25/11/2025
Your body is running a micronutrient-powered energy grid that keeps every cell alive.
Most people think carbs, fats, and protein become energy on their own.
But this diagram shows something far more important:
Without micronutrients, none of your macronutrients can be used at all.
Inside every cell, vitamins and minerals are:
⚙️ Activating enzymes that break down carbs, fats, and amino acids
⚙️ Converting food into acetyl-CoA, the gateway to ATP
⚙️ Driving the Krebs cycle and electron transport chain
⚙️ Recycling lactate back into usable fuel
⚙️ Supporting detox pathways like the urea cycle
⚙️ Protecting mitochondria from oxidative stress so energy stays stable
And all of it is happening continuously. Thousands of reactions per second.
Looking closer at what this single diagram reveals:
🔹 Glucose → Pyruvate → Acetyl-CoA
Every step requires B-vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B5), magnesium, and lipoic acid.
No micronutrients → no carbohydrate metabolism.
🔹 Fatty acids → β-oxidation → Acetyl-CoA
This depends on B2, B3, B5 and carnitine to move fats into mitochondria.
If you’re low here, fat oxidation simply slows.
🔹 Amino acids feed directly into energy pathways
B6, manganese, magnesium, biotin, and iron convert amino acids into Krebs-cycle intermediates and neurotransmitter precursors.
🔹 The Krebs cycle only turns if micronutrients are present
B2, B3, B5, magnesium, manganese, iron, cysteine, glutathione - all essential.
Without them, ATP production drops even with enough calories.
🔹 Electron transport chain = the final step
Requires B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, vitamin C, CoQ10, zinc, iron, copper.
This is where oxygen becomes usable energy - or where it fails if cofactors are missing.
This is why micronutrients influence EVERYTHING:
energy, fatigue, metabolism, mood, focus, exercise capacity, mitochondrial health, aging.
Your macros are fuel.
Your micronutrients are the keys, the wiring, and the ignition system that make that fuel burn cleanly.
You’re not just eating food.
You’re feeding the biochemistry that powers your entire life.