L-Arabinose is a low-calorie sugar substitute that is inherently sweet. Sugar has accompanied dietary energy and food rewards throughout human history. Sugar (dopamine, serotonin, endogenous opioid peptides, etc.) can make people feel good. Therefore, sugar, as a powerful driver of food consumption, is often used to introduce new food products. As the main energy source for organisms to maintain life activities, sugar is mainly six-carbon sugars (polysaccharides such as sucrose and starch, monosaccharides such as glucose and fructose, and sugar alcohols), which have provided human beings with the main energy for thousands of years.
A diet high in sugar increases the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Restricting the sugar content of the diet and developing new energy-reducing sweeteners are effective solutions to these problems. L-arabinose is a functional sugar with a sweet taste, which has a low absorption rate in the intestinal tract and has various physiological effects.
Physiological Activity of L-arabinose
1. Regulate blood sugar
2. Regulate lipid metabolism
3. Regulate gut flora
4. L-arabinose can also be used as a precursor for the synthesis of certain drugs, such as some nucleoside drugs for the treatment of liver diseases. It has broad application prospects in the fields of food, medicine, and fine chemicals.
5. Other functions: protects the liver; alters the composition of skeletal muscle fibers; L-arabinose has an inhibitory effect on oxidative stress.
L-arabinose is mainly isolated and extracted from beet pulp, corn husk, corn cob, wheat bran, bagasse and other plants. The preparation methods mainly include acid-base hydrolysis method, enzymatic method, microorganism method and chemical synthesis method. The traditional extraction method is to hydrolyze the plant fiber with acid and alkali, and then go through a refining process such as filtration, ultrafiltration, ion exchange, concentration and crystallization. This method is relatively mature in technology, but the purification steps are relatively complicated, and a large amount of acid and alkali will be used in the production process, which is likely to cause environmental pollution. The enzymatic and microbial methods have the advantages of simple follow-up treatment, mild reaction conditions, low cost, and low pollution. Moreover, as long as efficient enzyme preparations can be obtained or strains with strong hydrolysis ability can be obtained through screening, it is easy to realize industrial production.