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42 votes
Can a chemical reaction take place without enzyme​

User Sufia
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2 Answers

23 votes
23 votes

Answer:

Chemical reactions would slow down and even not proceed at all without enzymes.

Step-by-step explanation:

Enzymes are protein catalysts, meaning they speed up chemical...

User Mdmundo
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3.0k points
12 votes
12 votes

Answer:

Theoretically, Yes (See the explanation)

Step-by-step explanation:

The body has enzymes that catalyze processes, as several other respondents have mentioned. I haven't noticed any comments, but the reverse impact might be just as significant. Some enzymes are reaction inhibitors. Others operate as both catalysts and inhibitors, depending on the amounts of the reactants and reaction products close to the catalyst. I'll provide an illustration to demonstrate how crucial inhibition may be. Let's say you consume three banana splits one after the other. That is a large number of calories. You would have a very high temperature and be so energetic and full of energy that you would be bouncing off the walls if all those calories were converted simultaneously into energy and heat. But neither you nor I have ever heard of overeating creating a high temperature or anxiety. This is due to the fact that many of the high energy molecules produced by the process hinder the enzymes that regulate metabolism, which produces the energy needed to power your body and generate heat. In other words, if you don't require high energy, your body won't keep making it. When there are huge amounts of carbohydrates around, the enzymes that turn the carbohydrates you consumed into glycogen and fat (to store the extra energy you don't need right now) become catalytic (mostly glucose). Therefore, the /majority of the energy from those three banana splits will be stored as fat and glycogen as it won't be needed. And that occurs as a result of the reaction to turn the sugars into energy being blocked by the lack of a demand for the energy at the time. Both enzymes that act as catalysts and those that act as inhibitors are essential to the healthy operation of our bodies.

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Definitions:

Enzymes: Any of various proteins, as pepsin, originating from living cells and capable of producing certain chemical changes in organic substances by catalytic action, as in digestion.

Metabolism: The sum of physical and chemical processes in an organism by which its material substance is produced, maintained, and destroyed, and by which energy is made available.

Glucose: A sugar, C6H12O6, having several optically different forms, the common dextrorotatory form (dextroglucose, or -glucose) occurring in many fruits , animal tissues and fluids, etc., and having a sweetness about one half that of ordinary sugar, and the rare levorotary form (lavoglucose, or -glucose) not naturally occurring.

Chemical reaction: Reaction, the reciprocal action of chemical agents upon each other; chemical change.

Protein: Any of numerous, highly varied organic molecules constituting a large portion of the mass of every life form and necessary in the diet of all animals and other nonphotosynthesizing organisms, composed of 20 or more amino acids linked in a genetically controlled linear sequence into one or more long polypeptide chains, the final shape and other properties of each protein being determined by the side chains of the amino acids and there chemical attachments: proteins include such specialized forms as collagen for supportive tissue, hemoglobin for transport, antibodies for immune defense, and enzymes for metabolism.

Amino acids: Any of a class of organic compounds that contains at least one amino group, -NH2, and one carboxyl, -COOH: the alpha-amino acids, RCH(NH2)COOH, are the building blocks from which proteins are constructed.

User ThinkGeek
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