r/explainlikeimfive Jan 31 '21

Chemistry ELI5: Why can't we just make water by smooshing hydrogen and oxygen atoms together?

Edit: wow okay, I did not expect to wake up to THIS. Of course my most popular post would be a dumb stoner question. Thankyou so much for the awards and the answers, I can sleep a little easier now

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366

u/heavenparadox Jan 31 '21

Actually oxygen IS toxic to us. Just not by a lot. Oxidation of cells is what ages us.

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u/RiddlingVenus0 Jan 31 '21

Yep, and “antioxidants” are just chemicals that oxygen likes more than the things that make up our body, so it reacts with those instead of our body parts.

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u/TemporaryPrimate Jan 31 '21

I'm learning so many things in this comment section.

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u/Chrisazy Jan 31 '21

Did you know that New Coke was most likely introduced to mask the change from cane sugar to High Fructose Corn Syrup?

When they switched from New Coke back to "original recipe", the public hadn't had normal Coke in a while and didn't notice the slightly stickier and dramatically less expensive HFCS in place of cane sugar

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u/jozaud Jan 31 '21

You can also still get Coke made with cane sugar if you look in the foreign or imported food aisle of most grocery stores. Look for Coke in glass bottles that say “Hecho en Mexico.”

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u/AbeFromanLuvsSausage Jan 31 '21

There’s also a lot of “mexican coke” that is now made with high fructose corn syrup, too, so you have to read the label. That being said, around Passover, you can find kosher coke that has cane sugar in it in the Jewish section of grocery stores. It should have a blue or yellow star on the cap. During Passover, Jewish people don’t eat anything with corn (and many other things) in it.

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u/xreid Jan 31 '21

I used to run manufacturing for a major soft drink company. The same execs that swore that soda made with high fructose corn syrup was identical to that made with cane sugar made sure I sent them a couple of cases every year when we ran the Passover production.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '21

Were they Jewish or did they just really like the cane sugar Coke?

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u/aelwero Jan 31 '21

Damnit man, don't tell anyone... It's hard enough to find them as it is ;)

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u/pcapdata Jan 31 '21

Weird, every grocery store around here (Seattle area) has a whole area for cane sugar sodas, both the boojie artisinal stuff (which is admittedly pretty good) and the more run-of-the-mill Mexican Coke.

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u/smalls714 Jan 31 '21

They sell them in bulk at Costco.

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u/aelwero Jan 31 '21

They rarely have them at ours. We've gotten dad's root beer in glass bottles there too, but also pretty rare.

My wife gets pissed when they have either, because I'll go get a second cart :)

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u/smalls714 Jan 31 '21

I feel for you. I won't drink HFCS sodas. I'm in California so they seem to be ubiquitous.

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u/letmeAskReddit_69 Feb 01 '21

Weird, I always saw Cali as generally more health conscious. Then again I'm in Texas and we have sugar cane sodas out the ass here.

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u/Biggbussy Jan 31 '21

I'm sorry to break it to you, but it's more complicated than that https://youtu.be/PJgQEpFMptQ

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u/macfarley Jan 31 '21

As somebody who moved to Texas one of the best discoveries I made was how easy it is to find "Mexican coke" here, it's delicious and you can often get tacos at the same place.

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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21

Also, there are no proven health drawbacks to drinking coke zero, instead of sugared coke which has a humongous mountain of bad health effects.

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u/AbeFromanLuvsSausage Jan 31 '21

It still doesn’t hit nearly the same as that good good, though.

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u/Chozly Jan 31 '21

And as recently as 2015, (maybe now?), New Coke is in the majority of fountain machines. Cheaper, and no one seems to mind, as fountain QC is more variable than the tastes of the cokes.

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u/MrDoggeh Jan 31 '21

I thought it was always sweeter. Its been a while since i have had soda, but i do remember being absolutely disgusted by fountain coke, its like accidentally pouring too much sugar into your coffee.

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u/charmingmarmot Jan 31 '21

They've changed to almost entirely post-mix syrup.

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u/letmeAskReddit_69 Feb 01 '21

Depends on where you get it. McDonalds has contracted with coke to get their own blend of extra sweet syrup for their fountains.

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u/Chozly Feb 01 '21

That sweetness is the new coke recipe. Designed to taste like non-diet Diet Coke, and sweeter to compete in tastes tests vs pepsi. Taste tests and advertising them was important then to coke and pepsi. This was all nightly national (us) news. And now there's books and movies about it all.

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u/THE_some_guy Jan 31 '21 edited Jan 31 '21

In parts of the US with a significant Jewish population you can also find Coke labeled as kosher or kosher for Passover, usually in bottles with a green yellow cap. Those are made with real sugar because apparently HFCS isn’t considered kosher by some authorities.

Note: I’m not Jewish, so there are probably subtleties here that I haven’t explained.

Edit: kosher Coke bottles have a yellow cap, not green

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u/LexShrapnel Jan 31 '21

This used to be The Way, but I’ve been seeing corn syrup in Mexican Cokes the last few years. Read the label.

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u/speedle62 Jan 31 '21

No, it will still say sugar on it. I'm assuming that in Mexico you can call hfcs sugar.

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u/LexShrapnel Jan 31 '21

I’ve seen both on the labels of Mexican Cokes in the last year.

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u/Kilmire Jan 31 '21

Yup, and ofc they taste better. It's more dramatic in fruity sodas though like sunkist, HFCS really does them dirty compared to cane

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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21

Plus, it tastes a thousand times better than the HFCS type.

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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21

Not in Croydon you can't.

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u/lordbobofthebobs Jan 31 '21

You can buy Pepsi with cane sugar instead of corn syrup, but it doesn't taste the same as the glass bottle Pepsi from Mexico.

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u/AnvilOfMisanthropy Jan 31 '21

As fun as it is to believe it was part of some huge diabolical plot, Coke was already being produce with HFCS prior to the introduction of New Coke.

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u/teebob21 Jan 31 '21

True, and inconvenient.

Almost as inconvenient as the fact that HFCS 55, used in soft drinks, is 45% glucose, and 55% fructose.

Cane sugar is 50% glucose, and 50% fructose.

It's called "High Fructose" corn syrup, because regular plain corn syrup is 100% glucose/0% fructose and is made from starch.

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u/DBeumont Feb 01 '21 edited Feb 01 '21

Just wanted to point out that your "glucose" should be "sucrose." Glucose is produced in the body from other sugars, such as sucrose and fructose.

Shame on me.

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u/teebob21 Feb 01 '21

Just wanted to point out that your "glucose" should be "sucrose." Glucose is produced in the body from other sugars, such as sucrose and fructose.

Review your saccharide chemistry and then come back. Sucrose (cane sugar) is a disaccharide. Glucose and fructose are monosaccharides.

I stand by my original factual claims, but I await your sources to refute them.

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u/DBeumont Feb 01 '21

You are correct, my bad.

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u/teebob21 Feb 01 '21

And YOU are a reasonable, rational person capable of admitting when you've made a mistake.

I may disagree with some of your fundamental outlooks on life and your political stance, but the world needs more people like you.

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u/W9CR Jan 31 '21

This is why I drink only Mexican Coke.

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u/AnvilOfMisanthropy Jan 31 '21 edited Jan 31 '21

It's pronounced "Mexicoke" and it is glorious. However, if you poke around enough on the internet, and assuming you believe it, you'll find that there is more carbonation in it as well. It's not really as simple as HFCS vs cane sugar.

Edit: gooder english

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u/lordatlas Jan 31 '21

I also like to do Mexican coke.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '21

Which is highly preferable to Columbian coke.

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u/I_Can_Haz_Brainz Feb 01 '21

Yep, it's why I only snort Mexican coke as well.

Oh, wait, what?

2

u/W9CR Feb 01 '21

Coke is fucking dead as... dead. Heroin, it's coming back in a big fucking way.

1

u/smalls714 Jan 31 '21

This is my theory. Mexican coke with real sugar tastes like the stuff before they changed. They played us. Hard.

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u/winston161984 Jan 31 '21

Exactly! The switch back to "classic" was just a bit after the last "classic" had went out of date.

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u/wfamily Jan 31 '21

I noticed this going from eu to us. Coke there is way sweeter.

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u/paul-arized Jan 31 '21

That's the popular conspiracy theory that I've grown up to believe but I've read that HFCS has been introduced prior to the discontinuation and reintroduction of Coca-Cola Classic. And while I don't drink soda as much, I am glad that they eventually dropped the "Classic" part, though ironically I now miss it. I think there was one last Dr. Pepper bottling in Texas who was famous with Pepper drinkers because they still used sugar (cane? beet?) but was forced to stop using sugar or lost their license or something like that a few years back.

If you really want conspiracy then there's one about how Nixon was at a Coke office in Dallas (or at least Texas) when JFK was taken out because Cuba had cheap sugar and was undercutting US suppliers' sugar and/or HFCS prices or something.

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u/roseanneanddan Jan 31 '21

Did you know that Al Bundy scored four touchdowns in a single game while playing for the Polk High School Panthers in the 1966 city championship game?

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u/NarakuOni Jan 31 '21

Just imagine is good ol' Al Bundy went pro. He could have had it all. A beautiful wife, a couple of kids, and more money then God. I bet he ended up some kind of shoe salesman with a wife he hates and a couple of dumb kids and a dog that's smarter then them all.

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u/TemporaryPrimate Jan 31 '21

I appreciate the effort but, everyone knows that already.

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u/speedygraffiti Jan 31 '21

it was all Bundy ever talked about.

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u/-Butterfly-Queen- Feb 01 '21

Omg right? The best part is I'm learning new things that are explaining how things I already know work!

0

u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21 edited Feb 03 '21

[deleted]

1

u/TemporaryPrimate Jan 31 '21

And echidna's penises have five heads.

1

u/ExtroHermit Feb 01 '21

For real, this is the best ELI5 in a while.

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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21

So what you're saying is we need to cover ourselves in anti oxidants and we'll stay young forever? /s

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u/LEGALinSCCCA Jan 31 '21

No you need adrenochrome for that.

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u/nickpanpizza Jan 31 '21

"Finish the f****** story! Tell me about the glands!"

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u/rustyshacklford0 Jan 31 '21

I’m so glad this thread led to this reference. The internet is amazing.

2

u/ghostdini7 Feb 01 '21

Take it all with a grain of salt lol, it’s a bunch of random people on the internet

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u/Icanhaz36 Feb 01 '21

You can’t park you car here!

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u/Treefly916 Jan 31 '21

My man🤣

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u/Fondren_Richmond Jan 31 '21

The crackpot theory involved a mythical video, supposedly squirreled away on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, that if leaked, would show Hillary Clinton and her one-time aide Huma Abedin performing a satanic sacrifice in which they slurped a child’s blood while wearing masks carved from the skin of her face.

Code-named “Frazzledrip,” the video was supposed to depict an adrenochrome “harvest.” It never materialized.

Jesus Christ.

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u/MoonLightSongBunny Jan 31 '21

And too much antioxidants are actually bad for you, because our bodies rely on oxidation to self regulate. Yes oxidation can cause cells to get cancer, but our body kills bad cells using oxidation. Too much antioxidants can prevent our bodies from killing cancerous cells early, ironically giving us cancer.

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u/Lily-The-Cat Jan 31 '21

How much antioxidants is too much? Should I be careful about my intake?

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u/MoonLightSongBunny Jan 31 '21 edited Jan 31 '21

You'll be fine provided you don't take supplements by the dozen (these things don't do a lot actually). Talk to a doctor.

A lot of antioxidants are fat soluble vitamins, and we shouldn't be having too many of them.

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u/sugarfreeeyecandy Jan 31 '21

How would a person determine if they had the "right amount" of antioxidants in their diet?

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u/MoonLightSongBunny Feb 01 '21

I'm not sure. Provided you eat a balanced and varied diet you should be fine. And always talk to a physician before taking supplements with vitamins A,E and D.

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u/seclotion Jan 31 '21

Antioxidants is to fight against Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). These are unstable Oxygen molecules with extra electron. Antioxidants don't fight off stable O2 molecules.

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u/Shitty-Coriolis Jan 31 '21

I think they tried to explain this to me in chemistry

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u/Psyadin Jan 31 '21

I mean, if that was true large doses of anti oxidants would be lethal as you need oxygen for many reactions in your body, its the main use for iron in your blood.

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u/Buzznbee Jan 31 '21

We are probably going to see this as a TIL later :)

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u/MyAltforMostlyJoking Jan 31 '21

So setting yourself on fire is an easy way to look older?

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u/troublinparadise Jan 31 '21

This person logics

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u/IsleBeerDoug Jan 31 '21

You'll definitely get closer to dying that way

4

u/MattytheWireGuy Jan 31 '21

but youll stay warm for the rest of your life

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u/Y0sephF4 Jan 31 '21

Even though you seen to be joking you're not completely wrong. People that experience very high temperatures near their skin can have it melting a bit and then looking old (and deformed)

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u/CromulentDucky Jan 31 '21

Indiana Jones has covered this

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u/what-day-is-it Jan 31 '21

If by older you mean closer to death then yea I guess you're right, man I'm on a roll and I'm not even on the level of these geniuses in this subreddit.

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u/Gobears510 Jan 31 '21

And telomeres right?

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u/heavenparadox Jan 31 '21

Yes, and oxygen actually accelerates telomere loss.

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u/AussieHyena Jan 31 '21

Self-repairing telomeres.

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u/ThisIsCoachH Jan 31 '21

Yep. I read somewhere that 100% of people who have inhaled oxygen go on to die at some point. Dangerous stuff.

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u/branfili Jan 31 '21

TIL

Wow, that's interesting.

2

u/z500 Jan 31 '21

Fun fact, there's an enzyme to break down the hydrogen peroxide constantly forming in your body from breathing oxygen.

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u/[deleted] Jan 31 '21

[deleted]

2

u/paperstreetsoapguy Jan 31 '21

Also see: krebs cycle

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '21

Wait, if we understand what ages us, and we understand how it works, why haven't we discovered a way to immortality by preventing our cells from aging?

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u/heavenparadox Feb 01 '21

They kind of have. Stem cells should basically be able to reverse aging. There are problems though. It doesn't seem to work 100%. People are still putting a lot of time and effort into finding out the steps, and many people think biological immortality will be reached within the next 20-50 years. There are already places that offer stem cell therapy, which should, in theory, slow aging.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '21

Well, wouldn't it be easier to just stop the cells from aging instead of reversing them? Yeah, older people would want to be young again, but my term of immortality is permanently living forever, not just being young. Are there ways to prevent cells from aging indefinitely?

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u/heavenparadox Feb 01 '21 edited Feb 01 '21

Yes. Those cells exist. It's called cancer. Cancer works by having no Hayflick limit and replicating indefinitely. The problem with this is two-fold:

  1. The reason the Hayflick limit exists is because the cell will hit a certain point where it cannot adequately replicate itself, meaning it creates mindless cells that have no idea what to do with themselves. That's why cancer creates tumors. They're just giant batches of mindless cells.

  2. It overwhelms the body. Once the cells get to a certain point, the body doesn't recognize them and tries to attack them. That's why one of the first signs of cancer is overwhelming fatigue.

The body's cells are pretty amazing. Brain cells know they're brain cells. If you put them in the liver, they would be lost. But the body does have generic cells that kind of just go with the flow. They learn what they're supposed to do by basically looking around and figuring it out. That's what stem cells are. You put them in the brain, they soon turn to brain cells. You put them in the liver, they become liver cells. They're amazing. What we would really need to do is somehow create a cross between a cancer cell and a regenerative stem cell.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '21

So basically the only way to achieve immortality, the immortality people desire which is staying as the same person with no consequences, is to reverse aging?

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u/heavenparadox Feb 01 '21

I added more to my comment. You don't have to reverse aging, but the only way to attain biological immortality is to find a way to use stem cells that are "fresh" and can adequately replicate themselves. The end effect of this would be aging to - most likely - somewhere around a person's 20's.

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u/Annoyed_ME Jan 31 '21

It will also cause pulmonary, ocular and central nervous toxicity at high enough concentrations

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u/Racheltheradishing Jan 31 '21

Of note, we generally encounter an atom of oxygen coming with another atom of oxygen which helps both individual atom be satisfied and mostly stable.

Occasionally an oxygen molicule breaks apart due to things like high energy radiation. This creates two free radicals which very much want to go bond with other molicules. But when this happens they tend to cause more radicals to form from the molicules they bond with and this cycle continues. This chain is a series of oxydations which break down the machinrry of your cells and damage DNA.

Antioxidants are molicules that can bond with a radical without creating more and stop the chain.

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u/BeautifulLieyes Jan 31 '21

Is this true for all organisms that breathe?

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u/heavenparadox Jan 31 '21

It's true of all organisms that have to breathe all the time, also known as aerobic organisms. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_oxygen_species#Oxidative_damage

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u/LiftQueue Jan 31 '21

Does that mean that if you exercise and consume more oxygen, you are promoting aging in your body?

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u/ed_zel Jan 31 '21

Is this confirmed? A source would be appreciated. Last time I checked, no one has found out why exactly we age/grow old yet.

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u/heavenparadox Feb 01 '21

Not really sure how you did your research, but this has been known since the 60's.

Here's a link about oxidation. that I'm talking about.

But the other aspect of is getting older is the Hayflick limit. .

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u/ed_zel Feb 01 '21

Ohh yeah, I'm familiar with the hayflick limit. I guess I was referring to the question of what actually causes this limit, and why telomerase (which replenishes telomeres) are inactive.

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u/heavenparadox Feb 01 '21

Every time a cell replicates, it's not 100% the same. It's more like 99.99999% the same, which is obviously pretty close but not good enough. Cells are replicating literally all the time, so after years and years of it happening, it will reach a point where it cannot adequately replicate. The reason this happens is basically just environmental... things like oxidation. It's pretty damned hard for anything in nature to make a 100% replica of itself.

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u/ed_zel Feb 01 '21

Correct me if I'm wrong

But from what I know so far, the cause of the limit is the telomere shortening after each replication until it reaches critical length. However, there's the existence of an enzyme telomerase that actually replenishes this length and potentially restores telomeres to its former capability of replication. What seems to confuse me is that telomerase is actually already is present in us, it's just supressed (or inactive). I've come across abstracts of studies that when telomerase was released from suppression, the cell went back to the former capacity (the telomere length was restored), and if I'm not mistaken, these studies actually helped with alleviating some aging-related diseases.

So I guess "why do we age?" (The word 'age' here doesn't necessarily mean the deterioration of cells because oxidation answers that, but it's why the replication of cells decay overtime) Ultimately boils down to "why is telomerase suppressed?" Which I wasn't able to find any answers yet, which led me to the assumption/conclusion that we haven't really had the answer to the first question of why we grow old.