Title: Alternative Sweeteners

Crystalline Fructose 381
individuals (25). Short-term studies have now shown that substitution of fructose
for sucrose in the diets of individuals with diabetes improves glycemic control;
long-term effects are still inconclusive (26).
D. Food Intake
To test the effect of fructose on appetite, Moyer and Rodin fed subjects a pudding
meal containing a test sugar (fructose or dextrose), milk protein, and lipid. Subjects
were subsequently offered unrestricted access to a buffet meal and food
choices were recorded. When the pudding was sweetened solely with fructose,
subjects consumed significantly less energy in the buffet meal than when it was
sweetened with glucose. When pudding was sweetened with more than one test
sugar, however, responses to fructose and dextrose did not differ significantly.
Thus, fructose shows promise in controlling food intake when used as the sole
carbohydrate sweetener in a meal (27).
E. Physical Performance
Athletes have long used dietary supplements in an effort to sustain peak physical
performance. Although much of the data concerning fructose supplementation is
contradictory, fructose feeding before or during exercise can enhance performance
under certain conditions. Fructose intake before exercise appears to spare
muscle glycogen by elevating liver glycogen, thereby prolonging activity. In addition,
good evidence suggests that the addition of fructose supplementation during
ultraendurance events can improve performance by 126% (28). As indicated
earlier, gastrointestinal discomfort created by intake of large amounts of fructose
in the absence of glucose can hinder athletic performance. Because absorption
capacity varies widely in the general population, the benefits of fructose will also
vary from one athlete to another. Future research will refine the role fructose can
play in enhancing athletic performance.
F. Glycemic Effect
Jenkins et al. determined the effect of 62 commonly eaten foods and sugars fed
to groups of human volunteer subjects. They constructed a glycemic index, defined
as ‘‘the area under the blood glucose response curve for each food expressed
as a percentage of the area after taking the same amount of carbohydrate as
glucose’’ (29). Table 6 reports the glycemic index for several sweeteners and
foods relative to glucose, which is assigned a value of 100.
These glycemic values suggest that simple diabetic carbohydrate exchanges
based on carbohydrate content may not, in fact, be an accurate predictor of physiological
response. A clinical comparison of orally administered fructose, sucrose,