What carbohydrates are in milk?
1 Answer
Jun 8, 2015
The major component is lactose, with trace amounts of monosaccharides and oligosaccharides.
LACTOSE
Lactose is a disaccharide of glucose and galactose.
Its structure is:
MONOSACCHARIDES
The monosaccharides in milk are
D-glucose
D-Galactose
N-Acetylglucosamine
L-Fucose
N-Acetylneuraminic acid (sialic acid))
OLIGOSACCHARIDES
An oligosaccharide (Greek oligos, "a few" and sacchar, *sugar") is a saccharide polymer containing three or more monosaccharides.
Human milk contains approximately 200 oligosaccharides containing from 3 to 22 sugars.
Two of the more prominent oligosaccharides are
Lacto-N-tetraose
Sialyllacto-N-tetraose
