The human diet contains three main macronutrients; carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Carbohydrates are your body's preferred energy source and they are grouped under two main types; complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates. Many people view complex carbohydrates as the healthier, slower digesting of the two but do not know much else about them. That is why in this article I am going to be discussing complex carbohydrates in a little more detail.
The name complex carbohydrate actually has little to do with the nutritional value that they provide or the speed at which they digest. In fact some complex carbohydrates can be digested as quickly as simple carbohydrates. Instead it simply refers to the chemical structure of the carbohydrate. Simple carbohydrates are made of one or two sugars whereas complex carbohydrates are made from three or more. There are two main types of complex carbohydrate and I will be discussing both of these below:
1) OLIGOSACCHARIDES:- Oligosaccharides are constructed from a small number of monosaccharides (single sugar units) with the number usually being between three and ten. This is reflected in the name 'oligo' which means few. The human body cannot break down oligosaccharides effectively with 90% passing through the small intestine undigested. However, they do support the growth of various bacteria in the large intestine. These bacteria allow your body to make a variety of short chain fatty acids and also help it absorb certain minerals.
2) POLYSACCHARIDES:- Polysaccharides are constructed from larger numbers of monosaccharides and disaccharides (two chemically linked sugar units). This is reflected in the name 'poly' which means more than one. There are multiple types of polysaccharide with the four main ones being; Cellulose (an indigestible type of carbohydrate that is better known as dietary fibre and found in the cell walls of plants), Dextrin (which is produced when long chains of starch are broken down into shorter chains), Glycogen (which is the stored form of carbohydrate in humans) and Starch (which can be further broken down into rapidly digesting starch, slow digesting starch and resistant starch).
I hope this article has given you a greater insight into complex carbohydrates. Whilst the general belief that complex carbohydrates are healthy, slow digesting choices is true there are some exceptions to this rule. For example, rapidly digesting starch digests at least as quickly as many simple carbohydrates. Therefore, when choosing your carbohydrates you should be looking at the speed of digestions - not whether they are simple or complex.
Author Resource:-
Tom Parker owns and operates a number of useful fitness resources and websites. You can learn more about the main carbohydrates and get a free fitness tip delivered to your email inbox every day for a full year by visiting his websites.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.massagebyben.com/articles/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites 