Health, normal biochemical processes

Cellular toxicity occurs when exogenous chemicals interact with the cell and disrupt the essential biochemical processes that maintain homeostasis. There are many potential sites where exogenous chemicals could disrupt normal cellular function, resulting in cell injury and ultimately cell death. The more essential the function is to the health of the cell, the more severe the toxicity. For example, compounds that directly interact with the cell membrane may perturb its ability to control the movement of ions and maintain the osmotic balance between the interior and exterior of the cell. In addition, intercellular communication may be reduced or blocked by compounds that perturb the physical and chemical properties of the membrane environment. 

Our metabolism consists of a huge number of biochemical processes which are generally in a state of dynamic equilibrium called homeostasis. Whenever stressors in the form of extrinsic or intrinsic forces are applied, the state of homeostasis is challenged, and the stress system in our body is activated. Normal stress is essential for maintenance of mental and physical health. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is the main constituent of the stress system because it serves as a key junction for neuro, immuno and endocrine (hormonal) systems [7]. Acute or chronic stress causes dysregulation of the stress system. This situation leads to various pathophysiologic states that include psychiatric, endocrine/metabolic, and immunologic disorders. 

Calcium, potassium, and sodium are the three most abundant metals in the human body. Present in a much smaller amount, copper is nonetheless vitally important to human health. Copper-dependent enzymes known as cuproenzymes play a critical role in a host of biochemical processes, including cellular energy production, connective tissue formation. and reactions essential to normal functioning of the brain and central nervous system. Two hereditary diseases that involve errors of copper metabolism are Menkes disease and Wilson s disease. 

Vitamins and hormones are minor organic biomolecules, but both of them are required by animals for the maintenance of normal growth and health. They differ in that vitamins are not synthesized by animals and must be supplied in diets while hormones are secreted by specialized tissues and carried by the circulatory system to the target cells somewhere in the body to initiate/stimulate specific biochemical or physiological activities. Vitamins (Dyke, 1965) can be classified as water-soluble (B vitamins and vitamin C) or fat-soluble (vitamins A, D, E, and K) and act as cofactors for numerous enzyme catalyzed reactions or cellular processes. Hormones (Nornam and Litwack, 1997) can be classified structurally as follows ... 

As mentioned earlier, understanding the pH equation and the regulation and control of pH is fundamentally important when considering very many life and health processes. A simple indication of the importance of environmental pH is for growth of crops (soil pH) and acid rain (water pH), which can affect the ecosystem. Indeed, optimum conditions for purification of water and sewage treatment also are pH dependent. Physiologically, pH is critical to maintain normal body functions and key to biochemical reactions in the blood and other body fluids. Buffers and buffer systems are the primary means to regulate and maintain pH, and are discussed in more detail below (with examples in Appendix 3). 

Dietary minerals are necessary for maintenance of normal cellular metabolism and tissue function. These nutrients participate in a multitude of biochemical and physiological processes important for health. Because of their broad biochemical activity, many of these compounds are intentionally used as functional agents in a variety of foods. On the other hand, some cations may induce a diversity of undesirable effects that influence the nutritional quality of foods. 

Toward this end, computational tools are being rapidly developed to process this information and convert it into knowledge. The availability of biological information about microbes and the ability to effectively process that information to define the initial capabilities in both normal and perturbed states have tremendous potential in the chemical process industry. Industries that will greatly benefit include the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, health, food, defense, biochemical, and environmental. 

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