exphysed
exphysed t1_je80222 wrote
Reply to People who lift weights are told to drink plenty of water, because "muscles need lots of water." But what exactly are the muscles doing with the water? by LongSong333
Water increases in proportion to muscle creatine phosphate and glycogen content. Both fuels are used up during exercise, and the water leaves the cell. As your body replaces the fuels you depleted, water goes in with it to maintain the osmotic balance. Plus there are probably hundreds of other cellular processes activated that require water in some capacity.
exphysed t1_jbv866m wrote
Reply to Does having history of heat illness (especially heat stroke) make one’s body more sensitive to heat? by [deleted]
Repeated short term exposure to heat (without heat stroke) causes many of the same adaptations as exercise training including plasma volume expansion, improved cardiac output, decrease sweat sodium concentration, and increased thermoregulation capabilities. This makes a person less likely to suffer heatstroke.
I would imagine there could be permanent damage related to severe heat stroke, but I would be surprised if it made people more likely to suffer subsequent heat stroke (as one commenter liked to an article about). Anecdotally I know many people who’ve been hospitalized with heat stroke but have no issues in the heat subsequent to the initial incident
exphysed t1_j6ap4f1 wrote
Reply to comment by Ausoge in What does it actually mean to “burn fat” during exercise? by orange-robin
Your body saves carbs as much as possible. If it can use fat, it will. Think of carbs as only being used if your body has to - to go fast (or in the brain)
exphysed t1_j13sw33 wrote
Muscle cells can take up glucose from the bloodstream through their own transporters without the need for insulin.
When you’re regularly active, your muscles pull the glucose out of the blood, effectively regulating your blood glucose without insulin needing to be involved. This allows all the cells in the body to readjust the number of insulin-receptors/glucose transporters needed, thereby making you more sensitive to insulin over time, and the pancreas won’t have to release as much insulin for any given amount of glucose in the blood.
exphysed t1_j12hjf1 wrote
Reply to How does pyruvate know to go to the mitochondria or to do the anaerobic reaction? by WeedCat1
Obviously it’s way more complex than this, but even with oxygen, if the glycolysis rate is high, not all pyruvate gets into the mitochondria. U/metacelcus explains it better, but a simpler explanation I use is to think of it like a sink faucet that’s turned up so high that the drain can’t drain it fast, and some water overflows the basin. In this case, glucose to pyruvate is the faucet, the drain is the mitochondria and the overflow is the formation of lactate. It’s not a perfect analogy, but does reasonably well to get the concept across in undergrad exercise physiology classes.
exphysed t1_iw31bvb wrote
Reply to How do medical researchers obtain lab animals with diseases like specific forms of cancer which arise spontaneously? Do they raise thousands of apes and hope some eventually develop the disease? by userbrn1
There are a number of ways to induce various maladies to create animal models of diseases. Some ways are genetic, some environmental, some through selective breeding, some through nutrition, and many other ways. Most animal research however doesn’t use primates (aside from humans). Mice are often the go to for mammalian research. Their genome is well understood and relatively easily modifiable. For instance, we can modify a gene that makes them less sensitive to insulin and thereby they effectively have type II diabetes. Sometimes some animals naturally have genetic abnormalities that make them good animal models for human diseases. Golden retrievers actually experience something very similar to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and through selective breeding, a colony of dystrophic dogs was managed to study the impacts of treatments that might be viable for humans. Sometimes we also find animals in the wild too. There’s a species of monkeys, I think in Central or South America, that are spontaneously hypertensive and they’ve been used to better understand high blood pressure in humans. For most common human diseases though, you can almost guarantee an animal model has been found or developed. Just type in the disease followed by “animal model” in Google and you’ll find fascinating stuff.
exphysed t1_isi5byw wrote
Reply to How does your body know where to heal? by JavaScriptBest
The damaged cells release chemical signals that signal to nearby cells which starts the healing process. Many tissues have stem cells sitting there just waiting for that signal and they jump into action when they get the signal.
exphysed t1_je86ama wrote
Reply to comment by LongSong333 in People who lift weights are told to drink plenty of water, because "muscles need lots of water." But what exactly are the muscles doing with the water? by LongSong333
Yes. Your body will replace the fuel stores, but to do that water needs to go in with it.