Glucose Jinfen Xian

Glucose

Figure 1. The structure of glucose (5).

Glucose, the energy storage in animals and plants, is the basic chemical in people's life, and no one can live without it. Glucose is a white powder or colorless solid (5). It is also called dextrose, grape sugar, corn sugar, or blood sugar (5). Glucose can be found in cellulose in plants (5). Plants can synthesis glucose by processing photosynthesis (5). Commercial glucose is produced by steam hydrolysis from starch and cellulose (5). People use glucose to bake bread, make sugars, fermentate beer and ciders, synthesis amino acid, and make glucose injection and insulin (5).

There is no lethal dose for human, but the lethal dose for rat is 25800 mg/kg, and it also affects rat's reproductivity (3). However, there are some health concerns for human, and it may cause irritation, burning, vomiting and abdominal pain by ingestion. It may cause coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath by inhalation (3). Also, glucose injection may cause clump of red blood cells, edema of eyelids, protrusion of eyes, necrosis of soft tissues, and hemolysis etc (4).

There are some alternatives for glucose, such as artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners have the sweet favor but no Calories (2). There are five legal artificial sweeteners in the USA now, and they are Acesulfame-K, Alitame, Aspartame, Neotame, and Saccharin (1). Also, there is another sweet protein can be an alternative of glucose. The sweet protein, miraculin, comes from a red berry in the South Africa (6). This protein have a high yield production in transgenic tomatoes (6).

There are a lot of controversies on using glucose injection in medical field. Many experts state that glucose injection may cause a lot of health problems, and this injection should not be used in people (4).   

   

1. Artificial sweeteners. In The deluxe food lover's companion. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational   

    Series. 2009. http://library.mtroyal.ca:4065/content/entry/barronflc/artificial_sweeteners/0 (accessed Nov     5, 2015).

2. David, L. Nelson; Michael, M. Cox. Principles of Biochemistry, 6th ed.; W.H. Freeman: New York,     

    2013; pp 246-255.

3. Glucose; MSDS No. M00664 [Online]; HACH CO: Missouri, September 23, 2005.

4. U. S. National Library of Medicine. Substance Name: Glucose, n.d. TOXNET. Resources: 

    http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search2/r?dbs+hsdb:@term+@rn+50-99-7 (accessed Nov 5, 

    2015).
5. Schlager, N., Weisblatt, J., & Newton, D. E. Chemical Compounds [Online]; Gale: Detroit, USA., 2006;     pp 343-347.
6. Sun, H., Kataoka, H., Yano, M., & Ezura, H. Genetically stable expression of functional miraculin, a new     type of alternative sweetener, in transgenic tomato plants. Plant Biotechnology Journal. [Online] 2007, 5,       768-777. http://library.mtroyal.ca:2208/doi/10.1111/j.1467-7652.2007.00283.x/full (asscessed Nov 5,
    2015).