Nutrient chemistry
From WikiLectures
Content of the subsection
- Nutrient overview – sacharides
- Nutrient overview – lipids
- 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: