[Sca-cooks] Left=hand sugar

[Randy Goldberg MD]

> > That being said, we are probably talking about sucrose made with L
sugars.
> > Common table sugar, or sucrose, is composed of two linked simple sugars,
> > hence the term "disaccharide". Sucrose is composed of one glucose and
one
> > fructose. Two glucose molecules linked together form maltose, and so on.
>
> Does this relate to why sucrose if metabolized more rapidly in the body
> than glucose or fructose? Something I just read, touching on athletic
> nutrition.

I'm not convinced this is actually correct. I think it's a misunderstanding
by a poorly-trained sports nutritionist that has been propagated through the
field. Sucrose begins its digestion much earlier - because it's broken down
into glucose and fructose in the gut; the smaller sugars are then absorbed
into the blood and eventually into the cells where they're used. Pure
glucose gets absorbed unchanged. Since sucrose is "processed" in the gut,
that's misunderstood as "metabolism". In fact, breaking the glucose-fructose
bond USES chemical energy.

> You might know, then, the answer I've been wondering about for months.
> When glucose converts to glycogen, does it give off an actual water
> molecule, or just two H and an O?

Hydrogen and oxygen are both powerful attractors of electrons; that's why
they never appear naturally as single atoms, only paired (H2 and O2). The
enzymatic process that forms glycogen (and starch, protein, RNA and DNA, for
that matter) pulls an OH off one molecule, an H off the other, and combines
them to form a water molecule. The reverse process uses up a water molecule.
Note that different enzymes are needed to make each of these polymers - it's
just that the mechanisms are all similar.

Avraham