A team of researchers has created a new biosynthetic method of producing tagatose, a naturally occurring but very rare sugar similar to table sugar in terms of taste, which could offer a way to sweeten foods with fewer negative effects.
A team of scientists has created a new way to produce a rare sugar that has a almost identical taste compared to table sugar, but with much less health problems.
The result is a sweetener with fewer calories, minimal impact on blood sugar levels and potential benefits for oral and intestinal healthwhich could offer a long-sought alternative to traditional sugar.
Scientists and food companies have been trying to recreate the taste of sugar for generations. without the health problems that are associated with it.
from to saccharinin the 19th century, until more recent alternatives such as stevia and in the 21st century, the goal has been to maintain sweetness while reducing excess calories, tooth decay and the increasing risks of obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes.
Now, a team of researchers from Tufts University has reported progress in this regard. In one published in the magazine Cell Reports Physical Sciencethe team describes a new biosynthetic method to produce tagatosea sugar natural occurrence but very rare.
A in the back It is very similar to table sugar in terms of flavor and could offer a way of sweetening foods with fewer negative effects. Scientists say it could also bring additional health benefits.
Compared to common sugars like glucose, fructose and sucrosetagatose exists only in tiny amounts in nature. It appears in milk and dairy products when lactose is broken down by heat or enzymes, a process that occurs during the production of foods such as yogurt, cheese and kefir.
Small traces of tagatose They are also present in fruits such as apples, pineapples and oranges. Still, it usually represents less than 0.2% of the sugars found in these foods. Because natural sources contain so little, tagatose is typically produced through industrial manufacturing rather than being extracted directly for use.
“There are established processes to produce tagatose, but are inefficient and expensive,” he said. Nikhil Nairassociate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Tufts, and co-author of the study.
To overcome these limitations, the research team developed a new approach that relies on genetically modified bacteria.
“We developed a way to produce tagatose by genetically modifying the bacterium Escherichia coli to function like small factories, equipped with the right enzymes to process abundant amounts of glucose into tagatose”, explains the researcher, quoted by .
“This is much more economically viable than our previous approach, which used the less abundant and more expensive galactose to produce tagatose”, he adds.
The modified bacteria were designed to carry an enzyme recently discovered in mucilaginous mold known as “selective galactose-1-phosphate phosphatase” (Gal1P), which allows bacteria to convert glucose directly into galactose.
A second enzyme produced by bacteria, called arabinose isomerasethen completes the transformation to convert galactose to tagatose.
Through this process, bacteria can produce tagatose from glucose with yields reaching up to 95%. This is a significant improvement compared to conventional manufacturing methods, which typically achieve yields between 40 and 77%. The greater efficiency also makes the process much less expensive.
A tagatose provides about 92% of the sweetness of sucrosetable sugar, while containing approximately 60% less calories.
It has been classified by the FDA as “generally recognized as safe“, which means that it can be used in consumer food products. This classification is the same as that which applies to common ingredients such as salt, vinegar and baking soda.
One of the reasons why tagatose may be helpful for people with diabetes is that it how the body processes it. Only part of the sugar is absorbed in the small intestine, while much of it is fermented by intestinal bacteria in the colon.
Because of this, tagatosis causes much smaller increases in glucose levels and insulin in the blood than conventional sugar. Clinical studies have shown very low increases in plasma glucose or insulin after people consume tagatose.
Tagatosis may also benefit oral health. Unlike sucrose, which feeds bacteria that contribute to cavities, tagatose appears to slow the growth of some of these microbes. Research also suggests that it may have probiotic effects that support healthier bacteria both in the mouth and in the intestine.
Because it is low in calories and poorly absorbed by the body, tagatose works well as “volume sweetener“. This means that you can replace sugar not only with sweetness, but also with physical structure that sugar provides in cooking and pastry.
High-intensity sweeteners cannot replicate this effect. Tagatosis caramelizes during cookingjust like table sugar, and taste tests show that if closer to sugar than other sweeteners.
The researchers say this strategy could make it possible to produce other rare sugars more efficientlypotentially reshaping the way sweeteners are developed and used in the future.
