Facts about carbs

Carbohydrate
Carbohydrates are sugars and starches that are commonly found in plant foods and distributed world wide. Carbohydrate is the cheapest source of energy among macro nutrients.

Types of carbohydrates
There are more than 200 carbohydrates discovered by scientists. Only eight of them have been recognised to be essential to human health. The carbohydrates are basically divided into two groups : simple and complex carbohydrates. The simple carbohydrates are either monosaccharides (one sugar unit) or disaccharides (two sugar units). Examples of monosaccharides are glucose,fructose,galactose and mannose; sucrose,maltose and lactose are examples of dissaccharides.
Complex carbs or polysaccharides are made up of large molecules of units of sugar. Examples of complex carbs are cellulose, glycogen, pectin, gums and lignin.
Glyconutrients are another complex carbohydrates or saccharides that were discovered in nutrition in 1980’s. There are eight sugar units termed Glyconutrients. These eight glyconutrie nts are fructose, galactose, glucose, mannose, n-acetyl galactosamine, n-acetyl glucosamine,n-acetyl-neuraminic acids and xylose. Interestingly enough, breastmilk contains all these glyconutrients.

Food sources of Carbohydrates

1. Whole grain cereals
2. Legumes, nuts and seeds.
3. Tubers
4. Vegetables

Deficiencies of carbohydrates are very rare. However, in some individuals who may totally cut out carbohydrates in the diet because they want to lose weight, such individuals may be deficient in carbohydrates.

Deficiencies of Carbohydrates

Some of the manifestations of carbs deficiencies are: hypoglycemia, convulsion, tremor, fatigue, muscle atrophy, acidosis etc.
Diseases associated with excessive intake of refined carbohydrates are dental caries, type 2 diabetes, hypoglycemia, hyperactivity, cancer of the kidney, prostate and testes cancer, overweight and obesity.

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