Good info on sugar alcohols
Over the last decade, the supermarket aisles have been flooded with low-calorie snacks and treats. The key ingredient that makes these incongruous offerings possible is sugar alcohol. Since we work with a lot of athletes, both professional and recreational, who pay close attention to their diet, we thought now was as good a time as any to explain how these hybrid mixtures work, how they can affect performance, and how foods that contain them should be properly integrated into an athlete’s diet.
What Is It. Sugar alcohols, also known as polyols, are a type of sugar substitute that add texture, help retain moisture, and inhibit the caramelizing of foods when baked or heated. They’re called sugar alcohols because part of their carbohydrate structure resembles sugar and part is similar to alcohol, although they do not contain the ethanol found in alcoholic beverages. (In other words, you can’t get drunk from eating a box of Snackwells.)
Sugar alcohols occur naturally in fruits and vegetables such as olives, asparagus, sweet potatoes, and a variety of fruits and meats. Recently, however, they shot to the forefront of the American diet during the low-carb craze of the last ten years when food processors mixed sucrose, glucose, and starch together to make it a commercially viable ingredient. As such, sugar alcohols made their way into such “sugar-free” and “low-carb” products such as hard candies, cookies, chewing gums, soft drinks, and more.
Did You Know: Sugar alcohols are frequently used in toothpaste, mouthwash, throat lozenges, and cough syrup because, unlike the more common sucrose, oral bacteria do not metabolize sugar alcohols, which means they don’t promote tooth decay.
Why It’s a Diet Industry Staple. While sucrose contains 4 calories per gram, sugar alcohols have only 1.5 to 3 calories per gram and deliver the same or, depending on the formula, sweeter flavor. But not all those calories make it into the body’s bloodstream. Unlike regular sugar, sugar alcohols aren’t completely absorbed and metabolized by the body. They convert to glucose slower than sugar, require little or no insulin for metabolizing, and do not cause sudden spikes in blood sugar or the corresponding energy crash that comes after it. For this reason, sugar alcohols are helpful for individuals with diabetes or individuals on a carbohydrate-controlled eating plan.
Did You Know: Sugar alcohols are used instead of zero calorie artificial sweeteners like aspartame (Equal® or Nutrasweet®) and saccharin (Sweet & Low®) to provide some sort of slow-burning calories to the body that should leave it feeling full.
Eat with Caution. Sugar alcohol and the products that contain them should be eaten judiciously. For one, you can actually pack on extra pounds if you rely on them as a major fuel source, as you may eat more than you might otherwise in order to slack your hunger. It seems counterintuitive—a diet product that makes you fat—but we’ve seen it happen. Instead of eating two low-carb cookies, a person devours a whole box of them before feeling satisfied.
The second concern—and the one we feel is most important to endurance athletes—is the laxative effects of eating sugar alcohol such as bloating, diarrhea, flatulence. It’s a common result of over consumption of sugar alcohols. Since they’re not easily absorbed by the small intestine, they can lead to an upset stomach and subsequent decline in performance.
The Bottom Line. Since sugar alcohols are relatively new to our diets, we’ll need more time and further research on them to determine their long-term health effects and benefits. For now, we do know that they can play a positive role in low-carb diets and weight management, but not for moderately to highly active people and athletes. These folks need a well balanced diet of whole foods during the day and simple and easily digestible sugars to fuel their workouts. So if you’re looking to lose weight and boost performance then train smart, reduce your overall calorie intake by no more than 500 calories a day and leave the sugar alcohols alone
