Why the way in which cells convert food into energy is so widespread?

It is known to all that the way in which cells convert food into energy is so common among all living things. It puzzled scientists for a long time. Now scientists have discovered a likely reason why the way is shared so widely.
Researchers digested simple sugars such as glucose in a series of chemical reaction to examine how cells make energy from food. The process is almost the same for every kind of cell, including animals, plants and bacteria.
Their news study shows that this process is the most effective way to extract energy. Cells that have more energy can grow and renew faster, giving them and the organism to which they belong an evolutionary advantage.
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh built some complex models to better understand why cells develop the pathways they use to convert sugar into energy. They compared the models in animals and plants with alternative mechanisms that might have evolved instead. They conducted a detailed search for all possible alternatives to the established biological mechanisms known to have existed for billions of years. The results show that the metabolic systems have evolved because they enable cells to produce more energy, compared with alternative pathways.
The key mechanisms that underpin metabolism are found in almost all plants and animals and control the productivity of life on Earth. Although we understand little of how the mechanisms came about, this study shows that our metabolic pathway is a highly developed solution to the problem of how to extract energy from our food, According to Dr Bartomiej Waclaw from the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy who took part in the study published in Nature Communications.
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