Question

What carbohydrates are in milk?

Answer 1

The major component is lactose, with trace amounts of monosaccharides and oligosaccharides.

LACTOSE

Lactose is a disaccharide of glucose and galactose.

Its structure is:

MONOSACCHARIDES

The monosaccharides in milk are

D-glucose

D-Galactose

N-Acetylglucosamine

L-Fucose

N-Acetylneuraminic acid (sialic acid))

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

Sialyllacto-N-tetraose