Clinical Trial on the Glycemic Response to SweetPearl Maltitol

The objective was to establish whether feeding identical foods to 3 ethnically different groups of people, living in the same country, elicits similar or dissimilar GR values.

5/20/2011 --- A recent clinical trial has demonstrated that there are no differences in glycemic response*(GR) to SweetPearl maltitol between different ethnic groups.

Maltitol, as all polyols, is a non cariogenic sugar substitute that reduces the glycemic index (GI) of a product. The role of GI has been studied for about 25 years. Low GI diet seems to be linked to the management or prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. However, as studies on GR have been confined to Caucasian subjects, differences might exist between different ethnic populations.

A study was therefore conducted with Pr. Jeya Henry and his colleagues from Oxford Brookes University to explore this question. The results have just been published in Nutrition Research.

The study compared the GRs of healthy Chinese (10), Caucasian (10) and South Indians (10) to low-GI (maltitol) and high-GI (glucose) drinks. The objective was to establish whether feeding identical foods to 3 ethnically different groups of people, living in the same country, elicits similar or dissimilar GR values. Each drink contained 50 g of maltitol or glucose. Each subject consumed one drink in the morning and blood samples were taken and analyzed.

No significant differences appeared in the blood glucose values between the different ethnic groups, neither with glucose nor with maltitol drink. Results were in line with previous studies showing that the GR of maltitol was 29% of the GR of glucose.

In conclusion, the glycaemic response to maltitol is the same whatever the ethnic origin. This supports the view that calculation of GI is not affected by ethnic differences and justifies the use of subjects of diverse populations in GI testing of newly developed food products.

* Glycemic response was recognized by the 2005 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee as the effects of carbohydrate-containing foods on blood glucose concentration during the time course of digestion. This definition is less standardized than that of the Glycemic Index (GI) where 50g of available carbohydrate has to be administrated. That is why GR is often used when the bioavailability of carbohydrates is low.