Carb Cutter Experiment

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Carb-Cutter; Blocker of Carbs or a Phony? Rumor has it that there is a miracle weight loss product that slows down the digestion of carbohydrates. These diet pills contain carb-cutter which blocks amylase, the enzyme that breaks down starch into glucose. With this being done, Carb-Cutter neutralizes the amylase before it starts the breakdown. This allows your body to pass starch through without turning it into glucose. Without starch, fat cannot be stored in the form of carbohydrates and less weight will be gained. This may sound too good to be true. Though carb-cutter does actually block amylase, there are many other factors that go into the breakdown of the carbohydrates. Students at the University of Georgia have taken it upon them to test this rumor and see if carb-cutter really stops the breakdown of starch to helps weight loss. Biology 1103 Lab students used a fairly simple experiment containing two solutions. The first solution contained carb-cutter and the controlled solution did not contain any carb-cutter. Amylase, starch, I2KI, and TRIS were also added. With these solutions, the students were able to test whether not the amylase continues to break down starch with the presence of the carb cutter. Amylase mimics the enzyme activity that occurs in the body upon starch. The carb-cutter acts as the diet pills. The I2KI was used to add color to the solution. It binds with starch so the more starch, the darker the solution was. We also used a blank solution with no starch to set the spectrometer to zero. The spectrometer was used to compare the absorbency of the starch in the control solutions and the non-control solutions over time. Amylase was the last solution added to start the initial breakdown of the starch. Adding it at one minute intervals allowed the students to see how much starch the amylase was actually breaking down over time. This was done

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