What carbohydrates are in milk?
1 Answer
The major component is lactose, with trace amounts of monosaccharides and oligosaccharides.
LACTOSE
Lactose is a disaccharide of glucose and galactose.
Its structure is:
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MONOSACCHARIDES
The monosaccharides in milk are
D-glucose
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D-Galactose
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N-Acetylglucosamine
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L-Fucose
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N-Acetylneuraminic acid (sialic acid))
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OLIGOSACCHARIDES
An oligosaccharide (Greek oligos, "a few" and sacchar, *sugar") is a saccharide polymer containing three or more monosaccharides.
Human milk contains approximately 200 oligosaccharides containing from 3 to 22 sugars.
Two of the more prominent oligosaccharides are
Lacto-N-tetraose
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Sialyllacto-N-tetraose
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