Carbohydrates are the most abundant biomolecule produced on the earth, photosynthetic plants and algae convert over 100 billion metric tonnes of CO 2 and H2O into sugar, starch and cellulose like substances. These are polyhydroxy aldehyde or ketones and their derivates or substances that yield such compounds on hydrolysis. Most carbohydrates have the empirical formula (CH2O) n, some do not conform to it while others contain in addition to C, H and O elements such as Nitrogen, Phosphorous or Sulphur. Three major size classes of carbohydrates are Monosaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides. The saccharide means sugar. Monosaccharides are simple sugars consisting of a single polyhydroxy aldehyde or ketone unit, oligosaccharides consist of short changes of few (2-8) mono saccharide units joined together by characteristic glyosidic linkage. The most abundant monosaccharide and disaccharide found in nature are glycose (fruit sugar) and sucrose (cane sugar) the later consists of two 6-carbonsugar, D-glucose and D-fructose joined covalently. All common mono and disaccharides have names ending with suffix “ose”.  

Keywords: Carbohydrates; Muscles; Joints.