Beta-oxidation
MCAT glossary · Biological & Biochemical Foundations of Living Systems
Definition
The mitochondrial pathway breaking down fatty acids into acetyl-CoA, generating NADH and FADH_2 in each cycle.
Beta-oxidation in plain English
Your body stores extra energy as fat, and beta-oxidation is how it dismantles that fat to get the energy back. It happens inside the mitochondria (the cell's power plants), where a long fatty acid chain is chopped two carbons at a time, like snipping a licorice rope into bite-sized pieces. Each snip releases a unit called acetyl-CoA (which feeds the main energy-making cycle) plus two electron-carrying molecules, NADH and FADH_2, that get 'cashed in' later to make lots of ATP, the cell's usable energy. This is exactly why fat is such a rich fuel and why burning it powers you through long, low-intensity effort.
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