Biology+Chemistry=?Biochemistry

[Morgan Wacker]

There are a lot more to carbohydrates than you would think. There are many different types of carbs and I don't think a lot of people realize that. There are monosaccharides that includes: glucose, fructose, and galactose. Monosaccharides give you high energy in short bursts, because it breaks down rapidly. Monosaccharides are really your basic single sugars.

There are also disaccharides which include: sucrose, lactose, and maltose. Disaccharides also give you short bursts of high energy because it breaks down rapidly, but not as rapidly as monosaccharides. When you combine two single sugars naturally you get a double sugar, which is what a disaccharide is, it just makes sense. When you perform dehydration synthesis between glucose and fructose (two simple sugars) you create sucrose, also known most commonly as table sugar.

Then there are also polysaccharides that include: amylose (starch), cellulose (fiber), and glycogen. Polysaccharides give you high energy but it gives a steady release of it so that it lasts longer. For most athletes this is idea lbefore a game, meet, or competition, and it stores well. Polysaccharides are made up of polymers, which is a long chain of repeating monomers. A monomer is one of the things that are linked together to create the polymer. For example the monomer for starch is glucose. So there are many of those linked together to make starch.

Cellulose is one polysaccharide that we can't digest because our bodies don't make cellulase which we need to break down the link between the monomers to digest.

Carbohydrates also contain lipids. Lipids are fats, oils, and waxes. Lipids contain the same elements still as other carbohydrates (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen), but the ratio is different. The ratio for lipids are 1:2:very little. There are two types of fatty acids: saturated and unsaturated. Unsaturated fatty acids are polar on one side so that it attracts to water (hydrophilic) and the other side is non-polar so that it repels water (hydrophobic). This is the reason why water won't mix with oil.

Insulin is a type of protein that helps pull out sugar from your blood stream and put it into cells so that it can be used. It helps keep your blood sugar from going up and shutting down all the organs.

That's a lot about carbohydrates and not even all of it. I bet you didn't think that there was this much to it.