I’ve been pretty fascinated by the variety of carbohydrates and their derivatives that we’ve been learning about. Amazing how mere C,H,O (N,S) can form the world of sugars that we know of.
My interest has been peaked particularly by the reduced sugars- the sugar alcohols or itols. Both sorbitol and xylitol are common ingredients in chewing gum. It turns out that these sugar alcohols taste sweet like sucrose but cannot be fermented so the bacteria in the mouth cannot use them to produce tooth corroding acid.
One can happily enjoy gum without worrying about tooth decay but not too much because, the accumulation of undigested OH rich sugar alcohols has laxative effects as a result of all the water the OH groups attract in the intestines.
I was thinking of writing about xylitol! That’s really interesting abut the laxative effects of too much chewing gum