What is metabolism? Biochemist explains how people convert energy differently and why that matters for your health

If you’ve spent any time scrolling through the health and wellness corners of social media, you’ve likely come across many products claiming to improve your metabolism. Everything you expose your body to – from lifestyle to an airborne virus – influences your physical characteristics, such as your blood pressure and energy levels. Elite athletes define the upper limits Given the alarming rise in obesity and its associated metabolic syndrome – about 1 in 8 people across the globe was living with obesity in 2022 – defining a healthy or impaired metabolism can help identify what’s gone wrong and how to address it. Because blood donors undergo screening to ensure they are healthy enough to donate, they are typically moderately healthy, somewhere between acute illness and elite athletic performance. We found specific traits that could predict how well a donor’s blood would work in patients, which also has implications for how well that blood works in the donors themselves.