Role of Water in Sucrose, Lactose, and Sucralose Taste: The Sweeter, The Wetter?

Overview

Journal ACS Omega

Publisher American Chemical Society

Specialty Chemistry

Date 2020 Jan 8

PMID 31909321

Citations 10

Authors

Silvia Imberti

Sylvia E McLain

Natasha H Rhys

Fabio Bruni

Maria Antonietta Ricci

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Natural sugars combine energy supply and, except a few cases, a pleasant taste. On the other hand, exaggerated consumption may impact population health. This has busted the research for the synthesis of increasingly cheaper artificial sweeteners, with low energy content and intense taste. Here, we suggest that studies of the hydration properties of three disaccharides, namely, the natural sucrose and lactose and the artificial sucralose, may explain the difference by orders of magnitude among their sweetness. This is done by analyzing via Monte Carlo simulations the neutron diffraction differential cross sections of aqueous solutions of the three sugars and their isotopes. Our results show that the strength of the sugar-water hydrogen bond interaction is one of the factors influencing sweetness, another being the number of water molecules within the first neighboring shell of the sugar whether bonded or not.

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