Monday, August 24th, 2009

This class we discussed biomolecules, specifically, carbohydrates. Woohoo. Before I get into detail about what we went over, some of things that don’t have to do with the topic that much:

· Stefanie/Stephanie, I’m sorry but I’m not sure which it is (don’t kill me) has the participation list this week. AAAH!!! So, if you want those lines next to your name, make sure she hears you participated.

· Diana didn’t know we use Facebook for the blog. Talking of which, there is a topic up now, so if I were you I’d get right on that and comment.

· We also went over the winners of the summaries so far, which are Ariela and Eduardo. I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job with these so that’s all I need. Anyway, the differences that end up making the teacher choosing a certain summary are minimal, spelling, links, and other small things. So watch out for those.

· And thank you Johanna for clarifying for us. Making random comments complementing the teacher or about how awesome the summary idea is does not earn you participation points. :]

Anyway back to summarizing about the topic.

So first of all, what is a biomolecule?

· They are chains made mainly of carbon and hydrogen

· ENORMOUS

· Needed for life

· Produced by living organisms

· They make up living organisms

So what are the different kinds of biomolecules?

There are only 4 groups:

· Lipids

· Proteins

· Carbohydrates

· Nucleic acids

Now we go ahead and focus on a specific biomolecule group, Carbohydrates.

So what are they?

1. A biomolecule. Duh.

2. Chain of mainly carbon, hydrogen, and some oxygen

3. Also known as sugars, starch

4. Saccharides

These carbohydrates are divided in your groups. Again

1. Mono, meaning made up of a single ring

2. Di, meaning two

3. Oligo, meaning 4

4. Poly, meaning, lots.

A few terms having to do with sugars and carbohydrates:

So, carb loading, what’s that?

It’s when athletes load up on a lot of carbs, I think the term explains it well enough. The do this to stock up on all the energy they will need for their event

Sugar rush? Wooooohoooooooaaarfs;jlasjdflkjasd lfjasldkjf;aljdf dlkfj asl;dkjf as;ldkjf asldkjf!!!!!

I think you get the idea. Its when a person, not so common our age anymore, more in kids, is loaded with sugar, so they get what they call really hyper.

Sugar crash? Iiiitsssssss when yoouuu are aaaaaaallll out of sugarrrrrr.

Ssooooo you dontttt evennnn fffeeell like moooooooving.

Um, it’s when you have consumed all of the sugar you had in you, happens right after the hyperness attack of the sugar rush. Also described as a sugar hangover. Because, not that I would know of course, but they “feel the same”, only it’s with candy instead of alcohol.

Which brings me to the video we saw in class. Iron man, big competition for athletes. So we see two athletes that have completely run out of carbs to keep them going, so, they can barely keep going. It looked like it wasn’t really fun. They ended up crawling instead of running, so that gives you an idea of how bad it was. =/

Carbohydrate literally means carbon water. Sugar sounds so much yummier than carbon water

Anyway, there are two big groups of sugars

· Simple sugars:

1. Dissolve in water

2. Simplest example is the sugar on your tabletop

· Complex sugars:

1. Chains of sugar, called glucose

2. An example of this is, a potato.

3. As seen in the video, clearly they don’t dissolve in water.

So what’s the problem with México.

Why are so many people overweight?

Well, simple, almost everything we eat is high up on carbs. Tortillas, sweet bread, you name it. Before it wasn’t that bad because we had lots of walking and working with our bodies to burn it out. But now, with cars, sit-for-hours jobs, we don’t burn them out. So they get stocked up and become lipids. (We get fat)

Also, for girls, and some boys, the WORSE diet you can get is one that completely cuts you out of a food group. Maybe reducing the amount you take of a certain group is fine, but completely cutting it out, is just stupid.

Vegetarians don’t count for that. They don’t eat meat, so they don’t consume enough protein for their system, so they take pills or other supplements to make up for it.

Last but not least is Diabetes Mellitus

Very common thing to hear now a days

So what is it?

Well there are 2 types, and it’s very important you can tell them apart

· Type 1: it’s a pancreas malfunction, in which it does not make enough insulin. What is insulin? It’s the hormone that tells the cell to open up and let sugar in. so no insulin means no cell opening, which means high blood sugar levels. Too much sugar in your blood can be dangerous; it can lead to a heart attack, blindness and other horrible things. That’s if it’s high, but if its low, you can get dizziness, feelings of too much heat or cold. If it’s really low you can lose consciousness. This is the type people take insulin shots for.

· Type 2: the insulin receptors on the cell don’t work. So it’s pretty much like your cell is so used to the insulin that it doesn’t respond as well as it used to. So on this case there is plenty of insulin; only the cell won’t open up because it pretty much ignores the insulin.

Diabetes is a genetic disease. Anyone can have it, so if you have a relative who has it you should get checked out. It’s a good idea to do exercise and keep those glucose levels balanced. So even if you don’t have it, don’t think you’ll get it, or just don’t care, exercise. Its good for you and you’ll prevent getting diabetes.

Fernando Lopez Almada