Xylitol is a natural, healthy sweetener found in a wide variety of plants.
What Is Xylitol Made From？
Xylitol can be extracted from plant raw materials such as birch, raspberry, corn cob, and bagasse. In addition, xylitol is also widely found in various fruits, vegetables, and cereals, but the content is very low.
What Does Xylitol Do To Humans?
Xylitol is an edible food additive with sweetness comparable to sucrose, but only 60% of the calories of sucrose, which can be used to replace sucrose. Xylitol is not metabolized in the body and does not raise blood sugar levels, and is a safe sweetener, nutritional supplement and adjuvant therapy for diabetics.
Xylitol does not require insulin participation at the initial time of metabolism. It can penetrate the cell membrane, be absorbed and utilized by tissues, promote liver glycogen synthesis, and supply cell nutrition and energy. However, in the later stages of metabolism, insulin promotion is required. Therefore, xylitol can not replace glucose to correct metabolic disorders, nor can it reduce blood sugar and urine glucose, and improve clinical symptoms.
How Xylitol Helps Teeth？
Another advantage of xylitol is its anti-caries effect.
Xylitol is not only not fermented into harmful plaque by bacteria in the mouth, but also inhibits the growth of streptococcus, effectively reducing tartar and caries. Especially to make it into chewing gum, people in the chewing, will be stimulated to secrete saliva, saliva more can not only flush the mouth, teeth in the bacteria, but also can increase saliva and caries spots at the concentration of alkaline amino acids and ammoni. According to this characteristic, chewing gum and confectionery with xylitol as the main sweetener have been officially recognized by 6 national dental care associations.
Xylitol Side Effect
Clinical experiments have shown that xylitol can not treat diabetes, and eating too much xylitol and increasing triglycerides in the blood can cause coronary atherosclerosis. Therefore, diabetics should not consume more xylitol.
From the physical and chemical properties, xylitol is not easy to be decomposed by pegastric enzymes and directly enter the intestine, if excessive consumption will have a certain stimulating effect on the stomach, but also may cause abdominal discomfort, flatulence.