Sweeteners
and Drug Administration (FDA), some rare sugars are metabolised differently, including producing only very small changes in blood glucose and insulin. “Almost half of consumers are now demanding less sugar in their products so they can manage lifestyle diseases like obesity and diabetes, which are associated with the consumption of traditional sugars,” says Sreedevi Kakkad, a food and nutrition consultant at ChemBizR, a boutique business research and consulting partner for chemical companies globally. “There is an increasing demand from the consumer side for food and beverage products that have lower sugar content but can maintain a similar taste and texture profile.” Rare sugars allulose and isomaltulose so far have the most evidence from randomised controlled trials to support their benefits. “Allulose, with almost no caloric content, has been shown to reduce the postprandial glycemic response to other co-ingested carbohydrates and contributes to weight loss,” wrote John Sievenpiper, associate professor in the University of Toronto’s department of nutritional sciences, in a recent paper funded by the Institute for the Advancement of Food and Nutrition Sciences (IAFNS). The paper, which summarised the metabolic and physiological properties of five rare sugars, continued: “While isomaltulose, also known as palatinose, has the same caloric content as sugar, it has been shown to have a low glycemic index and improve insulin resistance, with possible benefits for individuals with type 2 diabetes.” Others, such as nigerose and inulin, which have been studied less, have shown probiotic benefits. The rapidly growing popularity of fermented drinks like kombucha points to consumer demand for products that contribute to improving gut health.
Manufacturing issues
One of the biggest challenges the industry faces when commercialising rare sugars, which also include fucose and cellobiose, is that they are in short supply. “While they are present in nature, their dosages are very small, so it’s challenging to extract them from these natural sources and incorporate them into food and beverage products,” Kakkad says. Commercialisation of these ingredients also requires a much deeper understanding than currently exists about how to synthesise them, a process that involves using various modified enzymes and cultures. “The research into identifying the actual group of enzymes that can work for these kinds of conversions has been very limited,” Kakkad notes. It is also not known how viable these kinds of ingredients would be in their ultimate product formulations. “You cannot simply replace traditional sugars with rare sugars because their sweetness
Ingredients Insight /
www.ingredients-insight.com
Sweeteners approved as food additives The six high-intensity sweeteners approved for food additives:
Saccharin – first discovered and used in 1879, before the current food additive approval process came into effect in 1958. Brand names include Sweet‘N Low.
Aspartame – first approved for use in 1981. Brand names include Equal. Acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) – first approved for use in 1988. Brand names include Sweet One.
Sucralose – first approved for use in 1998. Brand name is Splenda. Neotame – approved for use in 2002. Brand name is Newtame. Advantame – approved for use in 2014.
Source: FDA
intensities are different,” Kakkad explains. “In a case where you may use 1g of glucose, you may have to use 5g of the rare sugar to maintain that taste or texture of the product.”
The problem is that there will be a limiting dosage for the health benefits of rare sugars, above which they could provide negative impacts to people’s bodies. “Identifying those dosage cut off points or benchmark points above which we should limit the ingredient, needs to be extensively evaluated,” Kakkad stresses.
This would involve extensive human trials that have not yet been conducted. As Sievenpiper agreed: “If one wants to assess differences in hard clinical outcomes of clinical and public health importance such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and death, then large, randomised trials involving thousands of participants over three to ten years will be required.”
Breakthrough research
Research into the production of rare sugars may be limited, but it is progressing slowly. Kakkad has been particularly encouraged by recent discoveries made at the University of Ghent. In 2019, Professor Tom Desmet at the faculty of bioscience engineering, discovered that the sucrose phosphorylase from Bifidobacterium adolescentis (BaSP) can be used as a transglucosylase to produce rare sugar nigerose. “That was a major breakthrough because previous research had looked at synthesising nigerose from bulk sugars using a very costly solvent,” Kakkad explains. But by synthesising nigerose from sucrose and glucose efficiently, Desmet and his team have added to the inventory of rare sugars that can conveniently be produced from bulk sugars. Two years later, Swedish biotech company EnginZyme were able to use enzymes discovered by Desmet, in combination with its own technology platform, to make another breakthrough with rare sugar kojibiose, which is naturally present in honey. The kojibiose pilot took place at the Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant in Ghent, Belgium, between April and August 2021 and wanted to show the feasibility of commercial-scale production of this rare sugar.
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