom apart. Hod-carrier enzymes containing vitamin B2 take oxygen from the blood cells and carry it to the fat or sugar. Still other enzymes, this time containing vitamin C, pick up the hydrogen freed as the food is broken into its component parts. With the help of these and other enzyme families, oxygen from the air is combined with the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen which once formed sugar and fat and which are changed into carbon dioxide and water. By this process energy is liberated; all energy, in turn, is changed into heat.

We observe many other enzyme families; ones which tear down the genes of old cells and rebuild genes for new cells, the nucleotidases. The enzymes containing vitamin Be are demolishing and rebuilding bits of the protein cytoplasm. Still others containing pantothenic acid are building or demolishing the unsaturated fatty acids combined with pro.., teins, which together form the lumber for this amazing house. Other enzymes are breaking worn-out protein into sugar, fat, and nitrogen-containing substances. There is the enzyme family of glycogenases, quickly changing glycogen into sugar to replenish that used in energy production, and there are other enzyme families, hundreds of them.

We next notice little telegraph messengers, the hormones, racing in and out of the cell. A messenger from the thyroid glands, thyroxin, helps to determine how much energy is needed and to keep the temperature at the point at which the cell can function best and the worker enzymes can be most efficient. We see another messenger from the pancreas, insulin, aiding the cell to change the sugar not needed for ‘immediate energy into glycogen or fat. Still another messenger from the adrenal glands, cortisone, stands by to break body protein into sugar and fat if sufficient glucose is not supplied. A messenger called adrenaline (epinephrine) is here from the adrenals to speed up the change of glycogen into sugar in case large amounts are needed quickly, as during anger or fear, to produce energy required for fight or flight. Even messengers have come from the sex glands to affect the life of this cell and all cells of the body.

Our eve now catches our old friends, the minerals. Here is phosphorus, both free and combined with protein and fat as part of the cell structure. Calcium is here ready to help relax the cell when rest is required, and potassium is waiting to stimulate it into greater activity when the need arises.