Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 April 2009
Parasitic helminths have an absolute requirement for carbohydrate for their energy metabolism, there being no significant contribution from fatty acid or amino acid catabolism. There is no significant synthesis of glucose or glycogen from non-hexose precursors in helminths and so they are dependent on dietary carbohydrate. Characteristically parasitic helminths break down glycogen or glucose via linear anaerobic pathways to give reduced organic end-products, usually acids such as lactate, acetate, succinate and propionate or more rarely alcohols such as ethanol, propanol and acetoin (Barrett, 1984).