What are the reasons a body's pH should be regulated?

Answer 1

Enzymes are Biological Catalysts, they speed up spontaneous reactions in nature. They are proteins, and like all proteins like specific environments to work in. If a protein is heated to much it will become Denatured, this mean is is no longer of any use as it has changed shape permanently. If the shape of an enzyme changes the things that it acts on (called the Substrate) will no longer fit into the special site where they attach (called the Active Site) and so no reaction will take plave. However if the envirenment is too cold the enxyme will only wok very slowlly (like any cold reaciot). The temperature at which the enxyme works best is called it Optimum Temperature. The same is true for pH, for most enxymes optimum pH is aroud pH7. The reason pH affects enzymes is because at the wrong concentrations the H+ ions interfere with the inderactions (not bonds) the long protein chain has with itself, again causing is to change shape and thus innactivating it. An interesting enzyme is Pepsin which is used in the stomach where there is a very low pH. This is the real reason the stomach is so acidic as you see pepsins optimum pH is around pH2. In short pH is regulated in the body to keep enzymes within it working as efficiently as possible.

The chemical reactions that take in the body are dependent on the actions of proteins called enzymes. The shape, or conformation, of these proteins change with changes in pH so that they only operate within a fairly narrow pH range. Therefore it is vital that hydrogen ion concentration be tightly regulated.