Enzymes and their role in the human body
Enzymes catalyse reactions inside the human body. Find out more about how they work and discover a quick experiment with yeast to try yourself.
Lots of chemical reactions take place in the human body and help to keep us alive. Most of them would normally be so slow at body temperature that it would be difficult to detect they were happening at all. Increasing the temperature of these reactions just isn’t possible – we can’t keep our bodies hot!
Fortunately, heating up a reaction is not the only way to make it go faster – another option is to provide an alternative route for the reaction so it needs less energy. Read on to find out how enzymes help to speed up reactions in the human body, and see enzymes at work using a simple experiment with yeast and hydrogen peroxide.
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