Applications and significance of Carbohydrate Metabolism

In food and beverage industry,

Carbohydrates are utilized to further improve food shelf life and taste quality or wide spectrum
of functional attributes including increased sweetness, viscosity, bulk, coating ability, solubility,
consistency, texture, body, and browning capacity
Starches, gums, and pectins are used as thickening agents in making jam, cakes, cookies,
noodles, canned products, imitation cheeses, and a variety of other foods.
Alcohol Production (Righelato 1980)
Anaerobic fermentation of carbohydrates by yeasts and bacteria leads to the production of a range of
alcohols, acids, and esters. Three alcohols, ethanol, isopropanol, and butanol, are currently made
industrially by fermentation.
For drug design (Cipolla,  Araújo, Bini, Gabrielli, Russo, & Shaikh, 2010)
Carbohydrates have been shown to be associated in recognition processes including cell-cell
adhesion, cell-extracellular matrix adhesion and cell-intruder recognition phenomena. And
recognized as differentiation markers and antigenic determinants. Due to their relevant biological
role, this biological molecules are promising candidates for drug design and disease treatment.
However, the growing number of human disorders known as congenital disorders of
glycosylation that are being identified as resulting from abnormalities in glycan structures and
protein glycosylation strongly indicates that a fast development of glycobiology, glycochemistry
and glycomedicine is highly desirable.

Discovery and design of carbohydrate-based therapeutics

Clinical aspects - (Kumar & Sharma, 2017)

Clinical biochemistry is an application part of medical biochemistry that deals with methodology
and interpretations of clinical (chemical) tests carried out for the diagnosis of disease. It has been
reported that carbohydrate metabolism gets disturbed in various diseases. Several carbohydrate
metabolites and substrate have been used for the diagnosis and prognosis of diseases related to
malfunction of carbohydrate metabolism
Dental Aspects (Touger-Decker,  Loveren, 2003; & Navia,1994)
Eating carbohydrates trigger the microorganism to make acid in your mouth. Acid dig into the
protecting enamel layer of your tooth and begins to make a cavity. Once the cavity is made, it’s
uphill to revive the structure of the tooth.
Diet affects the integrity of the teeth; quantity, pH, and composition of the saliva; and plaque pH.
Sugars and other fermentable carbohydrates, after being hydrolyzed by salivary amylase, provide
substrate for the actions of oral bacteria, which in turn lower plaque and salivary pH. The
resultant action is the beginning of tooth demineralization. Consumed sugars are naturally
occurring or are added. Many factors in addition to sugars affect the caries process, including the
form of food or fluid, the duration of exposure, nutrient composition, sequence of eating, salivary
flow, presence of buffers, and oral hygiene. Studies have confirmed the direct relation between
intake of dietary sugars and dental caries across the life span. Since the introduction of fluoride,
the incidence of caries worldwide has decreased, despite increases in sugars consumption. Other
dietary factors (eg, the presence of buffers in dairy products; the use of sugarless chewing gum,
particularly gum containing xylitol; and the consumption of sugars as part of meals rather than
between meals) may reduce the risk of caries. The primary public health measures for reducing
caries risk, from a nutrition perspective, are the consumption of a balanced diet and adherence to
dietary guidelines and the dietary reference intakes; from a dental perspective, the primary public
health measures are the use of topical fluorides and consumption of fluoridated wate
Other Industrial applications (Sudha, Aisverya, Nithya, & Vijayalakshmi, 2014)
Production of pulp from wood cellulose, applications of starch for paper making as well as uses
of glucose and saccharose for fermentation are the most important chemical and technical uses of
carbohydrates.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128002681000081#:~:text=Carbohydrat
e%20polymers%20have%20current%20or,pharmaceuticals%2C%20biodegradables%2C%20and
%20biorefining.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8116556/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14522753/
https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/an-introduction-to-nutrition/s08-07-the-food-industry-
functional-a.html#:~:text=In%20the%20food%20industry%2C%20both,%2C%20body%2C
%20and%20browning%20capacity.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2395494?seq=1
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324313870_Clinical_laboratory_tests_for_carbohydrat
es
https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/an-introduction-to-nutrition/s08-07-the-food-industry-
functional-a.html#:~:text=In%20the%20food%20industry%2C%20both,%2C%20body%2C
%20and%20browning%20capacity.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22827796/