Nutrient chemistry

Content of the subsection

1. Nutrient overview – sacharides
2. Nutrient overview – lipids
3. Nutrient overview – proteins

Nutrient overview - sacharides

Clasification and structure

Sacharides, also called carbohydrates or glycids, are the most abundant organic substances on Earth. Their molecules are made up of oxygen, carbon and hydrogen atoms. From a chemical point of view, these are polyhydroxyaldehydes and polyhydroxyketones. They contain functional aldehyde or keto groups in their molecule, as well as a larger number of hydroxyl groups.

Clasification of carbohydrates

According to the number of units in the molecule, we distinguish:

• monosaccharides – cannot be further hydrolyzed into simpler units;
• oligosaccharides – they form 2–10 units of monosaccharides by hydrolysis;
• polysaccharides – hydrolyzing into more than 10 monosaccharides.

Monosaccharides and oligosaccharides are generally called sugars. A synonym for polysaccharide is the word glycan.

We divide monosaccharides according to:

• Number of C-atoms: trioses, tetroses, pentoses, hexoses.
• Functional groups: aldoses and ketoses.

We divide polysaccharides into:

• Homopolysaccharides: these are polymers made up of the same type of monosaccharide. Examples are starch, glycogen or cellulose.
• Heteropolysaccharides: they are polymers made up of more than one type of monosaccharide. An example is hemicellulose.