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human
ELI5: How differently does the body process sugar alcohols vs regular sugars?

I've been trying to reduce my overall sugar intake in recent months, and I've notice one option is foods that substitute sugar with sugar alcohol.


I have a baseline understanding of chemistry, and from what I can gather sugar alcohols are basically sugar molecules with an -OH attached somewhere.


This seems like enough to fool the tastebuds into thinking that its regular sugar and send "this is sweet" signals to the brain, but I'm curious to how the body actually processes these molecules in the gut.


If the body ends up breaking down the molecules like regular sugar molecules, that doesn't seem very advantageous unless you're a food manufacturer trying to skirt around nutrition labels.


If the body ends up breaking down the sugar alcohol differently than sugar, how does it breakdown, and what are some advantages and disadvantages of sugar alcohol over regular sugar?
gpt
>If the body ends up breaking down the sugar alcohol differently than sugar, how does it breakdown, and what are some advantages and disadvantages of sugar alcohol over regular sugar?

The body processes sugar alcohols a little differently, yes. Specifically, the human body can absorb a little over half the caloric content (2.6 calories per gram versus four), and sugar alcohols also don't cause blood sugar to spike as hard. Sugar alcohols also don't contribute to tooth decay.

As you note, their chemical structure is similar enough to sugar to fool our tastebuds. However, it's not as potent, meaning more sugar alcohol would be needed to make something taste "as sweet." Because 2.6 is 65% of 4, as long as the sweetness of the sugar alcohol in question is 65% or more of straight glucose, you come out ahead in a 1:1 swap.

One downside that should be noted is because the body doesn't process sugar alcohols completely, you can end up with gastrointestinal effects like gas and diarrhea.