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September 3, 2024

Is There Electricity in the Human Body? (Yes, and It’s Crucial for Life)

We’re all familiar with the blistering, potentially heart-stopping dangers of electricity exposure. So, when you hear that natural electricity is surging through your body right now, your response might be a bewildered, “Huh?”

Well, OK … technically speaking, this natural electrical current in the human body is not the electricity that comes from a battery or the kind that powers the dishwasher.

Instead, your body runs on a very different version: ‘bioelectricity’. But let’s start from the beginning.

What is electricity?

The simple definition of electricity is the flow of charge. Electrical charge comes in 2 main types:

Positive (+): Examples of positively charged particles include protons and cations (positively charged ions)
Negative (-): Examples of negatively charged particles include electrons and anions (negatively charged ions)

Bioelectricity vs. electricity that turns on the lights

What distinguishes the electricity you know and the type coursing through your body is the type of charged particles responsible for creating the “current”.

The former involves the flow of electrons.

Whereas, in your body, it’s the movement of mostly positively charged ions or positively charged Nutrions™ (e.g., your electrolytes, like potassium, sodium, and calcium ions) that creates the signals that travel within your brain and between it and every organ in your body via the nervous system, enabling:

Perception
Motion
Cognition

*A quick note: wondering why we refer to ions as Nutrions™?

Well, it’s got to do with the origins of our company’s name, Nutrionics™, which you could check out here — but, in the meantime, here’s the short of it. Nutrions™ are ionically charged nutrients that support optimal human health by ensuring optimal bioavailability and enabling bioelectricity.

Electric current in the human body

electricity in the human body electric current

To expand on that, let’s dive a little deeper into the inner workings of your nervous system. The nervous system has 2 main parts:

Central nervous system (CNS): Made up of the brain and spinal cord
Peripheral nervous system (PNS): Made up of nerves that branch off from the spinal cord and extend to all parts of the body

The basic unit of the nervous system is a neuron or nerve cell.

A neuron has a cell body and special extensions called axons and dendrites. These allow neurons to “talk” to each other and work together to control body functions, emotions, thinking, behavior, and other activities.

Different types of neurons control or perform different functions. For example:

Motor neurons: Transit messages from the brain to the muscles to generate movement
Sensory neurons: Detect light, sound, odor, taste, pressure, and heat — then send messages about those things to the brain
Involuntary processes neurons: These control involuntary processes, such as keeping a regular heartbeat, regulating the digestive system, and opening the pupil in response to light

“Um,” you may be wondering, “So where does the electricity bit come into play?”

Answer: it’s what enables neurons to communicate, even across long distances. Here’s what you need to know.

How a neuron transmits information

When a neuron is at rest (i.e., not sending an electrical signal), the inside of the cell is, on average, around 70 millivolts (-70 mv) more negatively charged than the extracellular fluid outside.

How does it keep it that way?

Neurons are surrounded by a semi-permeable membrane; this means it allows some ions to pass through while blocking the passage of other ions. At rest:

Potassium ions ( K⁺) can cross the membrane into the cell easily

Chloride ions ( Cl^-) and sodium ions ( Na⁺), on the other hand, have a more difficult time crossing the membrane into the cell

Negatively charged protein molecules (A^-) cannot cross the membrane to leave the cell

In addition to those selective ion channels, there is a sodium-potassium pump that uses energy to move 3 Na⁺ ions out of the neuron for every 2 K⁺ ions it puts in

As a result, in neurons, K⁺ ions and A^-molecules are typically found at a higher concentration within the cell than outside, whereas Na⁺ and Cl^- ions are usually found at higher concentrations outside the cell. This maintains the resting membrane potential of a neuron (average: -70 mV).

Within a single neuron

This changes when a neuron receives a stimulus or, more simply put, a “message” from the brain or another neuron.

This “message” causes sodium channels within the neuron’s membrane to open.

Because there are many more Na⁺ ions on the outside, and the inside of the neuron is negative relative to the outside, Na⁺ ions rush into the neuron.

Since Na⁺ ions have a positive charge, their entrance makes the neuron more positive. If a threshold potential is reached (about -55 mV), an action potential, an “all-or-nothing” phenomenon, is initiated.

More voltage-gated sodium ion channels open, making the neuron even more positive. This happens until the neuron reaches an approximate potential of +30 mV.

And at that point, 2 things occur:

Voltage-gated sodium channels close ( Na⁺ ions can no longer rush into the neuron)
Voltage-gated potassium channels open ( K⁺ ions rush out of the neuron since the neuron is now positively charged; like charges repel)

Gradually, the ion concentration returns to resting levels, and the cell achieves its resting potential (-70 mV) once again.

Such action potentials or “messages” are propagated along the axons of neurons via local currents. Local currents induce depolarization (i.e., making the region more positive) of the adjacent axonal membrane.

Where this reaches a threshold, further action potentials are generated. Note: the areas of the membrane that have recently depolarized will not depolarize again due to the refractory period.

This means that the action potential will only travel in 1 direction.

Now, remember the definition of electricity? It’s the flow of charge. And all those ions we’ve discussed are charged and “flowing” across the membrane. So, can you understand why the human body is described as “electric”?

Right, OK, that’s how neurons transmit messages within a single neuron. But what about the neuron-to-neuron exchange?

Neuron-to-neuron exchange

As mentioned earlier, a neuron transmits the “message” within itself by sending an electrical signal down the length of its axon.

To propagate this “message” to another neuron, the electrical signal changes to a chemical signal at the end of the axon. More specifically, the axon releases the chemical signal with chemical messengers called neurotransmitters into the synapse — the space between the end of an axon and the tip of a dendrite from another neuron.

The neurotransmitters move the signal through the synapse to the neighboring dendrite, which converts the chemical signal back into an electrical signal.

This electrical signal travels through this second neuron and goes through the same conversion processes as it moves to neighboring neurons.

Neurons are not the only cells that use electricity to function

Non-nervous-system cells use bioelectric signaling, too, for waste disposal and energy management.

Perhaps more interestingly, it’s been recently discovered that electrical signals also send out “beacons” as we grow in the womb to serve as a “blueprint” that guides us into the eventual shape we will take — 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 ears, and a nose.

Imagine if your body had insufficient or no ions

To quote Timothy J. Jorgensen, a professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, “Life is nothing if not electrical”.

And what powers your body’s natural electricity, which, in turn, controls your every movement, perception, and thought? Ions. Or Nutrions™. So, imagine if you didn’t have the optimal levels of ions needed in your body.

You’d be like a flat battery.

Hopefully, you now realize the importance of Nutrions™ and bioelectricity for optimal health and well-being.

If you’d like to supplement your body’s levels of magnesium ions (FYI, approximately 50% of Americans consume less than the recommended amount of magnesium from food), check out our Nutrionic™ H₂ Energizer tablets.

A single serving provides:

80 mg of freely available Mg²⁺ ions (from the reaction of magnesium malate and your stomach acid)

Up to 10 ppm of molecular hydrogen (learn about the health benefits of hydrogen water here)

… in a single cup of water.

Note: magnesium ions aren’t the only Nutrions™ your body needs.

That’s why we’re currently hard at work, “R&D-ing” future ionic mineral and electrolyte products that’ll provide your body with just the right ratios and amounts of Nutrions™ it needs to unlock its full health potential. We hope you’re excited … because we definitely are.