A simple sugar containing six carbon atoms, such as glucose, fructose, or galactose.
From hex- (six) + -ose (sugar suffix, from Greek glukos). Coined in the 19th century by chemists who needed systematic names for sugars based on their atomic composition.
Glucose is a hexose, and it's literally the fuel of life—every cell in your body runs on it, making hexoses the most important class of molecules for human survival, and their discovery was crucial to understanding metabolism itself.
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