Glucose deficiency: What's oxygen got to do with it?

[SaintJude]

---

Members do not see this ad.

A passage on cellular respiration discusses two conditions which glucose concentration is decreased in liver and muscle tissues.

How would a decrease in blood glucose levels affect oxygen consumption ?

 

[Wolverines83]

A passage on cellular respiration discusses two conditions which glucose concentration is decreased in liver and muscle tissues.

How would a decrease in blood glucose levels affect oxygen consumption ?

overall reduction in metabolism?

 

[SaintJude]

Kaplan says: "it would lead to decrease in oxygen consumption" and offers no explanation. Why? And no, this wasn't in a passage so I'm missing some piece of knowledge

 

[MT Headed]

Kaplan says: "it would lead to decrease in oxygen consumption" and offers no explanation. Why? And no, this wasn't in a passage so I'm missing some piece of knowledge

Well in aerobic cells (i.e. basically everything except red blood cells and cancer cells) the natural path of glucose is to go through glycolysis, conversion to Acetyl-CoA, go into the krebs cycle, and finally produce a lot of ATP via the electron transport chain. This last step burns a lot of oxygen. So if you don't have glucose due to some disease, you won't be burning through a lot of oxygen fifteen steps later.

This question is analogous to asking what would happen to your car's oxygen consumption if you didn't have any gasoline... your car would sit there, the engine wouldn't run, and it wouldn't bother to burn through oxygen.

 

[eldeal]

Oxygen is the terminal electron acceptor of the electron transport chain. The ETC is the final step of cellular respiration. If glucose is not available to be metabolized, then there is ultimately a lag in the ETC. As a result, oxygen will not be needed to complete the overall reaction and will not be used by metabolically active cells.

 

[SaintJude]

Oh yeah, wow! Thank you! I can't believe I didn't make that connection.

Thank you everyone and welcome to SDN eldeal!

 

[Wolverines83]

Oxygen is the terminal electron acceptor of the electron transport chain. The ETC is the final step of cellular respiration. If glucose is not available to be metabolized, then there is ultimately a lag in the ETC. As a result, oxygen will not be needed to complete the overall reaction and will not be used by metabolically active cells.

much more eloquently put than my explanation!

 

[MedPR]

Wow this is a good question. Thanks!

 

[eldeal]

Haha, I don't think so Wolverines! Exact same thing really.

Thanks Saint Jude. I have been browsing for a while and finally decided to make an account.