indrani

I am having trouble understanding why and when the mitochondria generate ATP. I am trying to explain it without using technical terms such as chemiosmosis etc. Here is what I understood - please correct me if I am wrong. Also, for each point (in bold), I have a few questions. Mitochondria breaks glucose into ATP. Does this happen as soon as we eat? What about the rest of the time when the food has been digested? Does the glucose come from breakdown of glycogen, or is that only for the muscles? Is ATP ever made from scratch? Mitochondria breaks 1 glucose molecule in a series of steps during cell respiration. The by-products (NADH, FADH) form a total of 38 ATP. If these NADH and FADHs can form 2/3 molecules of ATP and are supposed to be high energy carriers, why are they not used as energy currency? How does an NADH/FADH molecule form ATP? Mitochondria sense a ratio of 10:1 ATP:ADP in the cytosol. The imbalance of this ratio (due to ATP being used by other molecules) stimulates the mitochondria to take some of the ADP and convert it into ATP. If ATP is continuously recycled from ADP, why is glucose is broken into ATP? If ATP is recyclable, why is glucose needed? Why doesn't the mitochondria just recycle the used ADP Is the breakdown of glucose what stimulates the production of ATP - so as soon as there is an imbalance in the ratio, glucose will be broken down to generate new ATP molecule? Is that how it works? If we get 38 ATP every time glucose undergoes breakdown, does the amount of ATP in a cell increase over time? Is there a durability of ATP - like it can only be recycled so many times? Or can one ATP molecule be recycled forever? Glucose is a big energy carrier, ATP carries the energy in small pockets. I read somewhere that glucose is like a 10 dollar bill, ATP is like change. You need the change for things like parking meter and washing machines.. but you can't carry around 10 dollars in change all the time. So you store it until you break that 10 dollars for the change. Is this true? How does glucose store energy? It's breakdown stimulates energy production. But its not like the glucose molecule itself has any energy, right? Does every cell store glucose? As glycogen? or is it only muscle and liver cells? Can every cell breakdown glycogen to glucose? Or is it only muscle or liver cells? I know I've asked a lot of questions, maybe even redundant ones. But I have been searching for answers to these questions for weeks in journals and books. I'm probably not finding the right articles or understanding what I'm reading. Could you please help me understand? Answers to any question would be highly appreciated. Thanks!!