Tatyana

Saccharides is the biochemical term for carbs (like lipids are the term for fats).

There are essential amino acids (protein), essential fatty acids, so what is missing from this picture?

The typical response on most BBing/nutrition sites is that carbohydrates serve no other purpose in the body beyond fuel.

I would like to see a discussion on dispelling this BBing myth, and say that within the next ten years something along the lines of essential saccharides will be discovered.

Carbohydrates are far more important in maintaining health and serve more purpose in the body than just fuel.

Discuss.

thestudbeast

How would you explain how the inuits survive then? If this where the case.

Tatyana

So you don't think there are essential carbohydrates and carbs serve no purpose in the body other than food?

The average life-span before the introduction of the Europeans was around 35 years of age as well.


Diet

The Inuit have traditionally been hunters and fishers. They hunted, and still hunt, whales, walruses, caribou, seals, polar bears, muskoxen, birds, and at times other less commonly eaten animals such as foxes. The typical Inuit diet is high in protein and very high in fat - in their traditional diets, Inuit consumed an average of 75% of their daily energy intake from fat.^[9] While it is not possible to cultivate plants for food in the Arctic, gathering those that are naturally available has always been typical. Grasses, tubers, roots, stems, berries, and seaweed were collected and preserved depending on the season and the location (kuanniq or edible seaweed) = saccharides/carbs

<sup>Kuhnlein, Harriet [1991]. "Chapter 4. Descriptions and Uses of Plant Foods by Indigenous Peoples", Traditional Plant Foods of Canadian Indigenous Peoples: Nutrition, Botany and Use (Food and Nutrition in History and Anthropology), 1st edition, Taylor and Francis, pp. 26-29. ISBN 978-2881244650. Retrieved on 2007-11-19.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. "Arctic Wildlife". Retrieved on 2007-11-20. “Not included are the myriad of other species of plants and animals that Inuit use, such as geese, ducks, rabbits, ptarmigan, swans, halibut, clams, mussels, cod, berries and seaweed.”</sup>

Tatyana

I would love to see some thinking outside the box, not just the things that have been posted before defending the Atkins diet.

I do think there are people that have different metabolisms and metabolic profiles so that they will respond better to different macronutrient ratios.

I have concerns that just as the low fat diets have resulted in quite a number of health issues for people (I would say it has contributed to obesity in some cases), similar health issues will arise by eliminating another food group, carbs.

I assert not all carbs are created equally, and that some are essential in the body for optimum health.

redman

Good post.

My most essential carb is rice oligodextrin, It aids in intestinal nutrition uptake and soothes the gut by drawing in fluid.

Its hard to pinpoint any "essentail saccarides" carbohydrate will come from different sources depending on where you live in the world and what preferences you have.

Secondly all carbohydrated will either be converted into glucose for energy or converted and stored as lipids.

Tatyana

Inulin and oligofructose are not converted to glucose, nor is cellulose or chitin.

I also don't think chondroitin or glucosamine is converted to glucose or stored as lipids.

Carbs are more than fuel in the body.

I am just hoping someone will come up with a few of them.

TH&S

Essential saccarides would be fibre...

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D: 220 | B: 140 | S: 210

Tatyana

ABO Blood groups are because of carbohydrates on cell surfaces.

The immune system is based on carbohydrates on cell surfaces.

Immunoglobulins/antibodies are glycoproteins.

Enzymes are glycoproteins.

TH&S

But how does the above impact a diet?

Fat can be converted to glucose, and glucose can be converted to vitamin C and a million and one other things.

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D: 220 | B: 140 | S: 210

Tatyana

??????

Only the glycerol backbone of triacylglyceride can be converted to glucose. The three fatty acids have other fates, even though they can be slotted into Kreb's cycle.

Humans can't make vitamin C. That is why it is a vitamin, we need to get it in food.

I am not saying it necessarily impacts a diet, I am saying it impacts health.

The majority of the plasma proteins are also glycoproteins, with the exception of albumin, CRP, amylase and I think HDL and LDL.

TH&S

Sorry major brain fart there. You are right humans can't make vit c from glucose - thats just how they do it in the factory lol ooooopsy

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D: 220 | B: 140 | S: 210

Tatyana

Brain fart

My point is that just the types of fats we eat have changed dramatically, so have the carbs.

We eat a really limited range of carbs now, and I think it is having an impact on health.

The immune system in particular is very reliant on carbohydrate cell surface markers.

Tatyana

British Journal of Nutrition

doi:10.1017/S0007114508984257

Published online by Cambridge University Press 09 May 2008

Association between dietary saccharide intake and self-reported memory performance in middle-aged adults

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Talitha Besta1 c1, Eva Kempsa1 and Janet Bryana2 a1 School of Psychology, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia a2 School of Psychology, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Abstract

The aims of the present study were to assess dietary intake of saccharides in middle-aged adults, and to determine whether intakes of these sugar nutrients were related to self-reported memory performance. A population-based sample of 1183 men and women (aged 40–60 years) completed questionnaires assessing everyday memory function. Dietary intake status of saccharides was estimated using a self-completed, quantified FFQ. After controlling for demographic and health measures (for example, time spent exercising, smoking and alcohol consumption), saccharide intake was related to better self-reported memory functioning. Thus, longer-term intakes of saccharides through the usual diet may be positively related to perceived memory performance in mid-life.

Tatyana

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Is...accharides.asp

Japanese researchers develop carbohydrate biosensor.

Although not as well known as nucleic acids or proteins, saccharides and their derivatives, such as glycolipids, are important biochemical species that are involved in a range of complex cellular activities, such as protein folding.

Many of the exact functions of these carbohydrates still remain hidden, but this situation may be about to change as a result of work carried out by a team of research chemists from Kyushu University in Japan.

Analysing the cellular expression of saccharides has proved difficult because of their high level of structural diversity. Cellular saccharides have previously been investigated using a family of saccharide-binding proteins known as lectins, but they suffer from a fairly low level of selectivity and therefore can't form the basis of a high-throughput analysis system. The Japanese researchers wondered whether they could improve the saccharide-detecting ability of lectins by turning them into semi-synthetic biosensors.

To test this idea, the researchers attached an artificial receptor known as phenylboronic acid (PBA), which is capable of binding to 1,2- or 1,3-diol derivatives, onto the lectin Concanavalin A (ConA), near its sugar binding site. They then equipped the PBA with a fluorescent transducer motif. In theory, when a saccharide attaches to the ConA binding site one of its diol units will bind with the PBA, causing the biosensor to fluoresce.

In practice, the researchers discovered that the biosensor would only fluoresce in the presence of certain saccharides, depending on the specific interaction between the ConA binding site, the PBA and the saccharide.

By using a variety of artificial receptors and lectins, the researchers argue that it should be possible to create a range of different biosensors that between them would be able to identify all the saccharides in a cell.

Furthermore, other non-recombinant binding proteins, such as antibodies and receptors, could be used as the basis for novel biosensors, suggests Tony Cass, professor of bioanalytical chemistry at Imperial College London, UK. 'Such reagents would have applications in a variety of areas, such as protein microarrays, intracellular monitoring and implanted sensors,' he predicts.

Tatyana