Lactose is a disaccharide found in milk. It consists of a molecule of D-galactose and a molecule of D-glucose bonded by beta-1-4 glycosidic linkage. It has a formula of C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁.

A carbohydrate is an organic compound that consists only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, usually with a hydrogen:oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 (as in water); in other words, with the empirical formula C_m(H₂O)_n. (Some exceptions exist; for example, deoxyribose, a component of DNA, has the empirical formula C₅H₁₀O₄.) Carbohydrates are not technically hydrates of carbon. Structurally it is more accurate to view them as polyhydroxy aldehydes and ketones.

The term is most common in biochemistry, where it is a synonym of saccharide. The carbohydrates (saccharides) are divided into four chemical groupings: monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides, and polysaccharides. In general, the monosaccharides and disaccharides, which are smaller (lower molecular weight) carbohydrates, are commonly referred to as sugars.^[1] The word saccharide comes from the Greek word σάκχαρον (sákkharon), meaning "sugar". While the scientific nomenclature of carbohydrates is complex, the names of the monosaccharides and disaccharides very often end in the suffix -ose. For example, blood sugar is the monosaccharide glucose, table sugar is the disaccharide sucrose, and milk sugar is the disaccharide lactose (see illustration).

Carbohydrates perform numerous roles in living organisms. Polysaccharides serve for the storage of energy (e.g., starch and glycogen), and as structural components (e.g., cellulose in plants and chitin in arthropods). The 5-carbon monosaccharide ribose is an important component of coenzymes (e.g., ATP, FAD, and NAD) and the backbone of the genetic molecule known as RNA. The related deoxyribose is a component of DNA. Saccharides and their derivatives include many other important biomolecules that play key roles in the immune system, fertilization, preventing pathogenesis, blood clotting, and development.^[2]

In food science and in many informal contexts, the term carbohydrate often means any food that is particularly rich in the complex carbohydrate starch (such as cereals, bread, and pasta) or simple carbohydrates, such as sugar (found in candy, jams, and desserts).

Structure[link]

Formerly the name "carbohydrate" was used in chemistry for any compound with the formula C_m (H₂O) _n. Following this definition, some chemists considered formaldehyde (CH₂O) to be the simplest carbohydrate,^[3] while others claimed that title for glycolaldehyde.^[4] Today the term is generally understood in the biochemistry sense, which excludes compounds with only one or two carbons.

Natural saccharides are generally built of simple carbohydrates called monosaccharides with general formula (CH₂O)_n where n is three or more. A typical monosaccharide has the structure H-(CHOH)_x(C=O)-(CHOH)_y-H, that is, an aldehyde or ketone with many hydroxyl groups added, usually one on each carbon atom that is not part of the aldehyde or ketone functional group. Examples of monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, and glyceraldehydes. However, some biological substances commonly called "monosaccharides" do not conform to this formula (e.g., uronic acids and deoxy-sugars such as fucose), and there are many chemicals that do conform to this formula but are not considered to be monosaccharides (e.g., formaldehyde CH₂O and inositol (CH₂O)₆).^[5]

The open-chain form of a monosaccharide often coexists with a closed ring form where the aldehyde/ketone carbonyl group carbon (C=O) and hydroxyl group (-OH) react forming a hemiacetal with a new C-O-C bridge.

Monosaccharides can be linked together into what are called polysaccharides (or oligosaccharides) in a large variety of ways. Many carbohydrates contain one or more modified monosaccharide units that have had one or more groups replaced or removed. For example, deoxyribose, a component of DNA, is a modified version of ribose; chitin is composed of repeating units of N-acetyl glucosamine, a nitrogen-containing form of glucose.

Monosaccharides[link]

D-glucose is an aldohexose with the formula (C·H₂O)₆. The red atoms highlight the aldehyde group, and the blue atoms highlight the asymmetric center furthest from the aldehyde; because this -OH is on the right of the Fischer projection, this is a D sugar.

Monosaccharides are the simplest carbohydrates in that they cannot be hydrolyzed to smaller carbohydrates. They are aldehydes or ketones with two or more hydroxyl groups. The general chemical formula of an unmodified monosaccharide is (C•H₂O) _n, literally a "carbon hydrate." Monosaccharides are important fuel molecules as well as building blocks for nucleic acids. The smallest monosaccharides, for which n = 3, are dihydroxyacetone and D- and L-glyceraldehydes.

Classification of monosaccharides[link]

Monosaccharides are classified according to three different characteristics: the placement of its carbonyl group, the number of carbon atoms it contains, and its chiral handedness. If the carbonyl group is an aldehyde, the monosaccharide is an aldose; if the carbonyl group is a ketone, the monosaccharide is a ketose. Monosaccharides with three carbon atoms are called trioses, those with four are called tetroses, five are called pentoses, six are hexoses, and so on.^[6] These two systems of classification are often combined. For example, glucose is an aldohexose (a six-carbon aldehyde), ribose is an aldopentose (a five-carbon aldehyde), and fructose is a ketohexose (a six-carbon ketone).

Each carbon atom bearing a hydroxyl group (-OH), with the exception of the first and last carbons, are asymmetric, making them stereo centers with two possible configurations each (R or S). Because of this asymmetry, a number of isomers may exist for any given monosaccharide formula. The aldohexose D-glucose, for example, has the formula (C·H₂O) ₆, of which all but two of its six carbons atoms are stereogenic, making D-glucose one of 2⁴ = 16 possible stereoisomers. In the case of glyceraldehydes, an aldotriose, there is one pair of possible stereoisomers, which are enantiomers and epimers. 1, 3-dihydroxyacetone, the ketose corresponding to the aldose glyceraldehydes, is a symmetric molecule with no stereo centers). The assignment of D or L is made according to the orientation of the asymmetric carbon furthest from the carbonyl group: in a standard Fischer projection if the hydroxyl group is on the right the molecule is a D sugar, otherwise it is an L sugar. The "D-" and "L-" prefixes should not be confused with "d-" or "l-", which indicate the direction that the sugar rotates plane polarized light. This usage of "d-" and "l-" is no longer followed in carbohydrate chemistry.^[7]

Ring-straight chain isomerism[link]

Glucose can exist in both a straight-chain and ring form.

The aldehyde or ketone group of a straight-chain monosaccharide will react reversibly with a hydroxyl group on a different carbon atom to form a hemiacetal or hemiketal, forming a heterocyclic ring with an oxygen bridge between two carbon atoms. Rings with five and six atoms are called furanose and pyranose forms, respectively, and exist in equilibrium with the straight-chain form.^[8]

During the conversion from straight-chain form to the cyclic form, the carbon atom containing the carbonyl oxygen, called the anomeric carbon, becomes a stereogenic center with two possible configurations: The oxygen atom may take a position either above or below the plane of the ring. The resulting possible pair of stereoisomers is called anomers. In the α anomer, the -OH substituent on the anomeric carbon rests on the opposite side (trans) of the ring from the CH₂OH side branch. The alternative form, in which the CH₂OH substituent and the anomeric hydroxyl are on the same side (cis) of the plane of the ring, is called the β anomer.

Use in living organisms[link]

Monosaccharides are the major source of fuel for metabolism, being used both as an energy source (glucose being the most important in nature) and in biosynthesis. When monosaccharides are not immediately needed by many cells they are often converted to more space-efficient forms, often polysaccharides. In many animals, including humans, this storage form is glycogen, especially in liver and muscle cells. In plants, starch is used for the same purpose.

Disaccharides[link]

Sucrose, also known as table sugar, is a common disaccharide. It is composed of two monosaccharides: D-glucose (left) and D-fructose (right).

Two joined monosaccharides are called a disaccharide and these are the simplest polysaccharides. Examples include sucrose and lactose. They are composed of two monosaccharide units bound together by a covalent bond known as a glycosidic linkage formed via a dehydration reaction, resulting in the loss of a hydrogen atom from one monosaccharide and a hydroxyl group from the other. The formula of unmodified disaccharides is C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁. Although there are numerous kinds of disaccharides, a handful of disaccharides are particularly notable.

Sucrose, pictured to the right, is the most abundant disaccharide, and the main form in which carbohydrates are transported in plants. It is composed of one D-glucose molecule and one D-fructose molecule. The systematic name for sucrose, O-α-D-glucopyranosyl-(1→2)-D-fructofuranoside, indicates four things:

• Its monosaccharides: glucose and fructose
• Their ring types: glucose is a pyranose, and fructose is a furanose
• How they are linked together: the oxygen on carbon number 1 (C1) of α-D-glucose is linked to the C2 of D-fructose.
• The -oside suffix indicates that the anomeric carbon of both monosaccharides participates in the glycosidic bond.

Lactose, a disaccharide composed of one D-galactose molecule and one D-glucose molecule, occurs naturally in mammalian milk. The systematic name for lactose is O-β-D-galactopyranosyl-(1→4)-D-glucopyranose. Other notable disaccharides include maltose (two D-glucoses linked α-1,4) and cellulobiose (two D-glucoses linked β-1,4). disaccharides can be classified into two types.They are reducing and non-reducing disaccahrides if the functional group is present in bonding with another sugar unit it is called a reducing disaccharide or biose.

Nutrition[link]

Grain products: rich sources of carbohydrates

Foods high in carbohydrate include fruits, sweets, soft drinks, breads, pastas, beans, potatoes, bran, rice, and cereals. Carbohydrates are a common source of energy in living organisms; however, no carbohydrate is an essential nutrient in humans.^[9]

Carbohydrates are not necessary building blocks of other molecules, and the body can obtain all its energy from protein and fats.^[10][11] The brain and neurons generally cannot burn fat for energy, but use glucose or ketones. Humans can synthesize some glucose (in a set of processes known as gluconeogenesis) from specific amino acids, from the glycerol backbone in triglycerides and in some cases from fatty acids. Carbohydrate and protein contain 4 kilocalories per gram, while fats contain 9 kilocalories per gram. In the case of protein, this is somewhat misleading as only some amino acids are usable for fuel.

Organisms typically cannot metabolize all types of carbohydrate to yield energy. Glucose is a nearly universal and accessible source of calories. Many organisms also have the ability to metabolize other monosaccharides and Disaccharides, though glucose is preferred. In Escherichia coli, for example, the lac operon will express enzymes for the digestion of lactose when it is present, but if both lactose and glucose are present the lac operon is repressed, resulting in the glucose being used first (see: Diauxie). Polysaccharides are also common sources of energy. Many organisms can easily break down starches into glucose, however, most organisms cannot metabolize cellulose or other polysaccharides like chitin and arabinoxylans. These carbohydrates types can be metabolized by some bacteria and protists. Ruminants and termites, for example, use microorganisms to process cellulose. Even though these complex carbohydrates are not very digestible, they may comprise important dietary elements for humans. Called dietary fiber, these carbohydrates enhance digestion among other benefits.^[12]

Based on the effects on risk of heart disease and obesity,^[13] the Institute of Medicine recommends that American and Canadian adults get between 45–65% of dietary energy from carbohydrates.^[14] The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization jointly recommend that national dietary guidelines set a goal of 55–75% of total energy from carbohydrates, but only 10% directly from sugars (their term for simple carbohydrates).^[15]

Classification[link]

Historically nutritionists have classified carbohydrates as either simple or complex. However, the exact delineation of these categories is ambiguous. Today, simple carbohydrate typically refers to monosaccharides and disaccharides and complex carbohydrate means polysaccharides (and oligosaccharides). However, the term complex carbohydrate was first used in slightly different context in the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs publication Dietary Goals for the United States (1977). In this work, complex carbohydrate were defined as "fruit, vegetables and whole-grains".^[16] Some nutritionists use complex carbohydrate to refer to any sort of digestible saccharide present in a whole food, where fiber, vitamins and minerals are also found (as opposed to processed carbohydrates, which provide calories but few other nutrients).

Some simple carbohydrates (e.g. fructose) are digested very slowly, while some complex carbohydrates (starches), especially if processed, raise blood sugar rapidly. The speed of digestion is determined by a variety of factors including which other nutrients are consumed with the carbohydrate, how the food is prepared, individual differences in metabolism, and the chemistry of the carbohydrate.

The USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 call for moderate- to high-carbohydrate consumption from a balanced diet that includes six one-ounce servings of grain foods each day, half from whole grain sources, leaving the other half for enriched.^[17]

The glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load concepts have been developed to characterize food behavior during human digestion. They rank carbohydrate-rich foods based on the rapidity and magnitude of their effect on blood glucose levels. Glycemic index is a measure of how quickly food glucose is absorbed, while glycemic load is a measure of the total absorbable glucose in foods. The insulin index is a similar, more recent classification method that ranks foods based on their effects on blood insulin levels, which are caused by glucose (or starch) and some amino acids in food.

Metabolism[link]

This section requires expansion.

Catabolism[link]

Catabolism is the metabolic reaction in which cells undergo to extract energy. There are two major metabolic pathways of monosaccharide catabolism: glycolysis and the citric acid cycle.

In glycolysis, oligo/polysaccharides are cleaved first to smaller monosaccharides by enzymes called glycoside hydrolases. The monosaccharide units can then enter into monosaccharide catabolism. In some cases, as with humans, not all carbohydrate types are usable as the digestive and metabolic enzymes necessary are not present.

Carbohydrate chemistry[link]

Carbohydrate chemistry is a large and economically important branch of organic chemistry. Some of the main organic reactions that involve carbohydrates are:

• Carbohydrate acetalisation
• Cyanohydrin reaction
• Lobry-de Bruyn-van Ekenstein transformation
• Amadori rearrangement
• Nef reaction
• Wohl degradation
• Koenigs–Knorr reaction

See also[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Carbohydrates

• Carbohydrates, including interactive models and animations (Requires MDL Chime)
• IUPAC-IUBMB Joint Commission on Biochemical Nomenclature (JCBN): Carbohydrate Nomenclature
• Carbohydrates detailed
• Complex And Simple Carbohydrates Explanation of the differences
• Carbohydrates and Glycosylation - The Virtual Library of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
• Functional Glycomics Gateway, a collaboration between the Consortium for Functional Glycomics and Nature Publishing Group
• Wine Carbohydrates

Gary Taubes (born April 30, 1956) is an American science writer.

He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), titled The Diet Delusion (2008) in the UK and Australia.^[1] His book Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It was released in December 2010. In December 2010 Taubes launched his own blog at GaryTaubes.com to promote the book's release and to respond to critics.

Biography[link]

Born in Rochester, New York, Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard University and aerospace engineering at Stanford University (MS, 1978). After receiving a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982.^[2] Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.

Taubes's books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989.

His brother, Clifford Henry Taubes, is the William Petschek Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University.^[3]

Dietary science[link]

Gary Taubes on Bookbits radio.

Taubes gained prominence in the low-carb diet debate following the publication of his 2002 New York Times Magazine piece "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?". The article, which questioned the efficacy and health benefits of low-fat diets, was seen as defending the Atkins diet against the medical establishment, and it became extremely controversial. Taubes himself stated: "[E]ven though I knew the article would be the most controversial article the Times Magazine ran all year, [the reaction] still shocked me."^[4] The Center for Science in the Public Interest published a rebuttal to the Times article in its November 2002 newsletter.^[5] According to Taubes: "[T]he CSPI is an advocacy group that has been pushing low-fat diets since the 1970s."^[6]

In 2007, Taubes published his book Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease (published as The Diet Delusion in the UK). This book examined how a hypothesis became dogma and claimed to show how the scientific method was circumvented so a contestable hypothesis could remain unchallenged. The book uses data and studies compiled from dietary research from as early as the 19th century.^[7][8]

Taubes's hypothesis is that the medical community and the federal government of the United States of America have relied upon misinterpreted scientific data on nutrition to build the prevailing paradigm about what constitutes healthful eating. Taubes makes the case that — contrary to the conventional wisdom — it is refined carbohydrates that are responsible for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and many other maladies of civilization. In the Epilogue to Good Calories, Bad Calories on page 454, Taubes notes ten "inescapable" conclusions, the first of which is:^[9]

Taubes includes information and studies which indicate that physical exercise increases appetite to a degree that makes it an inefficient tool in weight loss. He tracks the origins of commonly accepted dietary advice and aims to show that information that is filtered to the public often contradicts scientific evidence. On October 19, 2007 Taubes appeared on Larry King Live to discuss his book. Although Taubes has no formal training in nutrition or medicine, his book was praised as "raising interesting and valuable points" by Andrew Weil, a proponent of alternative medicine, while Mehmet Oz and trainer Jillian Michaels who appeared on the same program disagreed with Taubes on many questions.^[10]

The reviews for Good Calories, Bad Calories have varied. George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana notes in his review that the book "...has much useful information and is well worth reading." but "Obese people clearly eat more than do lean ones."^[11] Taubes, in a letter to the editor in the same journal, clarifies some of the comments made by Bray. Taubes notes, "The hypothesis favored by Bray and a half century of authorities on human obesity is that fat accumulation is fundamentally caused by positive energy balance." Taubes responds, "The alternative hypothesis begins with the fundamental observation that obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation and then asks the obvious question, what regulates fat accumulation. This was elucidated by 1965 and has never been controversial. 'Insulin is the principle regulator of fat metabolism'..."^[12]

John Tierney in his New York Times review entitled "Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus", discusses information cascades and the role of Ancel Keys in widely held beliefs related to diet and fat. Tierney quotes Taubes in noting that "the most rigorous meta-analysis of the clinical trials of low-fat diets, published in 2001 by the Cochrane Collaboration, concluded that they had no significant effect on mortality."^[13]

Awards[link]

Taubes has won the Science in Society Journalism Award of the National Association of Science Writers three times and was awarded an MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship for 1996-97.^[4] He is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation independent investigator in health policy.^[14]

See also[link]

• William Banting

References[link]

Publications[link]

• Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit and the Ultimate Experiment. Random House. 1986. ISBN 978-0-394-54503-5. 
• Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion. Random House. 1993. ISBN 978-0-394-58456-0. 
• Epidemiology Faces Its Limits, Science, July 1995.
• Nobel Gas, Slate, October 11, 1997.
• The Soft Science of Dietary Fat, Science, March 2001.
• What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?, New York Times Magazine, July 7, 2002.
• Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?, New York Times, September 17, 2007.
• Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. Knopf. 2007. ISBN 978-1-4000-4078-0.  (Also published as The Diet Delusion ISBN 978-0-09-189141-1)
• Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It. 2010. 
• Is Sugar Toxic?. The New York Times, April 13, 2011.

External links[link]

• (Link is dead) Webcast of Lecture by Gary Taubes at University of California, Berkeley -- "The Quality of Calories: What Makes Us Fat and Why Nobody Seems to Care"
• Webcast of Lecture by Gary Taubes at Stevens Institute of Technology, Center for Science Writings, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2/6/2008 -- "Big Fat Lies"
• Article by Gary Taubes questioning the efficacy of exercise in weight loss -- "We Can't Work It Out"
• Excerpt from Good Calories, Bad Calories and NPR interview -- "Not All Calories Are Created Equal, Author Says".
• Interview with Gary Taubes by Knight Fellowships at MIT
• Interview with Gary Taubes by John Horgan (Stevens Center for Science Writing, Cross-check): "Science Saturday: Why We Get Fat"
• Interview with Gary Taubes by Aaron McCloud, Seattle, 2012, and the Interview Transcript