Sarah Howard
Sarah Howard (nee Tackett) has dedicated her career to supporting the T1D community ever since she was diagnosed with T1D while in college in May 2013. Since then, she has worked for various diabetes organizations, focusing on research, advocacy, and community-building efforts for people with T1D and their loved ones. Sarah is currently the Senior Manager of Marketing at T1D Exchange.
Sarah and her husband live in NYC with their cat Gracie. In her spare time, she enjoys doing comedy, taking dance classes, visiting art museums, and exploring different neighborhoods in NYC.
I am trying to get away from any artificial sweetener, but it is not easy. Using mostly Stevia now.
only have problems if something contains sorbitol which I try to completely avoid.
I rarely use products with sugar alcohols because I do not like the taste or the digestive upset.
I used to try to eat sugar free chocolate candy. But, no more due to the gastro effects. Really bad gas and diarrhea hours after eating. It’s just not worth it.
I feel your pain. Fellow IBS-D sufferer here! A lot of those candies just aren’t worth it. And later in life I found out that chocolate itself can have a laxative effect, especially if one has already consumed too many FODMAPs.
I avoid all sugar alcohols as much as possible.
1) they raise my BG quickly, at about half the rate of dextrose.
2) the digestive pain isn’t worth it. I can tolerate about 8g max.
Glad I have no trouble. I do have trouble with too many carbs!!
I’m unsure, I know excessive amounts can have a laxative effect. However my husband can not tolerate Maltitol at all, even in small quantities it does this to him.
None
I never consume them because they do cause digestive problems.
I do not intentionally consume sugar alcohols, but I do not regularly check for them. However, I do not typically experience any digestive side effects after meals or snacks.
I try to avoid them, in off the off chance that some get by my attention, I known about it in a couple hours. It not worth it.
Not at all. I consider them a wonder food for diabetics. I do worry a bit about the artificial colors since I use them to flavor the large amounts of water that I need to consume daily.
I marked yes because if I drink or eat anything with these ingredients and I’m not careful about keeping it minimal, it will have very disastrous side effects! So I avoid them with great diligence!
It depends on the sugar alcohol. I am fine with erythritol, but have issues with xylitol and sorbitol.
Same! Do you have IBS?
I learned very quickly that anything with sugar alcohol in it was to be avoided because of the almost instant gastric upset. Now I try very hard to avoid all artificial sweetners of any kind.
Most of the “-ols” are FODMAPs. Erythritol is one of the exceptions. It doesn’t flare my IBS-D like the other sugar alcohols do. I try to stay away from the other -ols.
I don’t eat enough in quantity to notice any effect