By David Liu, PHD

Tuesday Sept 23, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- People with type 2 diabetes mellitus would be better off avoiding high intake of sugar or starchy foods that can be easily converted into sugar because they can't deal with high concentrations of glucose.  A new study suggests that xylitol can be an safe alternative to sugar, but also can be used to fight type 2 diabetes mellitus.

M.S. Islam and M. Indrajit of University of KwaZulu-Natal (Westville Campus) in Durban, South Africa published the study in Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism that showed 5-weeks of xylitol supplementation improved food and fluid intake, body weight, blood sugar, serum fructosamine, lipid profile, serum insulin concentration and glucose tolerance.

On the other hand, the xylitol supplement did not change liver weight, liver glycogen, and serum triglycerides in rats with diabetes.

For the study, researchers kept three groups of six week old male rats for five weeks, one group of normal rats and fed ordinary drinking water, one group of rats with induced diabetes and fed ordinary drinking water, and the third group of rats with diabetes but fed a 10% xylital solution.  Diabetes was induced by feeding rats a 10% fructose solution for a period of two weeks followed by an injection of streptozotocin (40 mg/kg body weight).

The researchers concluded "The data of this study suggest that xylitol can be used not only as a sugar substitute but also as a supplement to antidiabetic food and other food products."

Xylitol is available over the Internet as a dietary supplement.   Xylitol is a weetener although consumers are more likely to use table sugar, cane sugar or beet sugar, corn syrup, and high fructose corn syrup because they are cheap.

Type 2 Diabetes mellitus is believed to affect about 24 million Americans.  The disease has no cure, but can be managed.  Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to severe complications.