# Hydrophobic

Category: Theories & Frameworks

Insoluble in water, a nonpolar oil-like molecule that repels water.

6 passages · 1 author · 2012–2025 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/hydrophobic

## Synthesis

**Hydrophobicity** is a physical-chemical property that Ray Peat identified as a fundamental, dynamic characteristic of the living cell, varying directly with its *energy level* and degree of excitation. [Source 1] Peat argued that the cell's hydrophobic state is not a static structural feature but a reflection of its **redox potential**, with the two properties seen to vary together and influence each other even in non-living systems. [Source 1] In the relaxed, high-energy resting state, a network of hydrophobic interactions extends through the cell, and the cell water is less hydrophilic. [Source 4] This resting state is associated with potassium ions, whose interaction with water is so weak it has been called *negative hydration*, allowing water to form stable structures in the presence of hydrophobic surfaces. [Source 4]

The shift from a hydrophobic to a hydrophilic state is a hallmark of cellular excitation and fatigue. During stimulation, potassium is exchanged for sodium and calcium, which are smaller atoms with a higher surface charge concentration that powerfully disrupt the delicate hydrophobic structures of intracellular water. [Source 4] Peat described this process as the cell water becoming "wetter," with the increased movement of charged particles destroying water's structure and allowing bulk dielectric water to enter cells, causing swelling and separation of structural elements. [Source 4] The presence of **free fatty acids**, which are soap-like molecules, spontaneously introduces "wetness" into the relatively water-resistant cell substance, impairing the last oxidative stage of respiration. [Source 1] This shift is so fundamental that the oxidized form of cytochrome c is more hydrophobic and stable, while its reduced form is prone to being released from the mitochondrion to trigger apoptotic cell death. [Source 1]

Peat's view of hydrophobicity was central to his critique of the lipid bilayer membrane theory. He noted that the forces between fat molecules that allow them to form hydrophobic bonds are *actually so weak that they should hardly be called bonds* at normal temperatures, as fatty surfaces seem to seek each other out only because water molecules bind so powerfully to each other that they force out anything that doesn't bind to them. [Source 3] He argued that a lipid bilayer has no more strength than the rainbow that forms on a puddle of water from a microscopic film of oil, making it structurally incapable of explaining the cell's cohesiveness. [Source 3] Instead, Peat described the cell boundary as a phase boundary where an electric double-layer forms, and he emphasized that the balance within proteins between hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups determines the proportion of surface area in contact with bulk solvent water. [Source 3, 5]

The concept extends to the organism's interaction with environmental materials. Peat noted that **plastics** are generally very hydrophobic, and that carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons concentrate on the surface of plastic particles, delivering a concentrated dose of organic carcinogens when ingested. [Source 2] Extremely small nanoparticles can pass through cells and, being foreign to the structure of the cytoplasm, make the cell leaky, causing ATP to leak out and be recognized as a danger signal. [Source 2] The temperature-dependent nature of hydrophobicity also explains biological adaptation: organisms living at low temperatures require more unsaturated, flexible fats to maintain function, while those in warm climates, like coconuts and Amazonian fish, produce highly saturated fats that remain appropriately structured at higher temperatures. [Source 6]

## People also ask

### How does a cell's energy level affect its hydrophobicity?

Peat argued that a cell's hydrophobicity varies directly with its energy level and redox potential, so a relaxed, high-energy resting state extends a network of hydrophobic interactions throughout the cell, making its water less hydrophilic.

### What happens to cell water during excitation or fatigue?

During stimulation, potassium is exchanged for sodium and calcium, which disrupt hydrophobic intracellular water structures, making the cell water "wetter" and allowing bulk dielectric water to enter, causing swelling and structural separation.

### Why did Peat reject the lipid bilayer membrane theory?

Peat argued that the hydrophobic forces between fat molecules are too weak to form a structural membrane, comparing a lipid bilayer's strength to a rainbow on an oily puddle, and instead described the cell boundary as an electric double-layer phase boundary.

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- [Association-Induction Hypothesis (Gilbert Ling)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/association-induction-hypothesis-gilbert-ling/index.md)
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## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml

> Cancer researchers have become interested in this enzyme system that controls the oxidation of pyruvic acid (and thus sugar) by the mitochondria, since these enzymes are crucially defective in cancer cells (and also in diabetes). The chemical DCA, dichloroacetate, is effective against a variety of cancers, and it acts by reactivating the enzymes that oxidize pyruvic acid. Thyroid hormone, insulin, and fructose also activate these enzymes. These are the enzymes that are inactivated by excessive exposure to fatty acids, and that are involved in the progressive replacement of sugar oxidation by fat oxidation, during stress and aging, and in degenerative diseases; for example, a process that inactivates the energy-producing pyruvate dehydrogenase in Alzheimer's disease has been identified (Ishiguro, 1998). Niacinamide, by lowering free fatty acids and regulating the redox system, supporting sugar oxidation, is useful in the whole spectrum of metabolic degenerative diseases.
>
> A few times in the last 80 years, people (starting with Nasonov) have recognized that the hydrophobicity of a cell changes with its degree of excitation, and with its energy level. Recently, even in non-living physical-chemical systems, hydrophobicity and redox potential have been seen to vary together and to influence each other. Recent work shows how the oxidation of fatty acids contributes to the dissolution of mitochondria (Macchioni, et al., 2010). At first glance it might seem odd that the presence of fatty material could reduce the "fat loving" (lipophilic, equivalent to hydrophobic) property of a cell, but the fat used as fuel is in the form of fatty acids, which are soap-like, and spontaneously introduce "wetness" into the relatively water-resistant cell substance. The presence of fatty acids, impairing the last oxidative stage of respiration, increases the tendency of the mitochondrion to release its cytochrome c into the cell in a reduced form, leading to the apoptotic death of the cell. The oxidized form of the cytochrome is more hydrophobic, and stable.

### Source 2 — Ask the Herb Doctor: Pollution

Ray Peat · Interview · May 17, 2019

> ## Plastics and Microplastics
>
> **Andrew Murray:** We recognize how ubiquitous plastic is. The North Pacific Gyre is a floating island of debris. A dive to the Mariana Trench found plastic debris at the bottom. How do these microplastics disrupt the endocrine system?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Plastics are generally very hydrophobic. Things like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—famous carcinogens—concentrate on the surface of the particles. When ingested, they deliver a concentrated dose of these organic carcinogens. Smaller particles are toxic in a directly structural way. Extremely small nanoparticles pass right through the cells in the circulatory system and are taken up by cells all through the body. Even though they are small, compared to proteins inside the cells, they are relatively huge and foreign to the structure of the cytoplasm. They are necessarily disruptive. One reaction is to make the cell leaky. ATP itself leaks out when cells are structurally irritated by these particles. The ATP is recognized as a danger signal by the environment, creating a storm of cells losing their energy and creating excitement in their environment.

### Source 3 — Energy Structure and Carbon Dioxide A Realistic View of the Organism

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2013

> Considering the great effort required to produce a membrane image of the right size in the right location, they are willing to overlook the fact that the fat-loving stain hasn't quite found its way to the single band of fat between the acidic layers which their theory describes. Gilbert Ling described the boundary at the cell surface as a phase bouundary, of the sort that exists where two different materials meet, for example at an oil-water interface. When the two substances have different electrical-chemical properties, the forces between the phases move electrons and/or molecules near the surface into what is called an electric doublelayer. Since stains have their own electrical and chemical properties, the stain molecules would be affected by the fields that produce an electric double-layer. Osmic acid would be expected to stain certain protein groups, including sulfhydryls and amines, which could be exposed in such an area of strong fields. (Brain tissue that is deprived of oxygen stains diffusely with these membrane stains, suggesting that proteins are changing shape sufficiently to expose groups of this sort.) The forces between fat molecules, that allow them to form hydrophobic bonds, are actually so weak that they should hardly be called bonds, at least at normal temperatures. Fatty surfaces seem to seek each other out in a watery environment because water molecules bind so powerfully to each other that they tend to force out anything that doesn't bind to them. So, if we even consider the association between fat molecules as a bond, it is the weakest bond that exists between any biological molecules. When a cell is attached to a surface, it can be torn to bits in trying to move it, without breaking its attachment to the surface. Obviously, it isn't attached to the surface by its lipid bilayer membrane. The strength of a lipid bilayer would be limited by the extremely weak affinity of fat for fat; if you step on a sticky floor wearing tissue-paper slippers, your foot won't be ripped from your leg. A lipid bilayer has no more strength than the rainbow that forms on a puddle of water when a microscopic film of oil spreads over its surface. And the rainbow on the puddle is something that really exists.
>
> Even though a cell's substance can flow, it has a cohesiveness that can greatly exceed that of ordinary watery solutions.

### Source 4 — Fatigue, Aging, and Recuperation

Ray Peat · Article · 2013

> As the particles returned to their relatively isolated state, there was a decrease of order, and the change was probably somewhat like the spontaneous energy change in the stimulated crustacean nerve. I assume the change would result from the absorption of environmental heat, possibly with infrared resonance with electron conduction bands.
>
> Seeing the structure of the cytoplasm as something like a spring-driven mechanism, able to bounce between two states or phases, makes it easier to see cellular fatigue as something different from the various metabolic energy sources, ATP, glycogen, and oxygen, which—contrary to conventional assumptions—aren't closely tied to the functional losses occurring in fatigue.
>
> The role of metabolism, then, becomes analogous to the role of the tapper in the early forms of the coherer.
>
> Water in its normal state is a dielectric. But when it is polarized by an electrical charge, or by the presence of a phase boundary, its normal state is altered. This is the special interfacial water, or vicinal water. With the movement of ions (mainly potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium) during excitation, the state of the cellular water is necessarily changed by the presence of different substances. In the excited state, cell water is less hydrophobic, more hydrophilic than in the relaxed state. A network of hydrophobic interactions extends through the relaxed cell. One of the properties of a dielectric is that it tends to move into the space between charges, with a force similar in principle to that involved in dielectrophoresis.
>
> In the resting state, potassium is the main inorganic ion, and it is associated with acidic groups, such as aspartic and glutamic acid. During excitation, potassium is partly exchanged for sodium, which becomes the preferred counter-ion for the acid groups, and calcium enters the cell along with the sodium. Potassium's interaction with water is very weak (its hydration has been called negative), allowing water to form the structures that are stable in the presence of hydrophobic surfaces. Sodium and especially calcium (smaller atoms, with higher surface charge concentration) powerfully interact with water molecules, more strongly than water interacts with itself, disrupting the delicate somewhat hydrophobic structures of the intracellular water.
>
> (Calcium, with its two charges, has important binding and stabilizing functions in the resting cell. In the excited cell, these internal calcium ions are released, while extracellular calcium ions enter the cell.)

### Source 5 — Energy Structure and Carbon Dioxide A Realistic View of the Organism

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2013

> This water is now dissolved in the protein, in the sense that the properties of the protein are relatively dominant. (Bungenberg de Jong's studies of complex coacervates are still the best introduction to this subject.)
>
> The modern practice of biochemists has been to extract soluble substances from cells, and to study them in dilute watery solutions, and then to believe that the things they observe in the test tube are the real properties of cells, of the dilute solutions enclosed in a lipid membrane. If I hadn't had the experience of talking to dozens of biochemists who believed that no other kind of biochemistry was conceivable, I would find it hard to imagine that something like this could exist in a culture that defines itself as scientific. Small particles have a large surface area in proportion to their mass. The balance, within the proteins, between hydrophilic and hydrophobic groups, will determine the proportion of surface area in contact with the bulk solvent water, relative to the mass of the microsphere droplet. More hydrophilic proteins will form smaller droplets, and at a certain point of hydrophilicity, will no longer form droplets. The temperature, by altering the structure of the water, interacts with the hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity of the protein. Structures are generated as complex physical equilibria are achieved.
>
> In our own cells, the microtubules, which are a part of the cell framework involved in cell division and movement, are dissolved at low temperatures, and are reformed when the temperature is raised. Some enzymes have this same temperature sensitivity. Since the water which is dissolved in the proteins of the cell is largely dominated by the proteins, its actions on microtubules and enzymes and other proteins will reflect both temperature and the influences of proteins and a variety of dissolved substances. Estrogen, for example, promotes the formation of microtubules, at a given temperature, as if it had made the water wetter, or warmer.
>
> When cells are stimulated, they adapt, with substance flowing into complexification until an approximate, appropriate equilibrium is reached. Stimulation is a need, and an opportunity, for adaptation and differentiation. If there is a need for adaptation, without the necessary substance and energy, the cell or organism will either deteriorate or withdraw. Polyunsaturated fats with inappropriate structure interfere with these adaptive flows of energy and substance in all of the known systems of cellular response.

### Source 6 — Ray Peat Full Interview: Cholesterol, PUFA, Coconut Oil, Thyroid, and the Metabolic Truth

Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 12, 2025 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQB95tLW7eE

> **Josh Rubin:** So just for the listeners, you brought up unsaturated fats. Can you just elaborate maybe the difference between the saturated and unsaturated fats for the listeners? Because a lot of people don't really know the difference between those.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, it refers to the chain of carbon atoms in the fatty acid. In one case, they have all of the hydrogen atoms attached to them that's possible. So they're saturated with hydrogen. And if some of the carbon atoms lack the hydrogen, they just have their electron bonds more exposed to the environment. And the absence of the hydrogen makes them more flexible instead of being sort of like a bottle brush bristling with the hydrogen. surrounding the chain of carbons. It's more like a necklace of beads, flexible, where the hydrogens are missing. The bonds can rotate more freely. You get two or three or four or five of those double bonds and the chain is bent at each place there's a double bond and at the single bonds the molecules rotate freely so you can get very flexible shapes when you have the purely or highly unsaturated molecules and that flexibility you can see When you put a bottle of oil in the refrigerator, coconut oil is hard when it's just a little cool, just below room temperature or even at room temperature. But olive oil has to be much cooler before it starts solidifying. That's because it's relatively saturated. And canola and corn oil... have to be extremely cold before they'll solidify. And that's biologically important. One of its meanings is that if the organism lives at 40 degrees Fahrenheit, for example, and it contained butterfat or olive oil, fats would be solid and wouldn't be manageable. For example, if an animal contains 30% fat and it all hardened, its subcutaneous fat would become stiff, just the way a steak, when it's in the refrigerator, the fat is stiff. When it's In very warm conditions, it becomes soft and flexible. So in the tropics, even fish in the Amazon River, for example, have fat as saturated as butter fat. And if you grow soybeans or corn in a very warm climate, their fat is saturated according to the temperature.

_Generated 2026-07-20 from the Bioenergetic Oracle corpus._