chemrox - 22-4-2007 at 08:45
I found no reported side effects from this sugar. It is antibiotic to harmful oral bacterias as well as some other pathogens. It has been made from
wood. I want to understand it better because my wife and I both experienced GI upset after converting to it from sucrose. I'm wondering what might
be in it besides the sugar.
Nicodem - 22-4-2007 at 09:52
But how sure you are your GI upset was due to xylitol? Perhaps it was some other food you ate togheder.
Xylitol is officially not even a sugar but a polyol, an alcohol with several OH groups: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol
Eclectic - 22-4-2007 at 14:46
Sorbitol and xylitol can be laxitives in high doses...
[Edited on 4-22-2007 by Eclectic]
chemoleo - 22-4-2007 at 15:24
and you can safely include erythritol in this list.
It's for a similar reason polyethylene glycol is used for clearing your GI tract - it flushes eveyrthing out due to osmotic action. Glucose/sucrose
would act the same way (laxative) were it not absorbed and *digested* further up in the duodenum. If you couldnt digest Glucose/starch you'd of course
have a very serious problem, and never live to experience the laxative effects thereof!
UnintentionalChaos - 22-4-2007 at 16:51
Doing a brief internet search, I found the following. Xylan is a polysaccharide (much like cellulose) present in the cell walls of plants. Hydrolysis
of xylan yields xylose, just as hydrolyzing cellulose gives glucose. It looks like the xylose is then converted to xylitol mainly by biosynthetic
methods (like sucrose->Citric acid using Penicillin Mold). The source of the xylan looks to be either hardwoods or corn in industry.
chemrox - 23-4-2007 at 00:22
right and after another search I found the only side effects in humans are the GI upset, diahrea we experienced. thanks all. btw to those who asked,
we knew xylitol was the most likely agent by eliminating other variables and then xylitol to see what would happen. I guess its like vit C .. good
stuff but one has to get adjusted .. O and keep it from dogs!
[Edited on 23-4-2007 by chemrox]