If some animals can photosynthesise, would it be possible to add it to humans? To stand in some sunlight and get energy to work out?

Question

Or being as it’s a sugar right, would I just become diabetic if I wasn’t working out constantly?

In: Biology

Answer 1

First of all, [photosynthesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis) USES sun energy to force water and carbon dioxide to recombine into sugar, which is then combined into [cellulose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose) which forms the body of the plant. It doesn’t produce energy for the plant, it consumes energy to create material (from water and air) to grow the plant.

We actually do the opposite of photosynthesis. We eat the sugars (plants), and our cells BURN the sugars with the oxygen that we breathe, producing carbon dioxide and water, and a lot of energy. We do the exact opposite reaction to photosynthesis.

The carbon dioxide and water get recycled, from the atmosphere to plants to animals to the atmosphere to plants again. It’s a cycle.

In any case, you get a lot of energy from food + oxygen, a lot more than you would get if your skin surface was photosynthetic. Gasoline engines get a lot of energy out of burning gasoline; in order to get that same energy from sunlight (with solar panels), you’d have to have a solar panel 30 m x 30 m (100 ft x 100 ft), the size of someone’s yard, basically. To get the same energy as we get from food, we’d likely have to have a tree’s branches and leaves (I’m not going to do the math).