Post Date December, 02 2023
He has been suffering from diabetes for more than ten years and often uses xylitol instead of white sugar as a sweetener. Since being found to have kidney disease two years ago, not only uric acid has not been reduced, but also kidney stones. Later, after not eating xylitol for a period of time, it was found that uric acid indicators have greatly improved. Why did this happen?
It turns out that xylitol is the culprit. xylitol will increase the concentration of uric acid and oxalic acid in the blood during the metabolism of the human body, causing certain damage to the kidney.
Xylitol, a common sweetener for ordinary diabetes patients
Before the beginning of the text, I'd like to correct that xylitol discussed in this article is the following sweetener, not xylitol gum.
Xylitol is a substance extracted from natural food. Its sweetness is close to the white granulated sugar we usually eat, but its metabolism is not regulated by insulin. It is a good sweet additive for diabetes patients.
As an intermediate product of sugar metabolism, the human body already contains a certain amount of xylitol, which is called "physiological xylitol", while the xylitol taken from the diet or intravenous injection is called "exogenous xylitol". Many studies at home and abroad show that exogenous xylose is easy to damage the kidney, and is not suitable for diabetes patients with kidney disease.
Xylitol causes the increase of uric acid and oxalic acid in the blood
How does xylitol cause kidney damage? This is mainly because exogenous xylitol will increase the content of uric acid and oxalic acid in the blood during metabolism, further damaging the health of the kidney.
Exogenous xylitol will increase the amount of purine synthesis in the metabolic process of the body, and the final product of purine in the body is uric acid. Two-thirds of uric acid in the body is excreted by the kidney. Patients with renal function problems are not only prone to hyperuricemia after taking too much xylitol, but the high concentration of uric acid in the blood will also damage the kidney health in many ways and accelerate the deterioration of chronic kidney disease.
Among patients with kidney stones, stones containing calcium oxalate account for 70% - 80% of all patients. In addition, the concentration of calcium in the urine of normal people is 5-10 times higher than that of oxalic acid. Once the concentration of oxalic acid is a little higher than the normal concentration, calcium oxalate crystals will appear in the kidney, which will become kidney stones when accumulated. Therefore, excessive oxalic acid is the main reason for the formation of kidney stones. However, exogenous xylitol will produce oxalic acid in the process of absorption and metabolism in the body, resulting in an increase in the concentration of oxalic acid in the blood, and finally the formation of kidney stones, causing damage to the kidney.
Patients with diabetes and nephropathy should be cautious about taking xylitol
There is no denying that xylitol has its advantages in replacing sugar in the diet of diabetes patients. Clinical experiments show that the maximum tolerance of normal people to take xylitol orally every day is 220g, and normal diabetes patients have no problem taking xylitol normally.
However, uric acid and oxalic acid produced during the metabolism of xylitol in the body are likely to have adverse effects on diabetes patients with nephropathy, so xylitol is not recommended for diabetes patients with nephropathy.
