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by hunson_abadeer 1063 days ago
Sugar alcohols such as xylitol and sorbitol are very unlikely to be harmful. That said, they aren't drop-in replacements. Xylitol cools down when it dissolves, so it gives some candy their trademark "cool" feeling, but it's not something you always want. Plus, when consumed in larger quantities, it has a laxative effect.
3 comments
boringuser2 1063 days ago
Feeding people laxatives isn't exactly a killer answer to this problem.

They also still contain calories that you're best off not ingesting.

I also found this study that says sugar alcohols cause blood and liver cancer.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7072169/

Alcohols generally have been abundant in our evolutionary history and are still terrible for us.

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dwaite 1063 days ago
> Feeding people laxatives isn't exactly a killer answer to this problem.

Sugar alcohols aren't laxatives. They have a laxative effect in high quantities (the line seemingly person-specific)

Ever hear someone complain after eating the entire bag of sugar-free gummy bears? [0]

0: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2JGNJ5ZPJT4YC

> I also found this study that says sugar alcohols cause blood and liver cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7072169/

That isn't what it says at all. Sugar-alcohols occur naturally in the body, and cancer affected liver metabolism to cause it to produce more than normal.

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sgerenser 1063 days ago
Well, then there’s the studies on Erythritol that was making the rounds recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34960947
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gruez 1063 days ago
>Sugar alcohols such as xylitol and sorbitol are very unlikely to be harmful

According to whom? If people are suspectful of the must studied food substances, why would they trust something that's less studied?

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hunson_abadeer 1063 days ago
Sugar alcohols are abundant in nature and have been a part of our diets for pretty much all recorded history. They are well-understood and probably don't warrant the kind of intensive inquiry that is appropriate for a completely novel synthetic compound, such as aspartame.

There are more papers on aspartame than on potatoes, but that's not a reason not to avoid the latter, right?

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