Sugar substitutes: benefit or harm?

Sugar substitutes, or sweeteners, are substances that are used to give a sweet taste to food, drinks and medicine. All sugar substitutes must meet certain requirements:

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  They should not have smell and color
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  They should be well soluble in water
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  They should be harmless physiologically and completely removed from the body
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  They should have a sweet taste reminiscent of sucrose
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  They must have the necessary temperature and chemical stability

All sweeteners are conventionally divided into two groups: natural and artificial. Natural sweeteners (xylitol, sorbitol, stevioside, glucose) are safe for our body and fully absorbed by it. But they are all calories, although to a lesser extent than sugar.

Natural sugar substitutes mainly used in diabetic nutrition, because they do not affect the level of sugar in the blood. One of the most famous and common substitutes - fructose - contained in fruits, berries, honey, plant seeds and flower nectar. It is sweeter than sucrose, but less caloric. Fructose can be consumed by diabetics.

Sorbitol is found in some fruits (for example,apricots and apples) but its greatest content is in rowan. It is not as sweet as sugar, but it is more caloric. Therefore sorbitol is not suitable for those who want to lose weight, but it is ideal for diabetics, because it is not a carbohydrate, but a polyhydric alcohol.

Xylitol We are known to all of the advertising of chewing gum and toothpastes. This sweetener is extracted from their husks of cotton seeds and corn cobs. For energy value and sweetness, it is almost identical to natural sugar, but it does not harm the teeth, and even on the contrary - it helps to prevent tooth decay.

Stevioside is extracted from an extract of a stevia plant. It is much sweeter than sugar, but it has no appreciable effect on the amount of glucose in the blood, so it can be consumed by diabetics. Stevioside began to be produced in the 1970s in Japan to replace them with artificial sugar substitutes - saccharin and cyclamate. In Europe, the sale of stevioside for a long time was limited, because it was believed that this substitute could have mutagenic properties, but WHO studies did not confirm this.

As we can see, natural sugar substitutes are generally good for diabetics, but those who want to lose weight from them are of little use, because all these sweeteners are quite caloric. Can they artificial sugar substitutes to become a safe alternative to sucrose for those who are dieting?

At first glance it seems that yes. Artificial sweeteners basically have no energy value and the body is not digested. But not everything is so simple. When you used a synthetic substitute (for example, you drank a bottle of diet cola), the body feels a sweet taste and is preparing for the fact that now he will get carbohydrates. In fact, he does not get any calories, so you start feeling hungry.

The most common artificial sugar substitutes are saccharin, aspartame, cyclamate, potassium ascessulfam, sucrasite. Their main advantage in that they are much sweeter than sucrose (in 50, 200, some even 350 times!) and do not contain calories. But they have plenty of cons.

One of their most popular sweeteners - aspartame - easily disintegrates under the action of hightemperature, so you can not use it for cooking. In addition, aspartame contains the amino acid phenylalanine, therefore products containing aspartame are contraindicated in patients with phenylketonuria.

Thermostable alternatives to aspartame are cyclamate and saccharin. They can be used for cooking, but there are plenty of minuses for these substitutes. Saccharin has a metallic taste, in addition, it is believed that it contains carcinogens and can cause exacerbation of cholelithiasis. That is why saccharin is banned in Canada.

Cyclamate has no metallic taste, butcontraindicated in renal failure, during pregnancy and lactation. Cyclamate is banned in the EU and the US, because in the body, under the influence of bacteria living in the stomach, it turns into cyclohexylamine. The properties of this substance and its effect on the body are not fully understood. Nevertheless, cyclamate is very common in Russia because of its cheapness.

Acesulfame potassium and sucrisite contain substances that do not have the most beneficial effect on the body (methyl ether, asparogen acid, fumaric acid), so do not recommend them in large quantities.

So is it worth using sugar substitutes? Of course, if you have diabetes, you simply need sugar substitutes. But with diabetes, safe natural substitutes for sugar are more often prescribed. And to risk health and abuse artificial substitutes only in order to lose those extra pounds, it's not worth it. Everything is good in moderation.