Allulose

Everything You Need to Know About Allulose: A Scientific Guide

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People are talking about allulose, the natural sweetener that tastes like sugar, has fewer calories, and may have other health benefits.Canva; Everyday Health

As cases of diabetes, obesity, and hypertension continue to rise, more people are looking for solutions in the form of sugar substitutes. Sugar, after all, has been linked to a number of health issues, but going cold turkey on the sweet stuff can be difficult.

One sugar substitute in particular that has been making waves is allulose. This natural, low-calorie sugar was recently approved for use in food by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a development that one industry report published in October 2023 noted was key to the $17 billion industry. Because allulose is said to offer the flavor and texture of sugar without the calories or blood sugar spike, many people see it as a promising alternative. Still, like any food or ingredient, there are reasons to be cautious. Read on to learn how allulose is made, the potential risks and benefits, and how to use it.

Common Questions & Answers

Is allulose healthier than sugar?

Allulose offers the same sweet taste and texture as sugar. Yet it packs only a fraction of the calories and doesn’t raise blood glucose (sugar) levels. This makes allulose a healthier choice than sugar.

Can you eat allulose if you have type 2 diabetes?

Is allulose keto-friendly?

What foods contain allulose?

What does allulose taste like?

What Is Allulose?

Allulose, also known as D-allulose or D-Psicose, is a natural but rare monosaccharide (simple sugar), according to the American Chemical Society (ACS). It’s found in small amounts in foods such as raisins and figs, says Brittany Poulson, RDN, CDCES, who is based in Grantsville, Utah.

While allulose is technically a natural sugar, it occurs in such small amounts (it’s considered a rare sugar) that most of the allulose sold in grocery stores and online is artificially made, Poulson notes. It was originally produced from corn, but manufacturers now create it from cellulose (the primary substance in plant cell walls), starch (a type of carbohydrate), or other byproducts, per the ACS.

Allulose is chemically similar to fructose (a sugar in fruit) and glucose (a simple sugar), however, it isn’t metabolized by the body in the same way. About 70 percent of the allulose we consume is absorbed by the small intestine, eventually leaving the body via urine within 24 hours, according to Food Insight. The remaining 30 percent passes through the large intestine and is excreted within 48 hours. Therefore, unlike other sugars, allulose has no impact on blood glucose (sugar) or insulin levels, according to a review and meta-analysis published in November 2018 in Nutrients.

Allulose also contains significantly fewer calories than sucrose (table sugar): 0.4 calories per gram (or ¼ teaspoon) in allulose compared with 4 calories per gram in table sugar, per the FDA. Yet allulose still has the sweetness of sugar, Poulson says, albeit not the same intensity.

The authors of a separate study that was also published in November 2018 in Nutrients asked 40 people to rate the intensity of 16 sweeteners, including allulose and a sucrose-allulose mixture. Participants rated allulose as less sweet than sucrose, but they found that equal amounts of sucrose and allulose mixed together were nearly as sweet as sucrose alone.

You can find allulose in small amounts in foods like figs, raisins, wheat, and maple syrup, but it’s also added to sweeten foods, according to the Calorie Control Council. In addition, you can buy allulose online and in stores.

At this point, allulose isn’t widely used in commercial products, and it’s pricier than other sweeteners, says Frank Hu, MD, PhD, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology and the chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

How Safe Is Allulose?

Allulose is generally recognized as safe by the FDA. The FDA also reviewed allulose to determine if it needed to be accounted for in the grams of total sugars or added sugars on nutrition facts labels. In May 2016, the agency stated that allulose must be declared as a sugar on nutrition facts labels. But after further review, the FDA issued updated guidance for food manufacturers in October 2020 that reversed its initial statement. Currently, food manufacturers don’t have to account for allulose in the grams of total sugars or added sugars in foods. The FDA considers allulose a carb, however, meaning it has to be included in the total carbohydrate amounts on nutrition facts labels.

Potential Benefits of Allulose

This alternative sweetener packs more than a pleasant flavor — it also offers potential benefits.

Steadier Blood Sugar

After looking over the research, the FDA concluded that allulose has no impact on blood sugar levels. But some studies suggest that allulose may help tame blood sugar spikes after eating. For example, a study published in 2021 in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care found that ingesting 10 grams of allulose dissolved in a glass of water led to a reduction in plasma glucose 30 minutes after eating 50 grams of table sugar, compared with plain water. In other words, the allulose was enough to counteract the blood sugar spike normally attributed to table sugar, researchers say. As this study included only 30 people, it’s hard to tell how allulose might affect the broader population. What’s more, the people in the study didn’t have diabetes. More research is needed to determine whether allulose offers short- or long-term benefits for people with diabetes.

Keto Compatibility

Sugar contains carbs and is a no-no for those following the ketogenic (keto) diet. The keto diet is an eating pattern that involves limiting carb intake to fewer than 20 to 50 grams per day, according to Harvard Health Publishing. Allulose is a keto-friendly sweetener, according to Ketogenic.com. While allulose is considered a carb on nutrition facts labels, it’s not metabolized in the body and contributes very few calories to the diet, notes the Calorie Control Council. For that reason, allulose may not interfere with a ketogenic eating plan.

Baking Benefits

Allulose tastes and behaves like granulated sugar, making it a good choice for baked goods and ice cream, per the Calorie Control Council. While the end result won’t be as sweet (Food Insight notes that allulose is only 70 percent as sweet as table sugar), replacing table sugar with allulose when baking will lower the calories and prevent blood sugar spikes.

Can Allulose Help With Weight Loss?

There has been a lot of controversy over the use of artificial sweeteners to aid weight loss, and in May 2023, the World Health Organization released guidelines recommending against the use of non-sugar sweeteners to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases, citing the findings of a systematic review.

Research, however, is still ongoing and has been limited to small and short-term studies in humans. Few studies have looked at allulose specifically. In one that did, 121 overweight Korean adults supplemented with a placebo, a low dose of allulose (4 grams twice a day), or a high dose of allulose (7 grams twice a day). After 12 weeks, people who supplemented with high doses of allulose saw significant decreases in body fat percentage and body fat mass compared with the low-dose and control groups, according to the results, which were published in Nutrients in February 2018. Researchers don’t know why this might be, though previous research suggests that allulose regulates fat metabolism in mice.

Risks and Side Effects of Allulose

While allulose is generally recognized as safe, it can carry side effects, mainly symptoms of gastrointestinal (GI) upset such as bloating, gas, diarrhea, and stomachache, Poulson says. In a study published in December 2018 in Nutrients, 30 adults with no chronic disease experienced severe diarrhea and GI symptoms such as bloating and nausea after ingesting 0.5 grams of allulose per kilogram of body weight in a single serving, but they had no symptoms at lesser amounts. These findings led researchers to suggest a maximum single serving of 0.4 grams of allulose per kilogram of body weight and a maximum daily total of 0.9 grams per kilogram. So a person with a body weight of 132 pounds (60 kilograms) can consume a maximum of 24 grams of allulose in a single serving and 54 grams daily. For reference, one packet of sugar — like the kind you’d add to coffee — is approximately 3 grams, per the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

People with diabetes who take insulin will want to be especially cautious, because those dosages are based on the carbohydrate content of foods. While allulose is included in the total carbohydrate content on food labels, it doesn’t affect blood sugar, which could lead someone to take more insulin than needed, causing low blood sugar. Make sure to consult your primary healthcare provider about allulose if you take insulin for diabetes.

How to Use Allulose in Recipes

Like many sugar substitutes, allulose is frequently used in baked goods. If you’re interested in using allulose to cook and bake at home, here are a few recipes featuring the sweetener:

Summary

Allulose is an alternative sweetener with the same taste and texture as table sugar. It has only a fraction of the calories and doesn’t raise blood sugar levels. While allulose is generally recognized as safe, it may cause GI upset when eaten in large amounts.

Can This Natural Sweetener Lower Blood Sugar?

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No-calorie sweeteners come with consequences, but this one may be different

Allulose is one of the few lowcalories sweeteners without serious side effects, unless you overeat it. (Andriy Blokhin/Shutterstock)

Allulose is one of the few lowcalories sweeteners without serious side effects, unless you overeat it.

Many people have a sweet tooth. For some, it can become an addiction, fueled by a food industry that continually creates an abundance of highly palatable, inexpensive, ultra-processed foods. As some companies cash in on a market for lab-created, low-calorie sweeteners, one natural sweetener may help curb your sweet tooth without raising your blood sugar.

In fact, it may have the opposite effect.

While manufacturers seek out “perfectly engineered food,” the incidence of obesity and obesity-related health conditions has skyrocketed. Type 2 diabetes is one of the obesity-related conditions that have a significant impact on many of your bodily systems.

People with diabetes have a higher risk of also having heart disease, stroke, glaucoma, kidney disease, and high blood pressure. It follows that if you could lower diabetes and obesity rates, you could reduce rates of these other conditions. That could save many people’s lives, given that heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and kidney disease are all in the top eight causes of death in the United States.

The obesity epidemic is one of the most important global public health challenges. Obesity was linked to 4.7 million premature deaths worldwide in 2017, and according to the National Diabetes Statistics Report, 34.2 million people, or 10.5 percent of the U.S. population, have diabetes. By using this sweetener, you may reduce your risk of insulin resistance, a primary symptom of diabetes.

Not All Sugar Is Created Equally

Sugar is a carbohydrate found in fruits and vegetables and added to food products. Added sugars are usually sucrose (table sugar) and high-fructose corn syrup. Evidence shows that no matter what type of sugar you’re consuming, it has a significant effect on your metabolism, even in the healthiest people. But while the sugars occurring in fruit come with nutrients we need and fiber that dulls blood sugar spikes, added sugars in processed foods pose several health risks.

Sugar hides under as many as 61 different names in 74 percent of processed food products, and while there are countless studies demonstrating the psychological and physiological consequences of sugar, this dangerous additive remains ubiquitous.

In one 12-week study, researchers found that men who ate 650 calories a day in sugar had higher levels of fat in their blood and liver. Lead researcher Bruce Griffin, Ph.D., from the University of Surrey, commented on the results saying, “Our findings provide new evidence that consuming high amounts of sugar can alter your fat metabolism in ways that could increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.”

Sugar can also affect your brain, mood, and behavior. Several studies have found an association between a rising intake of sugar and an increase in rates of depression.

Sugar stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with focus and motivation. Dopamine plays a role in many important metabolic pathways, many of which affect your mood. That’s why sugar feels so good and why manufacturers use it to drive your behavior. But, like other addictive drugs, sugar is unhealthy.

Allulose Natural Sweetener Has Unique Action on Blood Sugar

One natural sweetener option is Astrea Allulose. Although the market in Japan is significant, it’s a relatively little-known alternative sweetener in the West. Allulose is found in small quantities in some fruits such as figs, jackfruit, and raisins and was given a generally-regarded-as-safe (GRAS) food designation by the FDA.

Allulose is a monosaccharide sugar that differs from fructose only at one of the carbon atoms. This one change makes a world of difference in the way the molecule acts in the body. It’s functionally a carbohydrate and mostly absorbed in the small intestines. However, the majority of allulose is excreted by the kidneys before it’s metabolized.

This means that most of the calories you consume from allulose are excreted through your kidneys before being metabolized. It was only recently that the FDA differentiated allulose from sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup on nutrition labels. Before this, anytime it was added to a processed food, it was simply listed as an added sugar.

Therefore, there was little incentive to include allulose in products. Since allulose has 95 percent fewer calories than sucrose, the FDA allowed manufacturers to exclude it from the total and added sugar counts on nutrition labels.

In one animal study, researchers found that allulose contributes a fraction of 1 percent of the energy (calories) of sucrose.

The researchers called the energy value “effectively zero” and suggested that this “rare sugar providing zero energy … may be useful in sweeteners for obese people as an aid for weight reduction.”

In addition to contributing little to no calories, allulose elicits a physiological response in the body that may lower your blood glucose and reduce abdominal fat and fat accumulation around the liver. This may reduce the rising number of people who have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Allulose can also decrease insulin resistance and reduce the potential risk for Type 2 diabetes.

Natural Compound May Reduce Glucose With Few Side Effects

In an analysis of 40 human trials, allulose demonstrated the ability to significantly reduce after-meal insulin response, which the researchers believe leads “to modest improvements on postprandial glucose and insulin regulation.”

Another study engaged 30 people who didn’t have diabetes. They were given a loading dose of sucrose and then randomized to receive 2.5, 5, 7.5, or 10 grams of allulose. Plasma glucose and insulin levels were measured at 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes after ingestion. The researchers found that in a dose-dependent manner, allulose reduced plasma glucose and insulin levels.

In other words, allulose not only contributes very little to caloric intake or blood glucose, but also may help to improve insulin regulation. While there aren’t yet allulose-specific human studies regarding safety, animal studies have not found toxicity even at high doses.

In one nonrandomized controlled trial using 30 healthy individuals within a normal body mass index range, researchers discovered that individuals experienced gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms when the dose reached 0.4 grams per kilogram of body weight (g/kg*BW). Gastrointestinal tolerance testing didn’t indicate severe diarrhea or other symptoms until the dose read 0.5 g/kg*BW.

This means a person who weighs 160 pounds could eat 29 grams of allulose in one serving, which is equivalent to 7.25 teaspoons of sugar, without experiencing GI symptoms. For reference, a can of coke has about 9.75 teaspoons of sugar.

While there is no immediate toxic effect on the body, evidence suggests that consistent use may affect the weight of your kidneys and liver, the two organs through which the natural sweetener passes. In a study published in 2019, researchers noted that using allulose can prevent obesity, but continuous consumption may increase the weight of the liver and kidneys “without apparent pathological and functional abnormalities.”

The study investigated the potential that these parameters could change after the participant no longer consumed allulose. Using an animal model, the researchers fed allulose for four weeks and then a controlled diet without allulose for another 10 weeks. At the end of four weeks, the weights of the liver and kidney were higher, but the difference disappeared after the animals were no longer fed allulose.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup Is Worse Than White Sugar

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), aka corn sugar, is another common form of sugar found in processed foods. While it’s often cited interchangeably with fructose, HFCS and fructose are not the same. Fructose is a simple sweetener found naturally in many fruits and vegetables. HFCS, on the other hand, is artificially produced from corn, through a process that involves first turning it into corn starch and then back into a mixture of fructose and glucose.

But whether it’s simple fructose or HFCS, there is evidence to show this type of sugar causes greater damage than simple glucose or table sugar. This is because fructose doesn’t act like glucose in your body.

In one study, a group of postmenopausal overweight or obese women consumed fructose beverages with their meals for 10 weeks. The data showed that this practice increased fasting glucose and reduced insulin response. The researchers concluded that the “present results suggest that long-term consumption of diets high in fructose could lead to an increased risk of CVD [cardiovascular disease].”

Unfortunately, because HFCS is cheaper and 20 percent sweeter than regular table sugar, it’s used by many food and beverage manufacturers. Numerous studies have shown, however, that not only can it contribute to impaired glucose tolerance, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, but also HFCS can disrupt your sense of hunger and satiety.

Regarding diabetes, in one global analysis of 43 countries, researchers found that in areas where HFCS was highly available, the prevalence of diabetes was 20 percent higher. The results suggested that increased consumption of HFCS increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes, which was independent of obesity.

In another study, men and women were given a 24-ounce beverage sweetened with either HFCS or sucrose. Blood and urine samples were collected over six hours, and a variety of metabolic biomarkers were measured. The researchers found that HFCS led to significantly different acute metabolic effects compared to sucrose.

Initially, experts thought fructose would be a better choice because it has a low glycemic index. However, only the liver can metabolize fructose. And, as mentioned, consuming fructose also increases your appetite, which ultimately contributes to obesity, diabetes, and NAFLD.

The Toxic Effects of Artificial Sweeteners

Many sweeteners have side effects, and those from artificial sweeteners are more toxic than others. Research in 2008 revealed that sucralose, also known as Splenda, reduces your gut bacteria by 50 percent and increases the pH level in your intestines. A study from 2018 found that sucralose is metabolized and accumulates in fat cells.

Research published in 2016 from the Ramazzini Institute linked Splenda to leukemia. Not long after this study was published in a peer-reviewed journal, the company hired a public relations firm to dull the impact of those findings. By 2017, the market for Splenda reached $697.4 million worldwide and was projected to increase 3 percent through 2025. Most of it was sold in North America and Asia-Pacific.

It was originally hoped that artificial sweeteners would help curb cravings for sweets in people who have diabetes. Yet in one small study using healthy participants, researchers found that it took only two weeks for the noncaloric artificial sweeteners to trigger adverse effects on blood sugar levels.

A 2017 study concluded that these sweeteners actually exaggerated post-meal glucose absorption in users, “which could predispose them to developing Type 2 diabetes.”

Artificial sweeteners may also increase your risk of weight gain, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and other related problems such as Type 2 diabetes by inducing “metabolic derangements,” according to a report published in the journal Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Further research found that the artificial sweetener aspartame (NutraSweet) is associated with greater glucose intolerance in people with obesity. These are only some of the side effects of artificial sweeteners, which increase your risk of challenging health conditions and are not a safe alternative to table sugar.