Sugar alcohols—their role in the modern world of sweeteners: a review

observed. It was mainly due to the developments in biological studies, the change of a population lifestyle and the increase in the consumer awareness concerning food products. The health quality of food depends mainly on nutrients, but also on foreign substances such as food additives. The presence of foreign substances in the food can be justified, allowed or tolerated only when they are harmless to our health. Epidemic obesity and diabetes encouraged the growth of the artificial sweetener industry. There are more and more people who are trying to lose weight or keeping the weight off; therefore, sweeteners can be now found in almost all food products. There are two main types of sweeteners, i.e., nutritive and artificial ones. The latter does not provide calories and will not influence blood glucose; however, some of nutritive sweeteners such as sugar alcohols also characterize with lower blood glucose response and can be metabolized without insulin, being at the same time natural compounds. Sugar alcohols (polyols or polyhydric alcohols) are low digestible carbohydrates, which are obtained by substituting and aldehyde group with a hydroxyl one [1, 2]. As most of sugar alcohols are produced from their corresponding aldose sugars, they are also called alditols [3]. Among sugar alcohols can be listed hydrogenated monosaccharides (sorbitol, mannitol), hydrogenated disaccharides (isomalt, maltitol, lactitol) and mixtures of hydrogenated mono-diand/or oligosaccharides (hydrogenated starch hydrolysates) [1, 2, 4]. Polyols are naturally present in smaller quantities in fruits as well as in certain kinds of vegetables or mushrooms, and they are also regulated as either generally recognized as safe or food additives [5–7]. Food additives are substances that are added intentionally to foodstuffs in order to perform certain technological functions such as to give color, to sweeten or to help in food preservation. Abstract Epidemic obesity and diabetes encouraged the changes in population lifestyle and consumers’ food products awareness. Food industry has responded people’s demand by producing a number of energy-reduced products with sugar alcohols as sweeteners. These compounds are usually produced by a catalytic hydrogenation of carbohydrates, but they can be also found in nature in fruits, vegetables or mushrooms as well as in human organism. Due to their properties, sugar alcohols are widely used in food, beverage, confectionery and pharmaceutical industries throughout the world. They have found use as bulk sweeteners that promote dental health and exert prebiotic effect. They are added to foods as alternative sweeteners what might be helpful in the control of calories intake. Consumption of low-calorie foods by the worldwide population has dramatically increased, as well as health concerns associated with the consequent high intake of sweeteners. This review deals with the role of commonly used sugar alcohols such as erythritol, isomalt, lactitol, maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol and xylitol as sugar substitutes in food industry.