Everything you do requires energy; eating, talking, laughing or breathing uses energy. Our body cells use oxygen to burn glucose to produce energy in the form of ATP – a molecule that stores and transports chemical energy within cells. This energy is then transported from one cell to another to produce the desired effect.
Energy is essentially generated from carbohydrates. Just like money, energy has a “currency” (there are different types of currencies for energy) the most important currency and common one for your body is the ATP.
Apparently, our cells cannot store ATP for long because it’s chemical energy, and so the cells store energy more often in the form of glucose, and generate ATP when they need some real energy to get things moving!
Your cells break down the glucose and convert it into ATP when they need more energy. That’s why after students run a long race, you’ll find teachers giving them a spoon of powdered glucose, they should give them grapes instead, grapes are high in carbohydrates!
Some of your cells can get energy from fats; however, the most critical cells like the red blood cells, are working purely on glucose.
