Test 2
A Personal Case Study Essay on Fitness, Disease Risk & Metabolism
Jennifer Patterson

Descriptive Statistics: My name is Jennifer Patterson. I was born and raised in Scotland, United Kingdom and I am a white caucasian. I am 20 years old, 5 ft 7 inches tall and weigh 116 pounds. At this time I have a BMI of 18.2 and a waist to hip ratio of 0.67. As far as I am awareI have no direct family history of any sort of disease. Currently I would say I am a somewhat healthy individual, who tries to eat right and exercise often in order to keep my risk of disease low.
Self Analysis: My BMI is underweight by 0.3 based on this alone I would say I'm not at too much of a risk of disease as it is really close to a normal BMI. My waist to hip ratio indicates that i am at very low risk of developing a cardiovascular or obesity related disease anytime in the near future. My waist to hip ratio and my BMI results both support each other. Overall, because of my current state of health and family history I am not at risk of developing a chronic disease.
Your Metabolic Health: It took me 23 minutes to run 1.5 miles, based on that data my VO2 max is roughly 23 mL/kg/min. Looking at the percentile chart provided this puts me in the 1st percentile, which means 99% of people have a higher VO2 and better run time than myself. I only managed to complete 7 pushups before straining, from the chart this means that improvement is needed. For my age range 7 is even lower than the lowest for improvement, technically it puts me in the age range of 30-39 and still needing improvement. I completed 16 curl-ups using the instructions, which according to the chart means I am well below average for my age range and I currently rank within the 20th percentile.
Your Carbohydrate Metabolism: Describe the process of the complete oxidation of glucose. the The oxidation of glucose is the process our bodies us to create energy. This process is aerobic and involves three major steps: Glycolysis, Krebs cycle and the electron transport chain. Glycolysis is the first step in this process and it occurs within the cell’s cytoplasm. During Glycolysis one molecule of 6-Carbon glucose is broken down in to pyruvate acid which contains 3 Carbon and creates a net gain of 2 ATP(Adenosine Triphosphate). Hydrogen atoms are removed and join with the hydrogen carrier molecule NAD to produce NADH. The Pyruvate acid then moves into the mitochondria where it is oxidised and forms the molecule Acetyl-CoA, which begins the second step in glucose oxidation, The Krebs Cycle.
The Krebs Cycle occurs within the mitochondrion.The newly forms Acetyl-CoA joins together with a 4 Carbon compound to make Citric Acid. The Citric Acid is the over time converted back to the 4 Carbon compound ready to begin the cycle again. During this conversion carbons are released as Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and the hydrogens which are released once again join with NAD to create more NADH.
After this step then begins the Electron Transport Chain which is where most of the energy (ATP) is produced and occurs within the Cristae of the mitochondrion. This is the stage of oxidation when the NADH2 molecules made through out are used and put into action. These molecules already produced in the first two stages are the key to transferring the hydrogens to the electron transport chain. Just like the previous stages this stage also requires oxygen, which acts as the final hydrogen acceptor, if the oxygen is not present to accept the hydrogen the hydrogen will not be able to pass through the system to complete the process. Electrons are passed along the transport chain by both NADH and FADH2, this creates a high Hydrogen concentration gradient with the potential to create energy. ATP Synthase is a protein which is solely responsible for the production of ATP. It uses the proton gradient created to phosphorylate ADP into ATP.
The complete process of glucose oxidation produces a net amount of 32 ATP from one molecule of