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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff from house Stuff works dot com where

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Speaker 1: smart happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brain with today's question, how

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Speaker 1: do carbohydrates work and why do we hear about them

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Speaker 1: all the time? In the news? Carbohydrates are something we

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Speaker 1: hear about constantly in American culture. There are simple carbohydrates

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Speaker 1: and complex carbohydrates, where complex carbohydrates are supposed to be

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Speaker 1: better for your health than the simple ones. There are

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Speaker 1: low carb diets like the Atkins diet or the Ducan diet,

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Speaker 1: and they're supposed to help you lose lots of weight

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Speaker 1: by somehow eliminating the bad effects of carbohydrates. Then there's

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Speaker 1: the more esoteric things like the glycemic index of foods,

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Speaker 1: and this has to do with carbohydrates as well. Let's

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Speaker 1: take a look at how carbohydrates work and why you

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Speaker 1: should care about them. You've probably heard of things like

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Speaker 1: glucose and pctoes. These are the simplest carbohydrates. They are

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Speaker 1: molecules containing six carbon atoms, six oxygen atoms, and twelve

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Speaker 1: hydrogen atoms, and this is where the name carbohydrate comes from.

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Speaker 1: Carbo represents the carbon atoms, while the oxygen and hydrogen

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Speaker 1: atoms represent water or hydrates. Plants make carbohydrates from sunlight,

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Speaker 1: and animals eat the plants. Pure glucose or pure fructose,

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Speaker 1: being the simplest carbohydrates, can be immediately absorbed by the

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Speaker 1: small intestine into the bloodstream. Table sugar or sucrose is

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Speaker 1: a die sacc ride. One glucose and one fructose molecule

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Speaker 1: are bonded together to make a molecule of sucrose. And

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Speaker 1: enzyme in your small intestine can break the pair apart

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Speaker 1: and then they can be immediately absorbed in your small

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Speaker 1: intestine and they enter the bloodstream. A starch, like the

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Speaker 1: starch found in wheat or potatoes or rice, is a

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Speaker 1: longer chain of glucose molecules connected together. Your body has

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Speaker 1: enzymes that can break apart the chain into individual glucose

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Speaker 1: molecules for absorption. Starch molecules are known as complex carbohydrates,

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Speaker 1: and this is where the idea of the glycemic index

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Speaker 1: comes from. In general, things like glucose and table sugar

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Speaker 1: come into your body and enter the bloodstream very very quickly.

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Speaker 1: They have a high glycemic index and cause a spike

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Speaker 1: in the amount of glucose in your bloodstream. White bread,

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Speaker 1: because the wheat is so highly processed, also has a

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Speaker 1: high glycemic index. Whole grains, beans, nuts, and vegetables do

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Speaker 1: contain carbohydrates, but these carbohydrate chains take much longer to

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Speaker 1: break down in the small intestine, so the glucose from

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Speaker 1: these foods enters the bloodstream much more slowly and evenly.

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Speaker 1: These foods have a low glycemic index and therefore are

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Speaker 1: much healthier because they don't cause such intense spikes in

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Speaker 1: blood sugar. Many diet it's are low carb diets. They

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Speaker 1: ask you to restrict the carbohydrates you eat. Why do

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Speaker 1: they do that? Keep in mind that what a typical

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Speaker 1: American diet looks like is things like a bowl of

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Speaker 1: cereal or a slice of pizza, or a can of ravioli,

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Speaker 1: or a bottle of soda, potato chips, packages of cookies,

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Speaker 1: bowls of ice cream. These are common foods in the

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Speaker 1: typical American diet. These foods typically contain something like forty

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Speaker 1: to fifty grams of carbohydrates per serving. Therefore, a typical

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Speaker 1: American eating a typical American diet can easily consume three

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Speaker 1: hundred grams of carbs per day or more without even

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Speaker 1: thinking about it. A lunch consisting of two slices of pizza,

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Speaker 1: chocolate chip cookie, and a big soda. That's two hundred

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Speaker 1: grams of carbs right there, and it all comes in

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Speaker 1: in just a few minutes. The surge of glucoast that

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Speaker 1: a meal like this pumps into the bloodstream requires your

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Speaker 1: body to use a lot of insulin to handle the spike.

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Speaker 1: Over the years, the spikes can cause type two diabetes,

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Speaker 1: where your body becomes resistant to the effects of the

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Speaker 1: insulin that your pancreas is putting into the bloodstream. In addition,

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Speaker 1: a meal like that contains a lot of calories, leading

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Speaker 1: to obesity over time, and that causes its own set

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Speaker 1: of health effects. A low carb diet restricts your carbohydrate intake,

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Speaker 1: say fifty grams of carbs per day rather than three hundred.

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Speaker 1: This restriction can decrease the spikes in blood sugar, which

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Speaker 1: tends to lower hunger pangs and reduce the calories you

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Speaker 1: consume per day. Will a low carb diet hurt you?

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Speaker 1: For example, you may know that your brain and nervous

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Speaker 1: system require glucose. If you take in no carbohydrates, will

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Speaker 1: your brain die No. Your body, when necessary can manufacture

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Speaker 1: its own carbohydrates in your liver through a process called

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Speaker 1: gluco neogenesis. This process is important if say, you're lost

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Speaker 1: in a forest with no food for three days, or

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Speaker 1: if you're fasting for some reason, or if you get

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Speaker 1: so sick that you can't eat for a few days,

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Speaker 1: or if you're living in an extremely cold climate and

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Speaker 1: meat is your only source of food. In all those cases,

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Speaker 1: there's no glucose coming in, so obviously your body has

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Speaker 1: to have a way to deal with it. Glucose is essential,

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Speaker 1: so your body is able to supply the glucose even

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Speaker 1: if you have no carbohydrates coming in through your food.

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Speaker 1: This whole thing is fascinating really. Carbohydrates are one source

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Speaker 1: of food energy, but there are all these different aspects

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Speaker 1: to it, and carb consumption can have a huge impact

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Speaker 1: on your overall health. The more you learn about carbohydrates,

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Speaker 1: the more interesting it gets. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, does that house stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com and don't forget to check out the brain stuff

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Speaker 1: blog on the house stuff works dot com home page.

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