Fall Mini 02 - The biochemistry of sugar?

Let's hear more about sugar from the perspective of a biochemist!

Show Notes

#116

Let's hear more about sugar from the perspective of biochemist, Caibe Alves.

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What is Chemistry For Your Life?

A podcast that helps you understand the fascinating chemistry hidden in your everyday life.

Have you ever wondered why onions make you cry? Or how soap gets your hands clean? What really is margarine, or why do trees change colors in the fall? Melissa is a chemist, and to answer these questions she started a podcast, called Chemistry for your life!

In each episode Melissa explains the chemistry behind one of life’s mysteries to Jam, who is definitely not a chemist, but she explains it in a way that is easy to understand, and totally fascinating.

If you’re someone who loves learning new things, or who wonders about the way the world works, then give us a listen.

Melissa: 00:09

Hey. I'm Melissa.

Jam: 00:10

I'm Jam.

Melissa: 00:11

And I'm a chemist.

Jam: 00:13

And I'm not.

Melissa: 00:13

And welcome to chemistry for your life.

Jam: 00:15

The podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life. Mini edition.

Melissa: 00:22

You're being mini in your voice. Okay. So I'm really excited about today's mini episode.

Jam: 00:27

Sweet.

Melissa: 00:28

This episode is all around an email from a listener who's also a scientist.

Jam: 00:34

Nice.

Melissa: 00:35

He is a graduate student. His name is Kaiba.

Jam: 00:38

Okay.

Melissa: 00:38

I think I said that right. One time, I made him send us an Instagram voice memo.

Jam: 00:42

Oh, yeah.

Melissa: 00:43

And I practiced saying his name over and over to get it right. Yeah. Yeah. I think is how you say it. Mhmm.

Melissa: 00:49

So he's a a biochemist. I think he studies specifically maybe some neuroscience. Mhmm. He told us once in a Previous q and r, but he emailed after the sugar episode. And I was really excited because I wanted the perspective of someone who is more in the biology realm, and he gave us that.

Jam: 01:07

Okay.

Melissa: 01:08

So first off, he said he was really excited because this type of episode is much needed in our current days of Food Hate. Mhmm. Because he says we have many enzymes that convert sugar to different sugars Mhmm. Depending on the need. And sugar is Absolutely essential to our organs, not only for energy.

Melissa: 01:26

We use sugars with proteins, with lipids, and with many essential cellular pathways. He said people should stop this hate for sugar. Proteins in excess also end up becoming fat in our bodies, which I thought was really funny. Yeah. So not only is sugar essential for energy, which is what I knew Mhmm.

Melissa: 01:47

But also it's used in a lot of other ways.

Jam: 01:49

Interesting.

Melissa: 01:50

So I thought that was really helpful. Yeah. And then I define sugars, you know, usually, it's a 6 membered ring or a 5 membered ring with some alcohol groups. Mhmm. And he said biochemically, that's similar.

Melissa: 02:02

The simple sugars are the they are called polyhydroxyl aldehydes or ketones. So what that means if we're breaking this down would be many o h or alcohol groups Mhmm. On A carbon chain as well as an aldehyde or ketone functional group.

Jam: 02:21

K.

Melissa: 02:21

And that can be from 3 to 7 carbons.

Jam: 02:25

K.

Melissa: 02:26

Most of them have the chemical formula CH2 o. K. And that's repeated as many times as is appropriate for however many carbons there are.

Jam: 02:37

Okay.

Melissa: 02:38

But not all sugar does. Some of them have 5 carbons and 4 oxygens. But usually, It's carbon hide carbon, 2 hydrogens, and an oxygen repeated however many times.

Jam: 02:51

Okay.

Melissa: 02:52

Okay. So I thought this was interesting because I had sort of briefly read this, but I didn't get confirmation, so I didn't talk about it. Mhmm. Usually, these carbohydrates or sugars in the 5, 6, and 7 carbon range are in the cyclic form, which means they're a ring.

Jam: 03:10

Okay.

Melissa: 03:11

Of 5, 6, or 7 carbons bound together.

Jam: 03:14

Okay.

Melissa: 03:15

But they can also exist in the straight form, which I didn't know. So they don't have to be in a ring all the time. So that's the biochemistry definition of sugar. I knew that was gonna be more complicated than what I shared about it because in organic chemistry, we just do a very basic introduction to sugars.

Jam: 03:33

Got it. Got it.

Melissa: 03:35

And I think that underlines something interesting about one of the challenges and one of the fun things really about doing this show is I'm doing all this from the of an organic chemist.

Jam: 03:46

Mhmm.

Melissa: 03:47

So what I think is important is gonna be different than maybe someone who teaches gen chem or someone who teaches biochemistry.

Jam: 03:53

Right. Right.

Melissa: 03:54

Because I'm really honed in on my exact perspective and where I see these things playing out. So all I need to know is sugars are 5 or 6 membered rings that have alcohol grapes on them, and then I'll just move on with my life. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas other people have really different experiences with that.

Melissa: 04:11

You know? Yeah. So that's kind of interesting. And then he gave some corrections that I thought were helpful.

Jam: 04:17

K.

Melissa: 04:18

Because I did get some different questions about this, and so I appreciate having a biochemist perspective on this or biochemistry perspective on this. Mhmm. Said the only type of cell that exclusively metabolizes, which means takes energy from sugar, is red blood cells.

Jam: 04:34

K.

Melissa: 04:35

Other cells have mitochondria that can metabolize amino acids or lipids.

Jam: 04:40

Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:41

But red blood cells don't have those.

Jam: 04:44

K.

Melissa: 04:45

Okay. Also, neurons like sugars. So I said I thought neural cells could only take Energy from sugar

Jam: 04:55

Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:55

Is it literal brain food? Remember we had that conversation?

Jam: 04:58

Mhmm.

Melissa: 04:59

But, actually, they can take energy from another source that's produced when we're fasting if we're not eating any food at all.

Jam: 05:05

Okay.

Melissa: 05:06

So I didn't know that. That was a really good addition. Mhmm. And then his last correction was fructose actually can enter a similar pathway as glucose. So when the physician that I watched his talk said that fructose has a similar effect as alcohol consumption, he was a little, was a little suspicious.

Melissa: 05:30

Okay. So he looked it up and investigated, and he said it seems to be controversial. Some studies point to this direction that fructose has very negative effects similar to alcohol, but other studies show that fructose doesn't specifically have adverse effects related to other carbohydrates, so related to other sugars.

Jam: 05:50

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Melissa: 05:52

So I thought that was really good to know because I think that this is something in science that can be confusing to people who aren't it. And it was even confusing a little to me Yeah. As a chemist rather than a nutrition scientist.

Jam: 06:04

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 06:06

So There are times where we'll have different studies that seem to give conflicting information. Mhmm. And usually what that means is at that point, you need to have an open mind, And we need to pay attention to the other research that comes out before we can fully form our opinions.

Jam: 06:22

Right. Right.

Melissa: 06:23

Because it's likely not that 1 or the other study is wrong. Yeah. It's likely that we're missing some piece that connects those 2 to one another.

Jam: 06:31

Right. Right.

Melissa: 06:33

So a lot of times when I'm in the research, there will be something that's maybe conflicting or people will have different opinions, and that's because We are on the cutting edge of this research.

Jam: 06:43

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 06:44

We're learning new things about the way the body works. So oftentimes, we don't have a definitive answer, And I'm presenting to you the best information I have right now.

Jam: 06:54

Right. Right.

Melissa: 06:55

And we've talked previously about how when science changes its mind. That's not a bad thing Yeah. As long as it's doing so based on evidence.

Jam: 07:03

Right. So I

Melissa: 07:04

thought that was a really, really great email from, And I'm really thankful that he wrote in to share all of his science. Mhmm. It is really, really great to hear from a more biology focused perspective and an email that up a lot of really good issues. You know, that as an organic chemist, I see the world differently than he probably does. Mhmm.

Melissa: 07:23

And when we're on the cutting edge of these issues, we don't always have the most accurate information for everything. We've got the best information we have right now.

Jam: 07:33

Right. Right.

Melissa: 07:34

I thought that was really great.

Jam: 07:36

Anne, on the one hand, as I just said layperson, I feel like it if we had all this figured out about sugar and diet, that kind of stuff, You know, all very complicated. We'd probably know. It's like

Melissa: 07:46

Yeah. I

Jam: 07:47

think there'd be some things we'd have, you know, figured out that would be really helpful that for all of us, just Regular folk, you are always trying to figure out, you know, how to eat healthy and whatever else. So Yeah. I think we'd know if everything was already figured out already. It makes sense that there's Still plenty to learn and figure out about sugar, especially. And

Melissa: 08:05

Definitely.

Jam: 08:06

All that stuff. So it it makes sense. No. Yeah. No no shame about you guys not so I just not all figuring it out yet.

Jam: 08:13

Thanks for working hard on it.

Melissa: 08:14

Yeah. Thanks, guys. We appreciate it. He did wrap up his email with saying that the big thing is that nowadays, we eat too much sugar Mhmm. And anything in excess is bad.

Melissa: 08:24

But sugar and fruit does come with vitamins and minerals, which are essential to us, and fibers that regulate the absorption of of that sugar, which helps with our blood sugar increasing. So I think that that is the big takeaway and one of the big takeaways we had from that episode as well.

Jam: 08:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa: 08:41

So thank you so much for sending that in. I love hearing from other scientists. It does it sometimes takes me a long time to get back to these emails because we have So much going on, but taking these fall minis has been a fun chance to dig into some of these emails that we've gotten. Yeah. So thanks For all of you listeners who send us emails and, specifically, thanks to today for sending this email that we were able to make a whole mini episode out of.

Jam: 09:05

Yes. Absolutely. And so don't hesitate if you have a question or thought or whatever that you'd like to send in to us on Gmail, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook atchem for your life. It's a great place to any of those work great for us to send your thoughts and ideas. To help us keep our show going and contribute to cover the cost of making it, go to kodashfi.com/kim for your life, And don't at the cost of a cup of coffee, or you can support our merch campaign at bonfire.com/store/chem for your life.

Jam: 09:37

If you're not able to donate or buy merch, you could still help us by subscribing on our favorite podcast app and rating and writing our view on Apple Podcasts. That also helps us to share chemistry with even more people.

Melissa: 09:48

This episode of Chemistry For Your Life was created by Melissa Colini and J. M. Robinson.