what is a sugar alcohol? I'm not sure I'd like to actually eat Maltitol.
"Maltitol is a disaccharide produced by Corn Products Specialty Ingredients (formerly SPI Polyols),Cargill, Roquette, and Mitsubishi Shoji Foodtech, among other companies. Maltitol is made byhydrogenation of maltose obtained from starch. Its high sweetness allows it to be used without being mixed with other sweeteners, and exhibits negligible cooling effect (positive heat of solution) in comparison with other sugar alcohols, and is very similar to the subtle cooling effect of sucrose.[1] It is used especially in production of sweets: sugarless hard candies, chewing gum, chocolates, baked goods, and ice cream. The pharmaceutical industry uses maltitol as an excipient, where it is used as a low-calorie sweetening agent. Its similarity to sucrose allows it to be used in syrups with the advantage that crystallization (which may cause bottle caps to stick) is less likely. Maltitol may also be used as aplasticizer in gelatin capsules, as an emollient, and as a humectant[2]"
oh good lord... is there a question here or do you just want to demonize a food because it has a chemical sounding name?
Would you rather eat honey? I'm sure you are quoting wikipedia, or some other extremely reliable source, so let's take a look at what it has to say about that...
Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose. Honey natural sugars are dehydrated to prevent fermentation, with added enzymes to modify and transform their chemical composition and pH. Invertases and digestive acids hydrolyze sucrose to give the monosaccharides glucose and fructose. The invertase is one of these enzymes synthesized by the body of the insect.
Honey bees transform saccharides into honey by a process of regurgitation, a number of times, until it is partially digested. The bees do the regurgitation and digestion, as a group. After the last regurgitation, the aqueous solution is still high in water, so the process continues by evaporation of much of the water and enzymatic transformation.
I don't want to demonize anything. It has come to my attention lately in several articles I have read that some artificial sweeteners are deleterious to one's health, and have an unfortunate effect on insulin response. Just wondering if Maltitol falls into that category. Honey also has the effect of causing an insulin response. so, no, I guess I wouldn't gobble honey by the cup full. But, I suppose, given the choice, I'd choose Honey over Maltitol. Still have questions about sugar alcohol...
Original Post by eechace64:
I don't want to demonize anything. It has come to my attention lately in several articles I have read that some artificial sweeteners are deleterious to one's health, and have an unfortunate effect on insulin response.
Maltitol is not an artificial sweetener. It has also been proven not to have an effect on insulin production (same as with xylitol). Granted, science changes all the time and perhaps current studies will be disproved in the future, but regardless of this it is still not classified as an artificial sweetener. I'd have thought the articles you refer to would have been talking about sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin?
As far as I know there is no direct evidence artificial sweeteners cause health problems.
As for insulin response of maltitol - there is a glucose and insulin response but it is lower than that of sucrose.
Original Post by hypergraphica:
Original Post by eechace64:
I don't want to demonize anything. It has come to my attention lately in several articles I have read that some artificial sweeteners are deleterious to one's health, and have an unfortunate effect on insulin response.
Maltitol is not an artificial sweetener. It has also been proven not to have an effect on insulin production (same as with xylitol). Granted, science changes all the time and perhaps current studies will be disproved in the future, but regardless of this it is still not classified as an artificial sweetener. I'd have thought the articles you refer to would have been talking about sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin?
What study are you citing? There are studies dating back to the 80s showing that there is a glucose and insulin response to maltitol.
Original Post by liseey02:
Original Post by hypergraphica:
Original Post by eechace64:
I don't want to demonize anything. It has come to my attention lately in several articles I have read that some artificial sweeteners are deleterious to one's health, and have an unfortunate effect on insulin response.
Maltitol is not an artificial sweetener. It has also been proven not to have an effect on insulin production (same as with xylitol). Granted, science changes all the time and perhaps current studies will be disproved in the future, but regardless of this it is still not classified as an artificial sweetener. I'd have thought the articles you refer to would have been talking about sweeteners such as aspartame and saccharin?
What study are you citing? There are studies dating back to the 80s showing that there is a glucose and insulin response to maltitol.
Hrmm, well I may have spoken a little too quickly and probably stand corrected as I was speaking from memory and it was a long time since I read anything on this. I looked into it ages ago when I decided to stop eating refined sugar in order to stabilise my blood sugar, and I read a few journal articles on xylitol and insulin production, which suggested that it is safe for diabetics (I'm not diabetic but was having a lot of blood sugar crashes). I thought from my vague memory that it was the same with maltitol and sorbitol, but perhaps I recall that wrong. Or perhaps the case is just, as you suggest, that the effect is much smaller than sucrose, fructose, and glucose and therefore safe for diabetics?
I certainly can't remember the titles of any journal articles if that's what you're asking, but I do remember that one of the things that struck me when looking for scientific studies on xylitol was that there didn't seem to be much recent research (I think most of it was done in the 70s and 80s). The reason i looked mainly at xylitol was because you can actually buy it quite easily for home consumption so it's a convenient choice. Though I do sometimes buy a brand of sugarfree dark chocolate which is sweetened with maltitol. But anyway, I digress....
So, what I should've said in my original post was that maltitol is not an artificial sweetener and as far as I know it's safe for diabetics. Thanks for pulling me up on this! Am now going to go searching for studies on maltitol and insulin as you've awakened my curiosity... 
Ah, yep. Thanks!
Just did a quick search on google scholar and found this:
Moon, S.; Lee, M.; Huh, K.; Lee, K., 'Effects of maltitol on blood glucose and insulin responses in normal and diabetic subjects', Korean Journal of Nutrition, 1990 Vol. 23 No. 4 pp. 270-278.
Abstract:
An oral dose of 50 g of maltitol or glucose was given to 5 healthy normal subjects and 10 diabetic patients. There were marked differences between the utilization of maltitol and of glucose in both groups. Blood glucose and insulin responses to glucose were significantly greater than to maltitol in normal subjects (P<0.05). In diabetic patients, the peaks of the mean increment in blood glucose concentration after glucose and maltitol were reached at 60 minutes, with mean values of 135 and 49 mg/100 ml respectively, and this difference was significant (P<0.001). For blood insulin responses in diabetic patients, the peak of the mean increment after glucose was 25.03 µU/ml at 120 minutes. In contrast, insulin responses to maltitol were significantly lower than to glucose (P<0.05), and the peak value was 7.98 µU/ml at 60 min.
So, yes. Smaller response, rather than no response at all. Thanks again for the clarification. And I apologise to the OP for giving incorrect information!
Yeah, there are a bunch of studies you can find from the late 80s and early 90s about maltitol effect on blood chemistry. Of course there is an outlier here or there that claims it has no effect but the majority of the work shows there is an insulin and glucose response though it is smaller than sucrose.
ETA: OP - does that answer your questions?
explosive diarrhea cha cha cha
This is the link to the ADA page on sugar alcohols and it's effect on blood sugar
http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food /what-can-i-eat/sugar-alcohols.html
Beware the laxative effect should you consume them to excess!!
