Topic 7- Macronutritents Flashcards
What are 4 chemical groupings are carbohydrates divided up into?
- Monosaccarides
- Disaccarides
- Oligosaccarides
- Polysaccarides
What are monosaccharides and disaccharides general referred to as?
- Sugars
What are oligosaccharides and polysaccharides?
They are composed of longer chains of monosaccharide units bound together by glycosidic bonds. The distinction between the two is based upon the number of monosaccharide units.
Distinction between oligo and polysaccharides?
Oligos typically contain between three and two monosaccharides (e.g. inulin), and polysaccharides contain greater than ten (often hundreds or thousands)
What do polysaccharides represent and what is their function?
They represent an important class of biological polymers and their function in living organisms is usually for structure or storage.
Eg. Starch- a polymer of glucose, is used as a storage polysaccharide in plants, being found in the form of both amylose and the branched amylopectin
Eg. Glycogen- another glucose polymer thats properties allow it to be metabolised more quickly which suits the lives of moving animals
Eg. Cellulose and chitin- these are examples of structural polysaccharides. Cellulose is used in call walls.
Roles that carbohydrates play in living cells?
- Polysaccarides serve for the storage of energy (starch and glycogen) and as structural components (cellulose)
- The 5 carbon monosaccharide robes in asn important component od coenzymes (e.g.. ATP, FAD, NAD) and the backbone of the genetic molecule known as RNA. The retiled deoxyribose in a component of DNA.
- Saccharides and their derivatives play a key roles in the immune system, fertilisation, blood clotting and development etc.
Are carbohydrates an essential nutrient in humans?
No
Can humans metabolise all types of carbohydrates?
No
What is the recommended percentage amount of daily energy intake that should come from carbs?
45-65%
What are complex carbs?
- They are straight or branched chained of monosaccharides
- The polymers formed and polysaccharides
- There are three main types -> glycogen, starch and fibre
What are the three main types of complex carbs?
- Starch
- Glycogen
- Fibre
What is glycogen?
- It a stored form for short term energy in animals (mainly liver)
- It is a branched glucose chain that can be readily hydrolysed
- Not found in plants and is not a significant food source
What is starch?
- Is a plant form of glucose storages
- Important food source for humans
- Found mainly in seed and underground plant roots\
- Two forms: amylose and amylopectin
What are the two formed of starch and which one is the most rapid to digest ?
- Amylose
- Amylopectin -> is the most rapid to digest
What is fibre?
- Is usually called non-starch polysaccharide (NSP)
- Consists of many compounds with different properties
- Main types include: cellulose, hemicellulose, pectine, gums and mucilages
- Most fibre cannot be digested in th human GI tract
- NSPs have varying bond types and monosaccharide units
- Cellulose in the predominant form of fibre in our diet, and consists of straight chains of glucose
- Cellulose in the building material for plans cell walls.
What are the main types of fibre?
Cellulose, hemicellulose, pectin, gums and mucilages
Where is hemicellulose (a type of fibre) found?
- Cereal fibers
Where are pectins many found (a type of fibre)?
- Fruits, vegetables and form gels in water
What are gums and mucilages composed of?
Wide variety of monosacchardies
What are the water soluble and insoluble fibres?
Water soluble:
- Gums
- Pectins
- Mucilages
- Some hemicellulose
Insolubles:
- Cellulose
- Lignin
- Some hemicellulose
Where are soluble fibres found (give examples)?
Found in plan foods including:
- Legumes
- Oats, chia, barley
- Some fruits and juices
- Certain vegetables such as broccoli, carrots and artichokes
- Root tubers and vegetables like potato and onions
- Psyllium seed husk ( a mucilage soluble fiber)
Where and insoluble fibres found?
- Whole grain foods
- Wheat and corn
- nuts and seeds
- Potato skins
- flax and hemp seed
- vegetables such as beans, cauliflowers, zucchini, celery
- Some fruits including avocado and bananas
- The skins in some fruits including kiwi and tomatoes
Fibre compounds with partial or lower fermentability include?
- cellulose and hemicellulose (polysaccharide)
- lignans, a group pf phytoestrogens
- plant waxes
- resistant starch
Fibre compounds with high fermentability include:
- beta-glucans (poly)
- pectins (hetropoly)
- natural gums (poly)
- Inulins (poly)
- Oligosaccharides
- Resistant dextrins
How are di and polysaccharides formed and broken?
- They are formed by condensation and broken down on hydrolysis
How do sugar units go though condensation?
- They join together through an oxygen linkage by the loss of a water molecule
How do carbs go though hydrolysis?
- Linkages between the sugar units are broken apart by the addition of a water molecule
Digestion and absorption of fibre? (soluble, insoluble, all fibre)
Soluble:
- delays stomach emptying and intestinal transit
- lowers blood cholesterol by bonding to bile
- partially fermented by GI tract bacteria to give short chain fatty acids
Insoluble:
- Accelerates intestinal transit
- Increases faecal weight (binding with water)
All fibre:
- Slows starch breakdown, thus delay glucose absorption and lowering glycemic response
How are starches broken down?
- Carbohydrase enzymes are responsible for the breakdown of starches. They are broken into smaller chains and then to individual monosaccharides
Location of action of starch breakdown?
Mouth: salivary enzyme pytalin attacks starch to form oligosaccharides and some disaccharides
- Stomach: low pH so no carbohydrates activity
- SI (duodenum): disaccharides enzymes on the intestinal wall (sucrase, maltase, lactase ect) convert di to mono
- SI (jejunum): absorption of monosaccharides and the active transport into blood stream
How are carbs metabolised?
- digestible carb is converted to glucose and absorbed into the blood stream
- the liver regulates how much glucose is released into the bloodstream to be delivered to cells for energy metabolism
- excess glucose is converted to glycogen in the lover and used as a short term energy store
- liver glycogen is usually 1/3 of our bodies glycogen stores
- muscle cells store glycogen for tenor own use
What is the first stage of glucose metabolism called?
- Glycolysis
Why is glucose the preferred energy source?
- Due to its simple breakdown
What is glycolysis?
- This is the process where cellular enzymes convert glucose into pyruvate units in the cytoplasm of each cell
- A small amount of energy (ATP) is released by the anaerobic process
What is Glycogenesis?
- This is the formation of glucose from non-carb sources
- Amino acids and glycerol )not petty acids) can be converted into glucose
- Which out sufficient dietary carb intake, dietary protein and body protein (from muscles and organs) can be broken down to glucose to keep blood glucose levels constant
- Fat and protein can be used as energy source directly for most cells but not as easily as carbs
- In the brain, glusoce is the preferred energy source
What is lactic acid formation?
- Is when there is limit oxygen available in cels, not all glucose is converted to acetyl-CoA in the mitochondria
- Pyruvate formed from glucose stayed in the cytoplasm and is converted to lactic acid
- Body cells do not have the enzymes required to break down lactic acid, therefore it is transported to the liver via the blood stream where it is reconverted to glucose
- This is called the Cori Cycle
What is the cori cycle?
- Is part of the lactic acid formation where lactic acid in the cells is transported via the blood stream to the liver to be converted back into glucose
How is glucose converted to fat?
- Excess carbs intake can lead to fat formation
- Carbs are the bodies preferred engird source and will be used preferentially in metabolism
- Excess carbs give rise to production of glycerol molecules and acetal CoA
- Fatty acids can be synthesised from the acetal-CoA, then bonded to the glycerol to form triglycerides
What level is glucose kept constant at?
- 3.5-5 mol/L. BGL breaks after meals but is lowered by isulin
How is blood glucose regulated?
- The pancreatic hormone insulin increases muscle cell uptake of glucose and glycogenesis (conversion of glucose to glycogen) and suppresses gluconeogenesis.
- Glucagon, another pancreatic hormone will increase the rate of glycogen breakdown when blood glucose falls
- Glucose regulation is essential for brain function and basal metabolism
What is the glycemic response to food?
- Different foods will give different blood glucose responses (ie. level of glucose in blood postprandialy) based on the type and amount of carbs they contain
What is glycaemoc index?
- This is a mathematical ration method of comparing the glycemic response of different carbs contain foods
What are the GI ranges (e.g. low, med, high) and give a few examples for each?
- Low GI is below 55: Vegetables, grainy breaks, milk, most fruits
- Medium GI is 56-69: whole wheat products, basmati rise, sweet potato and stable sugar
- High GI is 70 and above: Corn flakes, white bread, jasmine rice, corn flakes
What is glycemic load?
- Whereas GI is a ration of a foods blood glucose raising potential compared with pure glucose (always below 100), The GL takes into account the amount of carbohydrate in the food or even a persons hole diet.
GL = GI x Carb content to food serving / 100
What are proteins?
- Biological compounds consisting of one or more polypeptide typically folded into a global or fibrous form which facilitates a biological function
What to proteins consist of?
- Chains of amino acids which are golden in complex structures. Amino acids are comprised of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen
How many primary amino acids are there?
- 20
How many amino acids contain sulphur which is critical to protein structure?
2