Researchers Find Yet Another Reason Why Naked Mole-Rats Are Just Weird
Still ignoring carbon dioxide though.
Interesting quotes:
"For example, instead of generating their own heat, they regulate body temperature by moving to warmer or cooler tunnels, which lowers the amount of energy they need to survive. They're also known to have what Park calls "sticky hemoglobin," which allows them to draw oxygen out of very thin air. And because they live underground in large social groups, they're used to breathing air that's low in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide."
"Most mammals, including humans, run on glucose, which is a sugar that the digestive system gets from our food and turns into energy to keep our bodies warm and our brains running. But the process of taking that sugar and turning it into energy requires oxygen. Without oxygen, the body can't create energy, and without energy, cells die."
"When the researchers looked at tissue samples taken from the mole-rats at various times during the oxygen deprivation, they noticed a spike in levels of another sugar, fructose, about 10 minutes in."
"The naked mole-rats appear to have the option of switching fuels from glucose, which requires oxygen to create energy, to fructose, which doesn't."
"The cells in the brain, heart, liver and lungs of naked mole-rats are all outfitted with proteins that moves fructose into the cells, and with the right enzyme to create energy from it."
"One question for future research, he says, is how the animals manage to get rid of lactate, a molecule that builds up during anaerobic metabolism and can alter blood chemistry.
Park and Storz hope that the finding about naked mole-rats could someday help develop a way to aid patients suffering from oxygen deprivation from something like a heart attack or stroke."
Still ignoring carbon dioxide though.
Interesting quotes:
"For example, instead of generating their own heat, they regulate body temperature by moving to warmer or cooler tunnels, which lowers the amount of energy they need to survive. They're also known to have what Park calls "sticky hemoglobin," which allows them to draw oxygen out of very thin air. And because they live underground in large social groups, they're used to breathing air that's low in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide."
"Most mammals, including humans, run on glucose, which is a sugar that the digestive system gets from our food and turns into energy to keep our bodies warm and our brains running. But the process of taking that sugar and turning it into energy requires oxygen. Without oxygen, the body can't create energy, and without energy, cells die."
"When the researchers looked at tissue samples taken from the mole-rats at various times during the oxygen deprivation, they noticed a spike in levels of another sugar, fructose, about 10 minutes in."
"The naked mole-rats appear to have the option of switching fuels from glucose, which requires oxygen to create energy, to fructose, which doesn't."
"The cells in the brain, heart, liver and lungs of naked mole-rats are all outfitted with proteins that moves fructose into the cells, and with the right enzyme to create energy from it."
"One question for future research, he says, is how the animals manage to get rid of lactate, a molecule that builds up during anaerobic metabolism and can alter blood chemistry.
Park and Storz hope that the finding about naked mole-rats could someday help develop a way to aid patients suffering from oxygen deprivation from something like a heart attack or stroke."
