Some people think metabolism is a kind of organ, or a body part, that influences
digestion.
Actually, the metabolism isn't a body part.
Metabolism, is the process of transforming food (e.g. nutrients) into fuel (e.g.
energy). The body uses this energy to conduct a vast array of essential
functions.
In fact, your ability to read this page is driven by your metabolism.
If you had no metabolism you wouldn't be able to move.
In fact, long before you realized that you couldn't move a finger or lift your foot,
your internal processes would have stopped, because the basic building blocks
of life - circulating blood, transforming oxygen into carbon dioxide, expelling
potentially lethal wastes through the kidneys and so on - all of these depend on
metabolism.
Although we think of our metabolism as a single function, it's really a catch-all
term for countless functions that are taking place inside the body. Every second
of every minute of every day of your life numerous chemical conversions are
taking place through metabolism, or metabolic functioning.
In a certain light, the metabolism has been referred to as a harmonizing process
that manages to achieve two critical bodily functions that seem to be at odds with
each other.
