Saccharification

Saccharification is a term for denoting any chemical change wherein a monosaccharide molecule remains intact after becoming unbound to another saccharide. [1] For example, when a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis (e.g., sucrose being broken down into glucose and fructose).[2]

Amylases (e.g. in saliva) and brush border enzymes (within the small intestine) are able to perform exact saccharification through enzymatic hydrolysis. [3] Through thermolysis, saccharification can also occur as a transient result, among many other possible effects, during caramelization. [4] Supplying more concentrated digestive enzymes in a small intestine model that was designed to simulate the human small intestine resulted with an increased starch saccharification rate, but this did not also increase the rate at which free glucose was absorbed from the model intestine. Furthermore, the total saccharification (digestion) rate had only substantially increased when the model's flow rate was also increased in proportion to the enzyme concentration's increase. Yet altering the test foods' rheological properties by causing them to become more viscous had effectively decreased the model's glucose absorption rate. Unfortunately the baseline enzyme concentrations that were used in these experiments were never justified in relation to physiological kinetics.[5]