Nobel Prizes Explained: What Fuels Olympians

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I love the Olympics- I've never been more invested in sports that I don’t normally watch. Track and field is one of my favorites - especially when Usain Bolt was big and he was just revealing that he has real life superhero.
But that ability for your muscles to contract and somehow this propels a 210lb man 28mph is insane. How does it do this? How does it get this fuel? When your muscles are relaxing, they form ATP - the molecule is basically the energy building block and is used everywhere. when your muscle becomes active, it eats this ATP for energy and allows for fast energy production - but only last about 10 seconds (like a sprint).
But how about a marathon? Well as that immediate ATP is depleted, our muscles turn to a chemical pathway called glycolysis in the presence with or without oxygen (Aerobic or anaerobic), where glucose is broken down to produce more ATP and the waste product lactic acid and heat.
That glucose either comes from our blood, or from stored sugar called glycogen. Glycolysis is very complicated and is the bane of medical students who have to memorize it for our boards, but this is the fundamentals of muscle metabolism and thus the basis of movement - pretty important stuff.
Not all of this came overnight, or from one researcher. It came as an accumulation of work through decades, but two scientist were instrumental in contributing to our understanding.
Enter Archibald Hill and Otto Meyerhof. Archibald Hill was an English doctor, born in 1886. He was a bright student that studied mathematics before finally shown the light and encouraged to study physiology.
Hill’s first research project revolved around looking at frog muscles and how it produced heat. At that time, it was known that massive muscular contractions like in tetanus - which is caused by toxins released from the bacteria clostridium tetani that causes severe muscle spasms. You need contractions because it was hard to measure heat produced otherwise. Small contractions made very little heat. However, he used a very finely tuned thermocouple- which converts temperature into voltages, and thus can measure different temperatures by what voltage is produced. He was able to measure temperature rises from muscle twitches of only 0.003 celsius.
He also demonstrated that the initial contraction does not need oxygen. As years passed, we now understand that there are two chemical pathways for how muscles receive energy.
During WWII, he helped find the society for the protection of science and learning - saving over 900 scientists from the Nazis - 18 went on to win the Nobel Prize.
Otto Meyerhof was a German physician born in 1884. His main research was done on the glycolysis system. Earlier work showed microorganisms like yeast using glucose to form acid in the form of fermentation - the basis of delicious delicious sour dough.
Be believed that cells in yeast and muscles cells probably shared some analogies. He measured lactic acid in muscles with and without oxygen and determined that stored glycogen is used and converted to lactic acid without oxygen, and less when there was. There was also a cyclical nature of reconverting excess back to glycogen, which provided the first evidence of cyclical nature of energy in cells. By the 1930s and 40s he would isolate and purify many of the enzymes needed for glycolysis and laid down the blueprint.He would escape the Nazis before WW2 and come to the good ol US of A where it would eventually retire.
And their work on the physiology of muscles, they were awarded the Nobel prize in 1922.
Disclaimer:
These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any LY Med video.

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Much love, -Mike

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thank you

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love u dude