hey everyone and this is want to talk
about the metabolism and absorption of
sugar substitutes or artificial
sweeteners so this would be a quick
lesson on many of the common sugar
substitutes we see in our day to day
lives so the first one I want to talk
Aspartame
about is aspartame aspartame is kind of
the very well-known sugar substitute it
is also known as NutraSweet it is about
200 times sweeter than sucrose and it’s
metabolized in the gastrointestinal
tract and its products of its metabolism
are actually absorbed in the GI tract
and one of those products is aspartic
acid so if you look at the structure of
aspartic acid here you can see that it
is the same structure that I’m circling
right now so this is the aspartic acid
portion of aspartame now another portion
of aspartame that gets released is
phenylalanine phenylalanine is a amino
acid and you can see here that this
structure here is phenylalanine and
phenylalanine is important because a lot
of times with individuals with
phenylketonuria
they have difficulties
metabolizing phenylalanine so this is
important to know that phenylalanine is
a product of aspartame metabolism and
another product of aspartame metabolism
is methanol methanol is actually very
interestingly a toxic compound that we
normally don’t want to ingest but is in
fact actually a product of aspartame
metabolism it’s in small amounts but it
is important to recognize that it is
also a product of aspartame metabolism
some other common sweeteners include
Other Common Sweeteners
stevia side or stevia all these are just
other names for stevia and stevia is
also a artificial sweetener that you can
commonly see in many dietary foods as
well so
stevia side or stevia or stevia actually
is a plant-based compound from the
stevia rebaudiana rebaudiana plant i’m
probably mispronouncing is quite badly
but this compound is 300 times sweeter
than sucrose and what is special about
this compound is that it is not absorbed
at all so if it’s not absorbed we
actually don’t get any metabolism of it
and we don’t get any calories from this
compound now another compound that is
common is cyclamate this is also known
as sugar twin now sugar twin is about 50
times sweeter than sucrose and it is not
completely absorbed it is slightly
absorbed but not completely and it is
not metabolized at all so this is
another very important compound because
it is not metabolized at all and again
since it’s not metabolized it is not
actually contributing to any calories in
and of itself
now another compound is sucralose
sucralose is also known as or it’s
trademarked name is Splenda and most of
sucralose is not absorbed and the rest
of it is not metabolized so this is
again very important as it is not going
to contribute to calories in and of
itself and it it’s self is about 600
times sweeter than sucrose and another
sweetener that we can see in different
parts of the world is asus cell fame
potassium this is also known as sweet
one or e95 zero and this is about 200
times sweeter than sucrose and it itself
can be metabolized and degraded to
acetyl acid’ amide so these are some of
the common sweeteners we see in our day
to day lives now
important points to note about these
compounds are that many of them do not
contribute calories in and of themselves
but they may have some other unintended
effects for instance there has been some
ongoing research as to whether some of
these compounds can affect our
intestinal bacteria or our gut flora and
this could lead to changes in our
intestinal absorption metabolism of
other foods and nutrients so it’s
important to wait for future research to
see whether some of these compounds
affect our intestinal bacteria now some
Sugar Alcohols
of the other artificial sweeteners that
we can see are sugar alcohols these are
naturally occurring they contain fewer
calories and sugars but they still
contain calories and they are non
cariogenic which means that they do not
cause truth decay or cavities now one of
them is sorbitol sorbitol is a sugar
alcohol you can see that there are many
hydroxyl groups attached to this
compound in sorbitol itself is about
half as sweet as sucrose it has a low
absorption from the GI tract
it is hyperosmotic which means that it
can pull water toward it and it can lead
to a laxative effect if you’re consuming
a lot of sorbitol it can actually cause
diarrhea due to its hyperosmotic effects
in importantly sorbitol is metabolized
to fructose by the enzyme sorbitol
dehydrogenase in the polly little
pathway so that’s why sorbitol actually
can contribute some calories because of
its metabolism to fructose fructose can
then be broken down into fruit pollicis
pathway another sugar alcohol that we
commonly see is xylitol xylitol is
similar to sucrose in its sweetness it
has low absorption from the GI tract
like sorbitol
and it itself is metabolized and
processed in the pentose phosphate
pathway in the last sugar alcohol we’re
going to talk about is erythritol
erythritol
its trade name is Truvia and it’s about
half as sweet as sucrose and it has
significantly less calories than
sorbitol and xylitol and the reason is
is because it is absorbed but does not
become metabolized so this is a big
reason why it is doesn’t contribute as
many calories so these are the sugar
alcohols and really the only difference
between each of these sugar alcohols is
the amount of carbons each one has
sorbitol has six carbons one two three
four five six
exotic tall has five carbons one two
three four five and erythritol has four
carbons one two three four so this is
only this is really the only difference
between these sugar alcohols and this
can alter their absorption and
metabolism accordingly so anyways guys I
hope you found this lesson helpful this
was a quick lesson on the metabolism and
absorption of sugar substitutes if you
found this lesson helpful please like
and follow for more blogs like this
one and as always thank you so much for
Reading and I’ll see you next time .