Why is that water is needed to live as opposed to alternative liquids? If coffee is just bean-flavoured water, why couldn’t you survive by only drinking coffee? If you were lost on a desert island and had only coffee, juice or soda to drink, could you survive?
In: Biology
Biochemist here, I’ll try to explain as simple as possible:
Water (H2O) makes up 70% of the cell’s mass. But why?
1) water is able to do a form of weak interactions called hydrogen bonding. They are a much weaker than covalent bonds (the ones that connect H to O in water) but they allow for integrity of the cell because the water molecules are vital for cell membrane formation and other infrastructure processes.
2) inside the cell are macromolecules (proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, and nucleus acids). These molecules make up the DNA (nuclei acid) protein (enzymes for example), energy source (carbohydrate molecule glucose). A common thing about these macromolecules is that they can be broken down into their monomers through a process called hydrolysis. Hydrolysis requires an H2O to interact with the bonds between monomers to break them down. Likewise water is produced when the cells synthesize macromolecules from their monomers through dehydration/condensation reactions.
Coffee, juices and soda are just mixtures where a solute ( beans for coffee) is mixed with water. Now can be drink these all the time? Yes but it’s not very healthy:
Caffeine in coffee/soda is a diarethic meaning it makes you urinate a lot. Thus you would take in some water, but excrete a lot of it out.
Juice might not have caffeine, but it has a lot nutrients! However the juice tends to be so saturated and sugar filled that there is not much water intake when consuming.
Hope this helps!
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