Re: Mass/Energy Conservation

[Larry Cartwright <exit60@IA4U.NET>]

Joel Rauber wrote:
> ... I came up with the idea that we breath and perhaps that
> respiration might involve a net gain in mass through respiration
> combined with digestion.  Which gets down to whether or not digesting
> your food might combine with some of the mass you input through the
> lungs with what you input in your stomach making for a net gain over
> and above the mass input going down the esophagus.

Mass gain in adults is accumulated almost exclusively in the form of
carbon and hydrogen, synthesized into the triacylglycerol (TAG)
molecules that have become known to the general public as
"triglycerides".  The adipose "depot fat" tissue (the stuff that
produces the guys' potbellies and what the girls delicately call
"cellulite") is almost pure TAG.  A typical TAG is awkward to do in
ascii, but here goes:

(C15 H31 CO2)(C3 H5)(C17 H33 CO2)2

Note that of the 163 nuclei in the molecule, there are only 6 oxygen; to
me that suggests the oxygen we breathe has little to do with weight
gain.  Actually, to LOSE mass you have to combine this crud with oxygen
to convert it into C02 and H2O, which is partly why aerobic exercise is
one key to eliminating accumulated fat.  It takes approximately 80
oxygen molecules to "lose" a single TAG molecule.

Best wishes,

Larry
(who unfortunately has a close personal relationship with TAG)
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Larry Cartwright  <exit60@ia4u.net>
Physics and Physical Science Teacher
Charlotte HS, Charlotte MI USA
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