Net Carbs & Sugar Alcohols

I was talking to a fellow DSer yesterday who was asking me how to read labels & brought up the sticky subject of net carbs & sugar alcohols.  I gave her what I thought was a right answer, but realized I really wasn't sure & so I did some google searches & found the following.  In a nutshell, sugar alcohols have the rightful label of not impacting blood sugar in the same way that regular sugar (sucrose) does.  However, it does have an impact in the majority of those who consume them, it just takes longer for it to affect your blood sugar (which means some IS absorbed) than regular sugar.  I found one site that's devoted to low carbing with diabetics in mind that explained this.  Here's a link:
http://www.phlaunt.com/lowcarb/19059967.php


I then found a study that measured the amout of sugar & different forms of sugar alcohols in output (poop, or effluence is I think how they termed it, how regal sounding! hehe) following intake in a controlled environment.  There weren't that many people in the study, but since it was just measuring an output vs making comparisons among groups, it doesn't matter as much, though more would always be better.  They found significantly lower levels in the subject's poop than what they had consumed, which means they DID absorb most of it.  The figures are in stats terms with SEM = standard error of measurement.  The take home numbers are the double digit ones that proceed the single digit SEM #'s.  Here's a link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2379777


So, what do I think about all of this?  Perhaps this helps to explain some of the variability that we see on this board in terms of how many carbs someone can eat & still lose weight vs some others who seemingly can't eat many carbs at all in order to still lose weight.  Don't get me wrong, I think there's individual variables, period, but I also suspect that this is one sizeable variable that may help to explain this seemingly wide range.  If someone routinely eats sugar free stuff with sugar alcohols & thus aren't counting any of those sugar alcohols despite the fact that they actually are absorbed (it just takes longer), then they actually are potentially consuming a lot more carbs than they think they are.  Someone else could be doing the more old-fashioned style of atkins where they're really just eating a lot of NATURALLY high protein/ low carb products & are actually absorbing & consuming the amount they think they are &, I suspect, probably are losing more weight given their total carbs vs the net carbs involved with sugar alcohols.

Fiber is still safe to take away from total carbs, though I'm not sure what's the difference, if any, between soluble & insoluble in terms of our absorption.

What do you all think of that snafu???

You're right on the money, here, Lisey, and it's something I've tried to communicate to the boards a few times.   How much we actually absorb from sugar alcohols varies from person to person.    I try to be pretty  judicious about my sugar alcohols for that reason (plus they give me awful gas!)   Hey, I wonder if there is a connection between how they affect our digestive tract to how much we absorb?  Like the more gas the more we absorb?  Or the less?   Interesting research topic.
I sometimes find I'm better off eating a lower sugar product without sugar alcohols.  Also, I've read that erythritol (which is in Truvia) does not have this same variable impact on blood sugar levels (and intestinal absorption). 

You guessed right on a couple of things according to those links.  They believe that the more gas you get, the less you are absorbing, but that's just an educated guess.  It does make sense to me, but on the other hand, with our surgery we're not absorbing complex carbs & yet some of those give us more gas, depending on the person.  They theorized that there's a genetic component to how much any one person can absorb from the sugar alcohols.

In the study link, it did find that erythritol was absorbed the least vs the other sugar alcohols tested.

Yee Hawwww!    I must not absorb them at all then, cause more than one-two pieces of sugar free anything makes me blow up like a nickle balloon, LOL.

I think for us erythritol is still variable - for me it's just as bad (diarrhea for at least a day...like the peeing out of your butt kind) as other sugar alcohols.  But I'm also sensitive to any sugar replacements.  I was SO excited to try erythritol, too.

I've been wanting to try agave but have been hesitant for this reason.

Agave is just fructose. Great stuff!!  Wonderful flavor in greek yogurt.  Too bad we absorb 100% of it.

Hugs,
Ratkity

LOL @ Pee out your butt kind. 

Hi Lisey,

I wish I was as smart as you!!!!  I've been MIA but trying to reconnect with OH.  Yours and my anniversary are coming up.  No complaints here.  I'm so lucky.  Nothing bothers me most of the time.  I've been at 22 bmi for quite a while now so I'm happy about that.  I sure do look like a Shar Pei dog though with no clothes on.  I've started Pilates and exercising more but loose skin is loose skin I think!!  Dar

Ah, shucks, Dar!  

I'm glad to hear that you're doing so well!!  Unfortuantely, I also know what you're talking about with the loose skin, especially in my lower abs    I HATE how it looks.  It must & will go, probably not for a few yrs due to $$ issues . . . unless I win the lottery, that is!

Honestly, I'm not even sure if there's any visible effects from exercising on loose skin.  I know it helps to build more vascular/ blood connections, which is believed to help, but *****ally knows??  What it will help is in a couple of very select areas in a very small way - let's say you have some moderate excess arm skin & (especially for guys) you start lifting a lot of weights & build up a lot of muscle.  The larger muscle will again help to fill up some of the excess skin, but there's only so much that can help.

This is one of the very few places I would admit this to, but the fact that I am single & dating & have a pretty face typically means that I can date pretty attractive guys, BUT, um, what about down the line if/ when I want to be intimate?  What are they expecting based on my face?  This is a HUGE insecurity of mine & I HATE how my tummy looks.  Unfortunately, it's become apparent in the last 20-30 pounds that I'm going to have similar (though not AS bad) issues with this on the back of my hips/ above my butt & inner thigh.  On the flip side, I argue to myself that if I'm up front about having had WLS, which inevitably leads to the Q & A on how much wt have you lost, then any reasonably intelligent person should figure out that my body isn't what it would otherwise be had I never been overweight.

SIGH . . . . we all have our issues in our own ways, I guess

Great post. I knew from experience that for me, most of the low carb claims were simply, er, not true--the carbs would eventually show up in my blood sugar, especially from products like Dreamfields. Guess that's a gift of not having any insulin except what comes from my pump, you know when some food claims are complete bunk!

Now the fiber thing--I learned a while back that if there are less than 3 g of fiber per serving, you shouldn't subtract the fiber from the carb total. If there are more than 3g of fiber per serving, you do. That rule works for me, blood-sugar wise, so I'll throw it out there for others who don't have the wonderful blood sugar lens to see these effects. That's probably why I don't see much if any blood sugar effect from nuts. God bless their fibrous little hearts!