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That's the definition of a carbohydrate. Simple carbohydrates are those that are digested and absorbed quickly, best represented by sugars themselves. Complex carbohydrates include starches. While ...
Carbohydrate metabolism is the series of biochemical processes responsible for the formation, breakdown and interconversion of carbohydrates in living organisms. The most important carbohydrate is glucose, a simple sugar (monosaccharide) that is metabolized by nearly all known organisms.
Even though these complex polysaccharides are not very digestible, they provide important dietary elements for humans. Called dietary fiber , these carbohydrates enhance digestion. The main action of dietary fiber is to change the nature of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract and how other nutrients and chemicals are absorbed.
Carbohydrate metabolism is the whole of the biochemical processes responsible for the metabolic formation, breakdown, and interconversion of carbohydrates in living organisms. Carbohydrates are central to many essential metabolic pathways . [ 1 ]
Polysaccharides are polymerized monosaccharides, or complex carbohydrates. They have multiple simple sugars. Examples are starch, cellulose, and glycogen. They are generally large and often have a complex branched connectivity.
Lectins, or proteins that bind carbohydrates, can recognize specific oligosaccharides and provide useful information for cell recognition based on oligosaccharide binding. [ citation needed ] An important example of oligosaccharide cell recognition is the role of glycolipids in determining blood types .
An alternative definition is the entirety of carbohydrates in a cell. The glycome may in fact be one of the most complex entities in nature . " Glycomics , analogous to genomics and proteomics , is the systematic study of all glycan structures of a given cell type or organism" and is a subset of glycobiology .
Like monosaccharides, disaccharides are simple sugars soluble in water. Three common examples are sucrose, lactose, and maltose. Disaccharides are one of the four chemical groupings of carbohydrates (monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides).