Page 161 - The Miracle of Hormones

cell, with all its organelles that act in per-
fect harmony and order within it, has
A amazing characteristics. Professors at the
Swedish Karolinska Institute said that the organization
of a cell can be compared to that of a big city such as
New York. 51
When we investigate proteins, which are the
building blocks of a cell, we discover some important
facts: Every cell contains over a billion or so protein
molecules consisting of thousands of different kinds. 52
In order to get an idea of this huge sum, imagine this
example: at the rate of one per second, in order to count
a billion proteins, it would take 32 years of continuous
and accurate counting. If you take into account your
unavoidable need to eat and sleep, your life would
probably not be long enough to count the proteins in a
single one of your cells. There are about seven billion
people in the world, and each person has about 100
trillion cells in his body. Therefore, the number of pro-
tein molecules that exist in the world is too great for
us to count. Moreover, these proteins are constantly
being renewed in every individual; about once every
month they disintegrate into the amino acids of
which they are composed and are again resynthe-
53
sized according to the needs of the cells. They are
reconstituted as a result of the complex operations
described by the term "protein synthesis." Some of
them are composed as enzymes and are present
in nearly every stage of all the complex reactions
in the cell; some of them form messenger hor-
mones; some assume special duties in the organ-
ization of vital functions, such as carrying