Reducing Sugar

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A reducing sugar is any sugar that, in a solution, has an aldehyde or a ketone group. This allows the sugar to act as a reducing agent, for example in the Maillard reaction and Benedict's reaction. A sugar is only a reducing sugar if it has an open chain with an aldehyde or a ketone group. Monosaccharides which contain an aldehyde group are known as aldoses, and those whith a ketone group are known as ketoses. Many sugars occur in a chain as well as in a ring structure and in solution it is possible to have an equilibrium between these two forms.