Metabolism is not as simple of a term as many people may think. Metabolism is essentially a complex energy pathway within the body. It works in a series of short contained reactions in order to efficiently capture and use energy. The small chemical reactions have low activation energies, since there are many small reactions in a pathway the energy can be captured and stored way more efficiently than if you had one large activation energy and completed the pathway in just one big chemical reaction. There are two main types of metabolism. Anabolism is the part of the metabolism that builds simple molecules into bigger complex molecules. This process requires the input of energy from the body. This energy input comes in the form of ATP. Anabolism is how things like proteins, nucleic acids, membranes, etc. are made. Another main component of metabolism is catabolism. This is the break down of big complex molecules into smaller more simple molecules. Catabolism breaks down things like sugars, lipids, proteins, etc. and in doing so creates ATP. This creation of ATP is the release of energy associated with catabolism. The main takeaway of metabolism is that it functions in such a way that all reactions have very small activation energies making the capture and release of energy way more efficient than completing the reaction in one big step.
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