In the 21st century - the century of high technology, strict standards of beauty, but at the same time serious diseases - such an invention as a sweetener is in great demand. Due to the widespread prevalence of the product, its end user is concerned about the benefits and harms of Maltitol, a popular sugar substitute.

What it is

Maltitol (Maltitol) is a dietary supplement of natural origin. The final product is obtained by heating and subsequent caramelization of its semi-finished product (intermediate product) - maltitol syrup. The semi-finished product consists of 80% of maltitol, and it also includes additional substances (mainly sorbitol). Syrup is obtained using simple chemical reactions - hydrolysis of raw materials (starch obtained from corn or potatoes) and saturation with hydrogen.

Maltitol is less sweet than regular sugar, however, it belongs to caloric sweeteners, although it is half as high in calories (2.1 kcal per 1 gram), it is easily soluble in water, however, there is a slight change in taste when exposed to high temperatures, dissolution in alcohol solutions is difficult.

The substance is widely used in the confectionery industry for the manufacture of low-carb sweets, biscuits, chocolate products, ice cream, and is also used in its pure form instead of sugar. Available in the form of a powder of white or slightly yellowish color, or syrup. It is an approved product in all countries.

In addition, the e965 is actively used in pharmacology in the manufacture of syrups and suspensions for children (for example, Nurofen or Sab-Simplex).

Use for diabetes

Maltitol e965 (the code in the list of food additives) has properties that can be used for any type of diabetes. Glycemic and insulin indices, calorie content, absorption rate - all these indicators have values \u200b\u200bwithin the norm for diabetics.

The glycemic index of the drug varies within 30, which is almost half that of sugar. For diabetics, it’s important that the substance is absorbed into the blood gradually, and not at the same time, so they don’t have to worry about sudden jumps in blood sugar.

The insulin index of the supplement is high enough and equal to 25, which is also a positive feature for diabetics, however, it is advisable for patients with hyperinsulinemia to avoid the use of this product.

In addition, Maltitol is recommended for overweight people or those who seek to restore or maintain their shape. The substance is not recognized by the body as a fast carbohydrate, therefore, its digestion is not accompanied by fat deposits in the liver and muscles. Nutritionists offer the drug to those who want to get rid of sugar addiction, but do not want to completely deprive themselves of sweets.

Harm and Benefit

The benefits of Maltitol include the following properties:

• lack of influence on the level of glucose in the blood;
• suitable for people with overweight and metabolic disorders (due to the low calorie content compared to regular sugar, its use will have less effect on the figure and extra pounds);
• the absence of harmful effects on tooth enamel (due to the lack of reaction to the activity of bacteria, the drug is not the cause of caries).

Side effects of the use of the sweetener have not been identified, however, this is relevant when observing the daily intake rate of 90 grams.

Exceeding the daily dosage threatens with disorders in the digestive system:

• increased gas formation;
• bloating;
• diarrhea.

It is important to remember that the response of the body to the intake of specific substances is purely individual, as a result of which excessive consumption of the product can provoke disruptions during carbohydrate metabolism.

In addition, the abuse of sweeteners is fraught with a significant increase in insulin levels, so those people who need to control insulin levels within certain limits should better not exceed the dose of Maltitol.Also, the daily dose of Maltitol consumed by diabetics should be individually agreed with the endocrinologist.

Analogs

There are not many identical Maltitol products on the market. The following substances are known whose properties are identical to Maltitol:

Sucralose. It is synthesized from regular sugar, characterized by low calorie content, which is why it is more preferable for overweight people. Use is allowed during pregnancy and lactation. The substance was developed in the 90s of the last century in Canada and during the application by the end user, as well as during clinical trials, no pathological side effects and contraindications were detected.

Cyclamate. The sweetener e952 is ten times sweeter than Maltitol, but its negative properties have led to a ban on the use of the substance in the United States and the European Union. In the body, it is transformed into the toxic substance cyclohexylamine.

Knowing what Maltitol is a sweetener, you can make an informed and informed decision about its use. For a long time using the substance, there were no strict contraindications, which indicates the predominance of its benefits over harm, and also that the negative consequences of its use arise mainly due to improper use.

Warning: maltitol is not the best sweetener for diabetes

One of the most popular sugar substitutes is maltitol. Due to its special properties, it confidently occupied the niche of desserts and sweet medical syrups. We will talk about him in this article.

What it is

Maltitol   (maltitol) is a polyhydric alcohol derived from different types of starch. It has the appearance of syrup or white powder.

It was first produced in the sixties in Japan.

25 less sweet than sugar. Calorie content is 2 times lower than that of sugar - 210 kcal per 100 grams.

It is well soluble in water, withstands heat treatment. Its properties are similar to sugar, which is why it has become so popular. It can caramelize and solidify. It has a pleasant sweet taste without any aftertaste, even in large quantities.

Food supplement indicated E965

Application

1. It is actively used in medicine in the production of cough syrups. Also used in the manufacture of vitamins for children, and lozenges for the treatment of throat diseases.
2. It is used in the food industry as a universal sugar substitute. Due to its low calorie content and relatively low, it is added to many dietary and diabetic foods.

Terms of use   maltitol and possible harm

The daily intake of maltitol is 90 grams.

Moreover, it is very popular, and is found in many products. There is a real risk of exceeding this norm. Therefore, in many countries, packages containing maltitol indicate not only its content, but also side effects from an overdose.

In the countries of the former USSR there is no such norm, and you may not even know about the use of this sweetener. For example, many products labeled “Sugar Free” actually have maltitol. And if there is often a dietary product, then with a high probability you will get an excess of this substance.

Side effects are not very scary, but unpleasant. it laxative and flatulence.

When using natural maltitol, one should not forget that, unlike artificial sweeteners, it contains calories and carbohydrates. And its GI varies from 25 to 56. 25-35 in powder, and 50-55 in syrup. And these figures are significantly higher than that of fructose, sorbitol, xylitol and other natural sugar substitutes.

Today, one of the most popular sweeteners is maltitol, the harm and benefits of which concern many. It is this sugar substitute that is increasingly being added to many sweets for diabetics.

Diabetes Maltitol

This sweetener is made from starch, a substance found in corn or sugar. It has a sweet taste, which is 90% reminiscent of sucrose sweetness.

The sugar substitute (E95) does not have a characteristic odor; it looks like a white powder. Once in the human body, the sweetener is divided into sorbitol and glucose molecules. Maltitol is highly soluble in liquid, but it is not easy to dissolve in alcohol. This sweet food supplement is highly hydrolyzed.

The glycemic index of maltitol is 26, i.e. it is half that of ordinary sugar. Therefore, nutritionists and doctors recommend eating this sweetener for people with diabetes.

Maltitol syrup does not affect the level of glucose in the blood, due to this quality it is added to various sweets (chocolate bars), making them more affordable for diabetics. However, the benefit of this sweetener lies in the fact that it has a lower calorie content compared to other types of sugar.

Note! One gram of maltitol contains 2.1 kcal, so it is much healthier than sugar and other additives.

Due to the minimal calorie content, nutritionists advise including maltitol syrup on the menu while following different diets. Also, the benefit of maltitol is that it does not adversely affect dental health, therefore it is used to prevent caries.

Maltitol syrup is often added today in the manufacture of such sweets as:

• jam;
• candies;
• cakes
• chocolate;
• sweet pastries;
• chewing gum.

How harmful is maltitol?

Maltitol can also be harmful to human health. And despite the fact that this sugar substitute is allowed in different countries of the world, it is not worth consuming this food supplement too often.

Maltitol can be harmful only if the permissible norm is exceeded. A day you can eat no more than 90 g of maltitol. Otherwise, maltitol syrup can be harmful to health and cause flatulence and diarrhea.

Note! Maltitol has a laxative effect, therefore, in Norway and Australia on the packaging with products containing this food supplement, there is a warning inscription.

Analogs of maltitol

Sucralose is made from simple but processed sugar. This process allows you to reduce the caloric content of the supplement and reduce the ability of its influence on the concentration of glucose in the blood. At the same time, the traditional taste of ordinary sugar is preserved.

Note! Sucralose does not harm health, therefore it is recommended for children, pregnant women, overweight people and diabetics.

However, the sweetener was developed not so long ago, so its full effect on the human body has not yet been studied. Although sucralose has been popular in Canada since the 90s and for such a period of time its negative properties have not been identified.

Moreover, the doses that were used by scientists in the process of conducting experiments on animals were similar to the amount of sweetener consumed by humans for 13 years.

Cyclamate
  Maltitol, in comparison with cyclamate, is a very useful sugar substitute, despite the fact that the latter is 40 times sweeter than maltitol and several decades older.

Or E952 is very beneficial to use in the production of desserts and juices, due to the fact that it can be stored for a long time and subjected to heat treatment. But this sweetener is banned in the US and the EU, as getting into the body, it turns into a harmful substance cyclohexylamine.

The properties of this supplement have not yet been studied, therefore, in order not to harm the body, you should take no more than 21 tablets. By the way, in one combination tablet contains 4 g of saccharin and 40 mg of cyclamate.

Good day, friends! In order to always keep our blood sugar and sweet desserts under control, not to spoil our health and figure, nutritionists and chemists have come up with a lot of sugar substitutes for us. All of them differ from each other in composition, active substances and effects on the human body.

Maltitol or maltitol is a sweetener under the code number e965, we find out what its benefits and harms in diabetes, as well as its calorie content and glycemic index.

You will finally understand if you should eat sugary foods with this sugar substitute.

How to get the maltitol sweetener

The sweetener maltitol is designated in industry E 965 and is a chemical substance, a polyhydric alcohol synthesized from malt sugar (maltose), which, in turn, is produced from corn or potato starch.

Its production was started in the 60s by a Japanese company. It was in the country of the Rising Sun that the production process was developed and a patent for it was obtained.

The taste is very similar to sucrose and almost does not have additional shades.

Maltitol is produced in several forms: it is found both in the form of syrup and in the form of powder. In neither case is it odorless and readily soluble in water.

The indisputable advantage of maltitol is the ability to use it in cooking, since this sweetener does not lose its properties when heated and is recognized as heat-resistant. In addition, he, like sugar, is able to caramelize. This is especially valuable for the manufacture of dragees and lollipops for diet with the addition of maltitol.

But to know for sure whether it is worth trying to use this sweetener in your daily diet, we will find out how harmful maltitol is.

Maltitol sweetener - benefits and harms

The chemical substance maltitol is broken down in the body into two of its components - glucose and sorbitol. It is not processed by bacteria in the oral cavity, and therefore does not cause tooth decay.

Calorie sweetener E 965

Maltitol E 965 has less sweetness than sugar by about 25-30%, that is, to sweeten a drink or a dish you need to add this sweetener one third more than sugar.

  In addition, the caloric content of maltitol in comparison with a number of other sweeteners is quite large.

• 210 kcal per 100 g, which is only 2 times lower than sugar.

Maltitol: glycemic and insulin index

The glycemic index (GI) of maltitol is also quite large and depends on the form of release.

• In powder, the GI ranges from 25 to 35 units.
• In syrup, GI ranges from 50 to 56 units.

In any case, it is less than sugar, but higher than fructose.

However, maltitol is absorbed much more slowly, due to which the level of glucose in the blood rises gradually, and not abruptly, which is especially important for people suffering from type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

Insulin is also produced, the insulin index is 25. Therefore, you need to think many times before eating foods with maltitol. Indeed, people with hyperinsulinemia do not need an even greater increase in insulin, and those who use insulin need to correctly calculate the dose and maintain exposure, because the dynamics of increasing blood sugar will be slower than that of sucrose.

However, in any case, it should be consumed in limited quantities: diabetics should calculate their individual dose with a doctor, and healthy people should remember that in large quantities maltitol has a laxative effect.

And if the patient’s chocolate on maltitol may not pass noticeably for sugar level, then for a person with type 1 diabetes this carbohydrate must be taken into account and insulin is poked on it, otherwise wait for high sugar in a couple of hours. And people with excess weight do not need extra calories.

I want to immediately warn that most of the chocolates sold in large supermarkets that say “No Sugar” or “With Stevia” have maltitol or isomalt in their composition. And it can be sorbitol or xylitol or some of the synthetic sweeteners.

It’s unfortunate, but more often than not under the inscription “with stevia” lies nothing more than a successful marketing move, which you, without knowing it, willingly buy it. A proper sweetener should not increase your blood glucose and insulin levels!

Daily Intake

Still, it is not worth exceeding the consumption rate, all the more so because of its culinary properties, maltitol is added to a wide variety of products and you can meet it even where you are not waiting - we carefully read the label!

• The daily norm is 90 g per day.

For example, in the United States, some European countries, and Australia, a warning about the laxative properties of maltitol is mandatory.

Maltitol in medicines WITHOUT sugar

I want to draw your attention to the active use of maltitol syrup in the pharmaceutical industry. All medicines, whether liquid, in tablets or dragees, on the packaging of which is written “WITHOUT sugar”, actually contain sodium saccharin and / or maltitol syrup and / or isomalt.

I agree that this is certainly better than with sugar, but still you need to be aware. All medicinal syrups with a sweet taste contain one or another sweetener. For example, baby panadol or nurofen. Various dragees and lozenges, for example sugar-free strepsils, also contain maltitol or another sweetener.

Maltitol has been permitted in Europe since 1984, and today in the United States, Russia and several other countries. In any case, buying a sweetener Maltitol, do not forget about the sense of proportion and be sure to carefully read the composition of the products on the labels.

We must always take care of our health - remember this and be healthy!

With warmth and care, endocrinologist Dilara Lebedeva

Maltitol (maltitol) is a substance of a purely artificial nature of origin, which appears under the classification code E 965 among food additives and is a vivid representative of the subgroup of sweeteners.

Its level of health hazard is minimal, that is, it is practically absent.

Maltitol, due to this, is sold freely and acts not only as an additive to food products in their production, but also as a substitute for regular sugar.

Origin:artificial

Danger:minimum level;

Synonymous names:E 965, maltitol, maltitol syrup, maltitol, maltitol syrup, maltitol, maltitol, hydrogenated maltose, hydrated maltose, maltitol, palatinit, hydrogenated maltose, maltitol syrup.

general information

Chemically, maltitol is a polyhydric alcohol, which is obtained by synthesizing malt sugar or maltose obtained in turn from potato or corn starch.

For the first time this process was carried out in the middle of the last century in Japan. And then a patent was bought around the world.

This additive can be produced in several forms: syrup, powder. In any form, E 965 has an intense sweet taste, high solubility in aqueous media, heat resistance (does not lose properties when heated), high resistance to fatty environments and moderate solubility in alcohol.

And yet, maltitol in comparison with sugar has less sweetness by about 25-30%. This means that to give the dish the right taste, its dosage should be increased by a quarter of the usual dosage of sugar. E 965 also has a significantly reduced caloric value in comparison with sugar and glucose, this fact makes it applicable to.

Effect on the body

In the body, maltitol is cleaved into two components - sorbitol and glucose. In the oral cavity, it can not be processed by bacteria, and therefore does not cause.

Harm

Maltitol has a laxative property. Therefore, on the labels there is often a limitation for its use in its pure form - no more than 90 g per day.

Otherwise, this supplement has no harmful effect on the human body.

Benefit

The beneficial quality of maltitol is its ability to completely replace sugar in food. Therefore, it is widely used in the industry of diabetic products.

Using

Maltitol is used in such products as bakery, pastry, jelly, marmalade, fruit glazing, dried fruits, soft drinks, caramel, chewing gum, dragees, and chocolate.

This supplement helps reduce the calorie content of foods and makes them suitable for diabetics.

In addition to food production, maltitol is used in pharmacology.

Legislation

Since 1984, this type of additive is allowed to be used in food production in Europe. It is allowed today in Ukraine, and in the Russian Federation, and in the United States of America, and in a number of other countries.