Life Health Sciences – Science Rules it All

Carbohydrates are a group of compounds that contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. They are also called as sugars. They may be simple carbohydrates like glucose, fructose, galactose, ribose, deoxyribose etc. in the simple carbohydrates only one sugar molecule is present. There are complex carbohydrates sucrose (cane sugar), lactose (milk sugar) glycogen (animal starch), starch, cellulose etc. They have more than one sugar (2 to several hundreds) molecule in them. Complex carbohydrates are broken down to simple sugars by hydrolyses in digestive system and the simple sugars are absorbed. Sugar like lactose and sucrose are hydrolyzed by lactase and sucrase in the digestive system. Starch is abundant in grains such as rice, wheat and in tubers such as potato. It forms the bulk of our food. Amylase in the digestive system hydrolyzes starch in to the glucose.