Benefits of Xylitol

Video Transcript

"My name is Christine Marquette, and I'm a registered dietitian with The Austin Regional Clinic, and I'm going to talk to you about the benefits of xylitol. Xylitol is actually a naturally occurring substance that's found in some different fruits and vegetables, but it has also been used most recently as a sugar substitute. It can actually be created as a synthetic sugar alcohol, and it has a wide range of benefits. One of the benefits is that it has a lot fewer calories with a lot more intense sweetness than sugar actually does. So, for somebody who is practicing weight management, or who's working on losing weight xylitol can be a good sugar substitute. In addition, xylitol is often used in gum, because it actually has been shown to reduce the risk of cavities. The way this works is that you would need to chew a stick of gum that contained xylitol after each of your meals. This will allow you to ingest roughly about five grams of xylitol, and this is a amount that would be beneficial for reducing dental caries. So, xylitol has several good benefits. As far as use as a sugar substitute it often can be found in different products such as ice cream that has no sugar added, or cookies, or pastries, or anything like that that is considered sugar free will often contain xylitol as a sugar substitute. So, those are some of the benefits of xylitol."