Adrenaline Potentiates Glycogen - Essay Example

In humans, the bulk of glycogen is accumulated in skeletal muscles. Glycogen is the key energy substrate during exercise intensity that is more than seventy percent of the oxygen intake. Healthy people often eliminate blood glucose fast when there is excess glucose. The glycogen that is stored in the skeletal muscles is limited because the glycogen synthesis prevents accumulation. After exercise, the rate of glycogen synthesis is increased to deplete the stores of glycogen. The diminishing of skeletal muscle glycogen after exercise enables healthy storage of carbohydrates after meals and this averts the growth of type 2 diabetes.

Glycogen is carbohydrate stored in human cells. Eighty percent of the produced glycogen is stored in the skeletal muscles. As a result, enzyme glycogen synthase activates the conversion of glucose to glycogen and insulin is the enzyme that prevents the conversion of glycogen to glucose in the body (Jensen et al., 21). Moreover, it is the polysaccharides that maintain physiological blood glucose concentration. The liver directly contributes to the blood level in the body because of the presence of glucose-6-phosphate.

Glycogen in the skeletal muscles is broken down and transported to the liver to help in the maintenance of euglycemia (Jensen et al., 2). Works Cited Jensen J., Grønning-Wang L. M., Jebens E., Whitehead J. P., Zorec R., Shepherd P. R. (2008). Adrenaline potentiates insulin-stimulated PKB activation in the rat fast-twitch epitrochlearis muscle without affecting IRS-1 associated PI 3-kinase activity. Pflugers Arch. 456, 969–978. DOI: 10.1007/s00424-008-0471-z. [PubMed][Cross Ref]