Sugar With 60% Less Calories: Scientists Develop Alternative That Is As Sweet And Doesn't Spike Insulin

A new discovery may soon replace artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, stevia and xylitol. While they may have gained popularity in a health obsessed market, these sugar substitutes are increasingly being linked to side effects like brain ageing, leading to decline in cognitive skills.

Experts have now found a way to make tagatose – a sugar with about 60 percent fewer calories than table sugar, without compromising on the sweet flavour of sucrose, found in traditional sugar.

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As per initial findings, tagatose tastes 92% like sugar and has about one third of the calories that sugar contains. Moreover, the new alternative does not spike insulin levels like sucrose or high-intensity artificial sweeteners. This makes it a potentially attractive option for those with diabetes or blood glucose issues.

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Tagatose is a rare natural sweetener, found in only small amounts in some dairy products and fruits. It offers a potentially healthier option to sucrose or sugar as well as artificial sweeteners, which can both spike insulin levels. Tagatose is also considered 'tooth-friendly' unlike sucrose, which feeds certain bacteria in the mouth that contribute to tooth decay,. Instead, initial research suggests that tagatose limits the growth of harmful oral microbes.

"We developed a way to produce tagatose by engineering the bacteria Escherichia coli to work as tiny factories, loaded with the right enzymes to process abundant amounts of glucose into tagatose," Nik Nair, a researcher from Tufts University, said. According to some estimates, the tagatose market is expected to reach a value of US$250 million by 2032.