Definition of "glycogen" []

• A polysaccharide, (C6H10O5)n, that is the main form of carbohydrate storage in animals and occurs primarily in the liver and muscle tissue. It is readily converted to glucose as needed by the body to satisfy its energy needs. Also called animal starch. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "These results had several important ramifications: they explained the course of heat production measured by Hill; and they confirmed and extended a famous theory of Pasteur's that less glycogen is consumed in muscle metabolism in the presence of oxygen than in its absence."
• "Once you use up all of your available glucose during the digestive phase of metabolism (your body stores only about 300 calories in the short-term glycogen reservoir), it taps a long-term reservoir: fatty tissue in the form of triglycerides (molecules that include a carbohydrate-containing glycerol)."
• "They are fueled by a small store of a carbohydrate called glycogen, which is already in the fibers, and is rapidly converted into energy by enzymes right in the cell fluids."