Diabetes: Two types of sugar substitutes are available

The Scoop on Sugar Substitutes

Scoop on Sugar Substitutes It’s a myth that people with diabetes can’t eat any sugar. You can have foods and drinks sweetened with sugar if you work them into a smart eating plan that takes all your carbohydrates into account. Having too many sweets can push blood sugar out of your target range, however, so sugar substitutes are sometimes a good way to satisfy your sweet tooth while maintaining good control.

Two types of sugar substitutes are available:

Non-caloric sweeteners. These artificial sweeteners contain no calories and no carbohydrates, and they do not raise blood sugar levels. They are used to sweeten beverages, desserts, and candies. Some but not all can be used in cooking and baking. Non-caloric sweeteners include aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), saccharin (Sweet’N Low, Sweet Twin, and Necta Sweet), acesulfame K (Sunett and Sweet One), neotame (not yet marketed under a brand name), and sucralose (Splenda).

Some people with diabetes believe that artificial sweeteners do raise their blood sugar, but there is no research showing this, according to Christine Gerbstadt, M.D., R.D., C.D.E., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association (ADA). If blood sugar jumps after you eat an artificially sweetened food, the culprit may be other ingredients in the food, such as caffeine, carbohydrates, or protein. Even stress can hike blood sugar.

Reduced-calorie sweeteners. These sweeteners are known as sugar alcohols, even though they contain no alcohol. Although they are made by chemically altering natural sugar, they are metabolized very differently. They do contain carbohydrates and some calories, although less than real sugar. They are found primarily in packaged foods such as cookies, gum, and candy. Reduced-calorie sweeteners include sorbitol, mannitol, lactitiol, maltitol, xylitol, isomalt, erythritol, and hydrogenated starch hydrolysates.

Sugar alcohols do raise blood sugar, and the American Diabetes Association recommends subtracting half of the sugar alcohol grams when you compute a food’s total carbohydrate count. For example, if a cereal bar has 6 grams of sugar alcohol and a total of 15 grams of carbohydrates, you would count it as 12 grams of carbohydrates (15 - 3 = 12).