Hydrogen gas is the most common element in the universe in terms of total number of atoms and constitutes 75 percent of the universe by mass. This is not obvious to us as hydrogen gas represents a very tiny fraction of atmospheric air. That said, sunlight is produced from fusion of hydrogen to form a noble gas called helium. Therefore, the solar energy we enjoy on this planet is fueled by burning hydrogen ions in a state called plasma. Though hydrogen gas is hardly registered in terms of atmospheric percentage, it exists in water and organic compounds. In fact, water covers about 71% of the earth’s surface, with seas and oceans making up about 97% of total water by volume.
During photosynthesis, the plants transfer solar energy from the sun to split water into hydrogen ions and electrons while releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. For context, with abundant water present on the planet earth, modern technology has not been able to directly harness power to split water on a large scale to reduce carbon emissions, a source of dreadful climate change with the existential challenge to all earthly residents. Again, to appreciate this daunting challenge, it takes 2,200 degrees Celsius (3,992 degree Fahrenheit) to split just about 3% of water into its components of hydrogen and oxygen.
Fire flames are good and useful when you need them but cannot be stored in the kitchens. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) are the products of the so-called light reactions in photosynthesis, but they are transient energy that lasts less than a second. For long-term storage, a plant protein (rubisco) captures atmospheric carbon dioxide as a form of “storage depot” otherwise called carbon fixation. ATP is used as the source of energy while NADPH releases its embedded hydrogen ions and high-energy electrons to make a 3-carbon sugar called glyceralde 3 phosphate. This energy rich intermediate metabolite is regarded as the prime end-product of photosynthesis and can be used as food nutrient, combined, or rearranged to form monosaccharide sugars, such as glucose and fructose. With an increasing number of carbon chains, it can also be packaged for storage as insoluble polysaccharides such as starch or fiber.
Downstream, the plants can also “reduce” glyceralde 3 phosphate to synthesize to both glycerol and fatty acids to make fat for storage and for seed germination. As with carbohydrates, the nature of the fats in terms of liquids or solids depends on the number of carbons chained together. It is important to note that ATP is made to keep all cells alive at rest and more is made during physical activity and fasting. To breakdown nutrients, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) harvests and releases hydrogen electrons to make ATP while NADPH donates its electrons to build almost everything such as DNA, fats, cholesterol, including acting as an antioxidant to scavenge dangerous chemical radicals. Also, in an oxygen dependent attack, immune cells also use NADPH high-energy electrons to form superoxide, an antimicrobial agent, to kill invading pathogens.
Gasoline, kerosene, diesel, gasoline, lubricating oil are all hydrocarbons with different boiling points based on the number of carbon molecules but you don’t have engineers making up controversy out of nothing. It is interesting that carbon dioxide (the electron storage depot) is released before all the hydrogen electrons are fully extracted to form water and ATP during metabolic burning. All macronutrients are bearers of transferred photosynthetic high-energy electrons and this energy can be released to stay alive, reproduce, grow and “fund” the immune system. Metabolic health is therefore not about one diet or hormone, which in most cases need food substrates to function. Excessive food consumption is a direct result of excessive release of non-storable high-energy hydrogen electrons that are embedded in NADH and NADPH molecules in what is called oxidative stress. Over time, this may cause damage to lipids, proteins, and DNA, leading to compromise in structure and function of organs with consequent hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, strokes, and other non-communicable diseases. As the only species that do not live with environment, we are extracting high-energy electrons embedded in gas, gasoline, and diesel for highly mechanized farming and efficient air and land travels causing greenhouse emissions on one hand while our unprecedented sedentary lifestyle and overconsumption is compromising out metabolic health on the other hand. A case of lose-lose situation if I might add.
