Professional Medical Advice
ELECTRICAL.
The second method
is electrical. The brain and spinal cord
are centers of heat production. Heat
is generated as the neurons build up
electrical charge, then rapidly discharge
at the cell surface. This constant charge
separation and combination demands an enormous
amount of energy and releases large amounts of heat.
CHEMICAL.
The third method is chemical. Research
into the problem of chemically created body heat has
been sporadic with little government funding but
progress is being made. The sub cellular organelles called
mitochondria are the sites of ATP production for all cells.
ATP (AdenosineTriPhosphate) and
related molecules are the intracellular
currency. Need to repair DNA? Then
you shall pay with several ATP. Need to
distribute a hormone signal within the
cell? You shall pay with ATP.
ATP is the biochemical most easily and efficiently
translated into work energy by thousands of enzymes
present within most cells. Mitochondria are quite efficient
at producing ATP. About 90% of the possible energy from
foods such as citrate, succinate and malate is transformed
into potential energy as ATP by the mitochondria. The
citrate, succinate and malate are used up with oxygen
in the creation of water and carbon dioxide (chemical
combustion).
Cold blooded animals like snakes and lizards use this
90% efficiency extremely well because they don’t have
to spend all of their time finding food. A lizard only
needs to eat a large meal about once a week, giving
him much more time for lying on warm rocks to enjoy
the sun.
“If you have low magnesium and
low thyroid function, you will have
trouble maintaining homeothermia
or the perfect number of 98.6º.”
Warm-blooded animals, on the other hand such as humans,
create heat by burning citrate, succinate and malate but
do not always generate ATP. Biochemically, this is called
uncoupling the mitochondria; a short way of stating that
chemical combustion occurs in the mitochondria without
production of ATP. Another term used is thermogenesis
or heat creation. All physical scientists will then ask, “How
much heat is liberated?” since you cannot have chemical
combustion without liberating heat. The answer is “enough
to heat mammals from room temperature of 75 to 98.6ºF..”
Mammals have the innate ability to hormonally control the
method for heat production via the mitochondria via the
uncoupling protein (UCP1) in fat tissues. UCP1 is controlled
by both the thyroid and