Does Rare Sugar Influence Dietary Intake

Abstract

Background: Rare sugars are considered possible replacements for traditional sugars due to the global spread of obesity and diabetes. These rare sugars are mono, and disaccharides exist naturally with slightly differing chemical structures than common sugars. For instance, D-tagatose and L-arabinose have been hypothesised to inhibit intestinal sucrase activity, delay sucrose digestion, and suppress glycaemic response. However, it is unknown whether these rare sugars affect food intake or not. Objective: The current study aims to investigate the effects of tagatose and arabinose on energy, carbohydrates and protein intake and to examine the correlation between energy and carbohydrate consumption, as well as between energy and protein intake among various samples. Method: A secondary data analysis, a double-blind placebo-crossover study, was conducted on 12 healthy participants divided into six groups. Participants in Group A received high-dose tagatose, Group B received half sucrose as(control), Group C received high-dose arabinose, Group D received full sucrose, Group E took Low-dose tagatose, and Group F took Low-dose arabinose for 8 to 10 weeks. All sweet creams contained the same level of fat (14.29g), with the full sucrose sample containing (35.72g) and the control half sucrose containing (21.43g). The remaining samples had varying grams of arabinose and tagatose added to (21.43g) of sucrose. A 24-hour food diary was analysed after the participants recorded their intake for the rest of the day until midnight of the study visit. Results: The consumption of rare sugars has no significant effect on energy intake, carbohydrates, and protein (P> 0.05). Upon correlation, it was observed that there was a strong positive association between energy and carbohydrate intake in all groups (p<0.05) except for low tagatose, which showed a modest, insignificant negative correlation (r= -0.76; p=0.245). Similarly, all samples had a strong positive correlation between energy and protein intake except for the low-tagatose sample, which showed a positive but insignificant association (p=0.260)

Conclusion: Although there was no significant effect on food intake, further clinical research is needed to determine if rare sugar is an effective alternative sweetener for healthy and diseased individuals.