Reducing sugar

Reducing disaccharides like lactose and maltose have only one of their two anomeric carbons involved in the glycosidic bond, while the other is free and can convert to an open-chain form with an aldehyde group.

Also, the levels of reducing sugars in wine, juice, and sugarcane are indicative of the quality of these food products.

This type of isomerization is catalyzed by the base present in solutions which test for the presence of reducing sugars.

[6] However, sucrose and trehalose, in which the anomeric carbon atoms of the two units are linked together, are nonreducing disaccharides since neither of the rings is capable of opening.

The percentage of reducing sugars present in these starch derivatives is called dextrose equivalent (DE).

Glycogen is a highly branched polymer of glucose that serves as the main form of carbohydrate storage in animals.

When glycogen is broken down to be used as an energy source, glucose units are removed one at a time from the nonreducing ends by enzymes.

Reducing sugars can also be detected with the addition of Tollen's reagent, which consist of silver ions (Ag+) in aqueous ammonia.

After hydrolysis and neutralization of the acid, the product may be a reducing sugar that gives normal reactions with the test solutions.

This then enables the right amount of insulin to be injected to bring blood glucose levels back into the normal range.

[10] One example of a toxic product of the Maillard reaction is acrylamide, a neurotoxin and possible carcinogen that is formed from free asparagine and reducing sugars when cooking starchy foods at high temperatures (above 120 °C).

[11] However, evidence from epidemiological studies suggest that dietary acrylamide is unlikely to raise the risk of people developing cancer.