How are carbohydrates used by living organisms?

Answer 1

• It protects your muscles.
• It regulates the amount of sugar circulating in your body.
• It provides nutrients for friendly bacteria in intestinal tract that helps in digestion.
• Quick energy
• It assist in body's absorption of calcium.
• It helps in lowering cholesterol level and regulate blood pressure

It is the main source of energy in a body

Answer 2

Carbohydrates are the major source of energy for living organisms. Consider humans. We consume lots of carbohydrates everyday and these are in the complex form like oligosaccharides and disaccharides. They are broken down (in the digestive tract) into monosaccharides (like glucose). Then glucose is absorbed by the intestinal cells and then into the blood. After entering the circulation, glucose enters other cells of the body (with help from insulin).

Once glucose enters the cells, it undergoes glycolysis to produce ATP. This is the energy molecule and can be used to perform various functions (like movement of muscles etc.)

Not only ATP, NADH and FADH2 are also produced in subsequent biochemical pathways (like PDH reaction and Kreb's cycle) which are also high energy compounds and that lead to generation of more energy by undergoing oxidative phosphorylation.

Answer 3

Algae and terrestrial green plants(producers) are the chief agents of carbon dioxide fixation through the process of photosynthesis, through which carbon dioxide and water are converted into simple carbohydrates. These compounds are used by the producers to carry on metabolism, the excess being stored as fats and polysaccharides. The stored products are then eaten by consumer animals, from protozoans to man, which convert them into other forms. All animals return CO2 directly to the atmosphere as a by-product of their respiration. The carbon present in animal wastes and in the bodies of all organisms is released as CO2 by decay or decomposer organisms (chiefly bacteria and fungi) in a series of microbial transformations.