How do sugars differ from polysaccherides?
Answers:
Polysaccharides ARE complex sugars. The "poly" prefix means that it's made up of many monosaccharides.
Polysaccharides ARE sugars, but there are different forms of sugars:
Monosaccharides are simple sugars, with multiple hydroxyl groups. Based on the number of carbons (e.g., 3, 4, 5, or 6) a monosaccharide is a triose, tetrose, pentose, or hexose, etc.
Disaccharides - two monosaccharides covalently linked
Oligosaccharides - a few monosaccharides covalently linked.
Polysaccharides - polymers consisting of chains of monosaccharide or disaccharide units.
Polysaccharides are long chains of sugar molecules, either one type or more. Starch consists of lots of glucose molecules.
The basic sugar is called a monosaccharide, just one molecule. Glucose is one and fructose another.
Sucrose is a disaccharide - two sugar molecules.
sugars like glucose and fructose are called monosaccharides. when two of these join together, a disaccharide is made, eg 2 lots of glucose make maltose.
when many monosaccharides join together, it makes a polysaccharide. starch and cellulose are examples. they are made up of glucose.
A polysaccharide is basically lots of sugar units joined together by a glycosidic bond (poly means many). Polysaccharides are complex sugars, such as starch and glycogen. (If you are doing an essay these are worth looking up), you have probably heard them callled simply carbohydrates. What is commonly termed 'sugar' is sucrose which is a disacchride, two sugar molecules joined together, sucrose is actually made up of a molecule of sucrose and a molecule of glucose.
Polysachharides are generally used for storage of sugar molecules within your body whereas monosaccharides and disaccharides are metabolised very quickly.
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