Carbohydrates: Digestion and

Absorption
Dietary carbohydrates are present as mono-di-and
polysaccharides and provide the major source of daily
energy requirements.
Dietary carbohydrates consist of mainly plant and
animal starches (glycogen), the disacharides lactose
and a series of mono-saccharides, in particular
glucose and fructose.
• The latest recommendations in items of
healthy eating suggest carbohydrates should
provide more than 50% of our daily energy
requirements.
• The nature of the carbohydrates providing this
should also be in the form of complex
carbohydrates and not as simple sugars (e.g
glucose, fructose, and disaccharides such as
sucrose).
• Monosacchardies arising as constituent of the
diet in themselves or by a process of digestion
of di- and polysacchardies contained in the
diet are glucose, fructose, and galactose.
• Galactose is derived mainly from dairy
product.
• These simple sugars monomers require no
further digestion to be absorbed across the
GIT.
• The increase in blood glucose after a test dose
of a carbohydrate compared with that after an
equivalent amount of glucose is known as the
glycemic index.
• Foods that have a low glycemic index are
considered to be more beneficial since they
cause less fluctuation in insulin secretion.
 Disaccharides
• Disaccharides are acted upon by membranes-
bound disacchridases on the intestinal
mucosal surface.
• Lactose = lactase
• Sucrose = sucrase
• Maltose = maltase
Except lactase, all disaccharidases are
inducible:

The greater the amount of disaccharides

found in the diet or produced by
digestion, the greater is the amount of
that specific disaccharidases produced by
the enterocytes.
The rate-limiting step in absorption of
dietary disaccharides is thus the transport
of resultant monomeric sugars.
• Lactase is a non-inducible brush-border
disaccharidase and therefore the rate-
limiting factor in its absorption is the
hydrolysis of lactose itself and not the
transport of glucose and galactose.
 Polysaccharides
• Starch and glycogen require the additional hydrolytic
capacity of the enzyme amylase found in the
secretion of salivary glands and pancreas.
• Both starch and glycogen contain a mixture of linear
chains of glucose molecules linked by α 1-4 glycosidic
bonds (amylose) and by branched glucose chains
with α 1-6 linkage (amylopectin).
• Glycogen contains more branches than starch.
Hydrolysis of glycosidic bond
• The digestion of polysacchraides is
promoted by endosaccharidases and
amylase produced by the salivary
glands and pancreas.
• This process is carried out within the
gut lumen where amylase is found
unbound to the enterocyte mucosal
membrane.
• Amylase is specific for internal α1-4 glycosidic
bonds and it totally inert towards α1-6
glycosidic linakge.
• In addition amylase does not act on α1-4
bonds of glucosyl residues serving as
branching units.
• The products of amylase action are
disaccharides maltose, the trisaccharides
maltotriose and a branched unit, termed
the α-limit dextrin.
• α – limit dextrin is oligosaccharide with
one or more α1-6 branches and
containing on average eight glycosyl
units.
• The maltose, maltotriose and α-limit dextrin
are then further hydrolyzed by enzymes
bound to the enterocyte mucosal membrane,
the α-glucosidase with the final formation the
monosaccharide glucose.
• α-glucosidase removing single glucose residue
from α1-4 linked oligosaccharides (including
maltose) from the nonreducing end of the
oligmer.
• A sucarase-isomaltase complex ,
secreted as a single polypeptide
precursor molecule and activated to
two separate active polypeptide
enzymes.
• Isomaltase is responsible for the
hydrolytic cleavage of α1-6 glycosidic
bonds.
• The final product of digestion of starches
is glucose but through a complex series
of enzyme reactions.
• The initial digestion involves amylase,
which occurs free in the lumen, whereas
the final processes involve α-
glucosidases and isomaltase, which are
attached to the enterocyte mucosal
membrane.
 Transport of Carbohydrates

• Since the process of digestion

adds to the osmotic load, the gut
lumen water will be pulled from
the vascular compartment to the
gut.
• Increased activity of brush-border
hydrolysis will thus increase the
osmotic load, while increased
monosaccharide transport across the
enterocyte brush-border will
decrease the osmotic load.
• For most oligo- and disacchraidases transport
the resulting monomers is rate-limiting and
thus compensatory mechanisms exist to avoid
pooling of fluid in the gut.
• As monomeric sugar concentrations rises in
the gut lumen increasing osmolality, there is a
compensatory decrease in the activity of
brush-border disaccharidases.
• There is both control of osmotic load and
prevention of fluid shifts.
• Glucose, fructose, and galactose are the
primary monosaccharides resulting from the
digestion of dietary carbohydrates.
• The absorption of these sugars and other
minor monosaccharides is via specific carrier-
mediated mechanism, all of which
demonstrate substrate specificity and
stereospecificty capable of demonstrating
saturation kinetics and can be inhibited
specifically.
 All monosacccharides can across the brush-
border membrane by a simple diffusion
process, although this is extremely slow.
 At least two carrier-mediated transport
mechanisms for monosacchrides:
1) Na- dependent co-transporter and
2) Na- independent transporter.
 At brush-border membrane both glucose and
galactose are transported by the Na
dependent glucose transporter.
• This membrane-linked protein binds with
glucose (galactose) and Na at separate
sites and transporters both into cytosol.
• The sodium is thus transported down its
concentration gradient carrying glucose a
long against its concentration gradient.
• This transporter mechanism is linked
to Na-dependent ATPase, which
removes Na from the cell in
exchange for K+ ,with the
concomitant hydrolysis of ATP.
• The transport of glucose (galactose)
is thus an indirect active process.
• Fructose is transported across involving
another specific membrane by a Na-
independent facilitated diffusion process
involving another specific membrane-
associated protein, possibly glucose
transporter (GLUT-5), which is present on the
luminal side of the enterocyte and GLUT2
present on the antiluminal side.