Sugar substitutes: reasons and indications for their use.

Sugar alcohols such as sorbitol, xylitol, maltitol and hydrogenated starch and other sweeteners having more than one hundred times the sweetening power of sucrose, such as stevioside and thaumatin, are currently used as less or non-cariogenic sugar substitutes. A new product, coupling sugar, has been developed which is a sugar mixture of monosaccharides, glucosyl-sucrose, oligosaccharides and oligosaccharides terminated at the reducing end by sucrose. Its sweetness is between 55 and 65 per cent of that of sucrose. Coupling sugar has a sweet quality resembling that of sucrose and possesses its advantages as a food being both easily digested and a ready source of energy. Two coupling sugar preparations of different sugar composition (CSCP and CSSF) and maltosylsucrose, one of the main ingredients of coupling sugar, were studied to examine their cariogenicities as substrates both in vitro and in vivo. It was shown that, compared with sucrose, these substances were definitely low in cariogenic action. No deleterious effects of its use have been found. In Japan, coupling sugar is widely employed in the manufacture of candies, cookies, chocolates etc.