Insulin, Heat from Sugar, and Research on Diabetes for a Cure
Author: Danut Dragoi, PhD
Insulin
Insulin is a complex molecule, discovered in early 1916 by Paulescu. It is a relative large molecule that has a molecular mass of 5807.57 amu, that corresponds to the following chemical formula C257H383N65O77S6 .
Beyond its well known role in human being, insulin have many interesting structural features.
The picture below shows the structure of the molecule of the insulin. The colored spheres represent the atoms C, H, N, O, and S. This arrangements of atoms results from x-ray proteins crystallography of single crystals obtained from pure insulin.
Image SOURCE: http://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/14
The yellow spheres in the picture correspond to sulfur atoms that somehow are getting in the structure from a certain source, probably from foods like eggs. It is important to mention that if one component atom is missing in our body, for example Sulfur, the pancreas will not produce the insulin molecule we needed.
Next picture below shows single crystals grown in the lab on Earths as well as in outer space.
Image SOURCE: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/notebook/msad22jul98_1/
As we see high quality crystals were obtained in low gravity conditions by NASA. The preferred instrument for producing high quality x-ray diffraction measurements is the synchrotron diffractometer, see link in here.
Heat source from sugar
Metabolic processes require an optimal temperature. . At temperatures higher or lower than 37 °C, enzymes will not function optimally. Too high – they denature opens in a new window, too low – they will slow down the rate at which metabolic processes proceed. A rise of just 2 °C will cause disruption to the internal functioning of a human and should the temperature rise between 43 °C and 45 °C, death may occur. Our tolerance to lower temperatures is much greater. The temperature needs to fall below 23 °C to cause death. So it is important to know about the thermal source generator in our body and its estimated environmental temperature.
The idea of calculating the temperature of human body impose serious computational barriers, but measuring it is not a problem. A simplified approach on this topic can be an approximation with reasonable assumptions. Complex biochemical reactions occur every second in our body. An exact consideration of all chemical reactions in human body is a complicated task, but a simplification can be done using the oxidation of sugar reaction.
Assuming an average body of 70 kg and all sugar from the blood, to be about 5 grams in 5 liters of blood, and considering the density of all blood close to 1g/cubic cm, we can consider the reaction of glucose, Equation (1):
342 g ———————– 2870 kJ
C6H12O6 + 6O2 –> 6CO2 + 6H2O + 2870 kJ ————— (1)
70 g ———————— q=?
The numbers above the chemical reaction of sugar (1) are the molecular mass in grams and the energy released in kJ. Below are the actual amount of sugar in a 70 kg human body and the q, the actual heat generated. Knowing the total amount of sugar in our body, which is approximated as 5 g/5kg (in blood)*5 kg (blood) + 5 g/5 kg *65 kg=70 g sugar and the molecular mass of sugar as 342.2965 g/mol, we have the amount of heat reduced from 2870 kJ* 70/342= 587.4 kJ which represents the heat q in Equation (1). An equation for variable q is shown in Equation (2):
q=mc(T-T’) —————————————–(2)
where we describe the thermal energy needed to raise the body temperature from T’ to T (T'<T). For body temperature T=37 C deg, normal temperature of human body, m=70 kg-0.15*70 kg-0.15*70 kg=49 kg (where the first factor 0.15 represents the bones and second 0.15 is for the fat in which sugar is assumed not to react with Oxygen as in equation (1) and c= 2624 J/kg/C deg is the minimum specific heat of muscles . Since T’, could be the temperature of the environment in which the human body dissipates the thermal energy, is the only unknown in Equation (1), we can solve for T’, and find T’= 32.4 C deg. The value obtained is in a safe range, above room temperature with some C degrees. The modeling captures well the effect of sugar as an important source of energy for human body.
A study on diabetes indicates that heat treatment improves glucose tolerance. The structure of insulin as a protein suggests the link between our DNA programmed to producing specific proteins needed in our body including insulin. This is a promising avenue for future solutions for a cure of diabetes.
Genetics for a Cure
A recent research on converting fatty tissue into mature beta cells, shows that insulin can be produced by newly created beta like cells raising new expectations for cure of the diabetes.
An interesting posting, discusses in detail the findings of scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, where the investigators added a highly complex synthetic network of genes to the stem cells to recreate precisely the key growth factors involved in this maturation process.
Source
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Paulescu
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/16132418
http://pdb101.rcsb.org/motm/14
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/notebook/msad22jul98_1/
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/LenaWong.shtml
http://sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Digestion-Chemistry/Looking-Closer/Mitochondria-cell-powerhouses
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/organic/sugar.html
https://www.google.com/#q=density+of+blood
http://sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Digestion-Chemistry/Looking-Closer/Mitochondria-cell-powerhouses
https://www.google.com/#q=molecular+mass+of+sugar
https://www.google.com/#q=percent+of+weight+bones+in+human+body
http://www.itis.ethz.ch/virtual-population/tissue-properties/database/heat-capacity/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2646055/
2012pharmaceutical
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