Sugar Alcohols Keep Getting Sweeter

Sugar Alcohols Keep Getting Sweeter
byHarlee Sorkin

Thepromise of a reduced waistline has seen nutritional trends come and go, eachtrend leaving in its wake countless winners and losers. Most recently, the surgeby food and beverage makers to offer low carbohydrate versions of their mostpopular products has yielded its own bounty. Non-nutritive sweeteners arearguably the biggest winners of the bunch. Artificial sweeteners like saccharineand aspartame have been part of American diets for decades, while Acesulfame K(Ace-K) and sucralose are more recent additions. Of late, sugar alcohols havemade significant headway. Sugar alcohols, also called polyols or reduced sugars,are produced from sugars and display similar characteristics. Not only do theysweeten, they also exhibit bulking properties and similar functionality whenused in food preparation. Exact caloric content varies among sugar alcohols, butgenerally results in about one-third fewer calories for the same sweetness.

The most common sugar alcohols are sorbitol, mannitol,maltitol and xylitol; sorbitol is the least expensive and makes up more thanhalf of the estimated $1.3 billion global market.

Like all significant nutritional trends, sugar alcohols arenot without their share of controversy. They have become very widely used in arelatively short period of time. Much of the concern surrounds the use ofsorbitol.

Like other sugar alcohols, sorbitol is known to causegastrointestinal (GI) distress when consumed in large quantities. Little or nobenefit is claimed beyond calorie reduction. Sorbitol is derived from glucosevia a chemical hydrogenation process.

Mannitol is a naturally occurring sugar alcohol made bylactobacillus. For commercial use, however, it is produced by chemicalhydrogenation of fructose. Maltitol is produced from high maltose corn syrup.Xylitol, which is made naturally by microbes such as yeast, is producedcommercially from xylose.

Applications for sugar alcohols vary from food andconfectionary to oral care and pharmaceutical. Each product has specificattributes that are important in their specific applications. For example,mannitol is used as a pharmaceutical excipient because of its lowhygroscopicity. And xylitol has a cooling effect and potential dental healthbenefits that makes it ideal for gums, candies and other oral care products.

Sorbitol is widely used as a sweetener in oral products suchas gum, toothpaste and mouthwash; however, sorbitol actively supports the growthof bacteria that are known to cause cavities. In contrast, sugar alcohols suchas mannitol and xylitol are known to be non-cariogenic. Xylitol may even beanti-cariogenic, helping kill the bacteria that cause cavities.

There have been some medical studies that indicate xylitol hasantimicrobial activity and can aid in the fight against ear infections inchildren.

While these studies still need to be replicated, theproperties described are consistent with past research, as the oral bacteriaresponsible for dental caries has been linked to inner ear infections. Inaddition, xylitol appears to have improved GI tolerance.

Another health benefit is that sugar alcohols such as xylitolare metabolized independently of insulin. As such, they have a lower glycemicindex resulting in a reduced insulin response so they can be used as sweetenersin diabetic products.

Even with all the potential benefits of xylitol, there are anumber of factors that currently keep its use from expanding in the UnitedStates. First, it remains relatively expensive as a sweetener. Even if thehealth benefits were more widely known, the price of products made with xylitolwould still limit its market. Second, the production of xylitol is currentlylimited by raw material supply. The most common source of xylose for makingxylitol is birch tree hemicellulose that has been purified by the paper and pulpindustry. In order to overcome the price and raw material barriers that limitxylitol production, a new process for production of xylitol from a cheapersource of xylose or alternative starting material must be developed.

The current market for xylitol is approximately $125 millionand growing.

Its not a leap to say that market could significantlyincrease, at the expense of sorbitol to some degree, if cost and raw materialissues were solved.

One company working in that field is Chicago-based zuChem,which has developed a fermentation process to produce mannitol, and recentlyannounced a program to do the same for xylitol.

Sugar alcohols have generated some criticism in connectionwith their growing use. This has primarily been a result of some properties ofthe widely used sorbitol and the manufacturing methods used to produce it.

Widespread use of sugar alcohols has certainly benefited fromrecent diet trends, but with advances in manufacturing of less common sugaralcohols and more tangible health or nutrition benefits from those, the use ofsugar alcohols in the food, personal care and pharmaceutical industries ispoised to expand.

Harlee Sorkin is a principal with Mentor Management LLC, aprivate equity and management consulting firm based in Champaign, Ill.