Biology: Carbohydrates

When you tutor Biology 12, which is needed for nursing, you need to define sugars and carbohydrates.

Put simply, a carbohydrate is a compound consisting only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.  The ratio between the three is roughly 1:2:1.  “Hydrate” suggests water (H2O): note that in carbohydrates, the same 2:1 ratio exists between hydrogen and oxygen. Sugar, starch, and glycogen are all carbohydrates.

In biology 12, sugars are either monosaccharides or disaccharides.  A monosaccharide is a simple sugar. Technically, it can have three to seven carbon atoms.  However, in Bi-12, we mainly think of glucose (6 carbons), fructose (6 C), galactose (found in milk, 6 C as well), or ribose (5 C).  All are single-ring structures.

A disaccharide is two monosaccharides fused together; hence, it’s a two-ring structure. Sucrose is an example:  it comes from the union of glucose and fructose.  Bond two glucoses together and you get maltose. Lactose is glucose plus galactose.

If you bond many monosaccharides together, you get a polysaccharide.  Three instances of polysaccharides are starch, glycogen, and cellulose.  All are polymers of glucose molecules – meaning that they consist of large numbers of glucose molecules strung together.  (Glucose is the monomer, whereas starch, for example, is the polymer.)  Starch is the molecule that plants use to store glucose; glycogen is what animals use.  In cellulose, the glucose molecules are joined so as to be indigestible; cellulose gives plants their erect, rigid structure.

There’s the “skinny” on carbohydrates:)

Sources:

Inquiry into Life, Eleventh Edition, by Sylvia S. Mader.  McGraw-Hill: 2006.

Biology 12, Module I: Cell Biology I.  Open School BC: 2007.

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC

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