Biochem

>Why is it that we need carbohydrates?

We don't. Carbohydrates are not essential.

Bump for interest.

Pentoses you dumb fucc

>>7640363
Not OP, can you give me a brief summary of what I should know about that?

Aside from being the carbon skeleton needed to make lipids and many amino acids, they are a very rapid source of energy. Particularly in glycolysis. They're also needed for nucleosides. Your brain also exists solely on glucose.

>>7639273
Everything can be answered in this video OP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1AoOJtkmHM

we don't NEED glucose

you can survive on a nearly pure protein diet just fine. there's plenty of predators in the world that do just that.

carbohydrates are just super fucking common since they're easy to make and plants make a fuckton of them

File: Pentose_Phosphate_Pathway.png (11KB, 485x831px)

11KB, 485x831px

>>7640367
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentose_phosphate_pathway
We basically need glucose to synthesize pentoses, which we need for synthesizing ATP, RNA, DNA and some other shit

>>7640387
Awesome, thanks bro

Because your cells need energy and carbs are the common energy source found in nature. Did you fail biochem 101?

>>7640387
>>7640363
>>7640368

These faggots don't know about gluconeogenesis.

We don't need to ingest any carbs, because we can synthesize our own glucose through gluconeogenesis. Ingesting glucose or other carbs is just much more energy efficient than making them from other substrates.

>>7640916
I thought OP was asking "why does life need carbohydrates"

>>7640379
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation