Overview
About Maltitol
Maltitol is a sugar alcohol, and it is graded a high polyol and high FODMAP trigger.
It is the bulk sweetener that gives sugar free chocolate, gummies, mints and protein bars their body and mouthfeel, and it is the specific ingredient behind the famous sugar free sweet horror stories. Only part of a maltitol dose is broken down and absorbed in the small intestine. The remainder arrives in the colon still intact, drags water in with it by osmosis and is fermented by gut bacteria, which produces gas, cramping, urgency and loose stools within a few hours. This is well enough established in law that EU labelling rules make foods with a meaningful added polyol content carry the phrase "excessive consumption may produce laxative effects". Maltitol is also a weak choice for blood sugar: its glycaemic index sits far above erythritol, which is close to zero, so the sugar free claim on the front of the pack says less about your glucose response than the name suggests.
Sensitivities
How Maltitol scores
Watch for
What trips people up
- Graded high on polyols and high FODMAP overall, which makes it the single most common explanation for bloating, wind and loose stools a few hours after eating something labelled sugar free
- Poor for low fermentation and SIBO approaches, because the unabsorbed fraction is fermented in the colon rather than passing through inertly
- The dose that tips people over is smaller than expected. A modest handful of sugar free chocolates or gummies can do it, and because the delay runs to several hours the symptoms usually get blamed on the meal that came before
- It hides under several names. Look for maltitol syrup, hydrogenated glucose syrup, hydrogenated maltose or E965, and note it is often the bulking agent even in products that advertise stevia or sucralose as the sweetener
- Glycaemic index is far higher than erythritol and it still carries roughly half the calories of sugar, so it is not a free pass on either glucose or energy
Diet fit
Where it fits
Swap ideas
More alternatives
FAQ
Common questions about Maltitol
Why do sugar free sweets made with maltitol cause diarrhoea?
Because maltitol is only partly digested. What the small intestine does not absorb travels on to the colon, where it pulls water into the bowel by osmosis and is fermented by gut bacteria into gas. Those two effects together give you the classic picture of cramping, loud wind and a sudden loose stool a few hours later. It is a dose response rather than an allergy, so the same person can be fine with one square and floored by six.
Is maltitol low FODMAP?
No. Maltitol grades high on polyols and high on FODMAPs overall. Polyols are the P in FODMAP, so a sweetener built from a sugar alcohol is high FODMAP by definition. If you are in the elimination phase, treat maltitol as a food to remove rather than a small detail on the label.
Is maltitol better or worse than erythritol?
Worse for most sensitive guts. Both sit in the polyol column, but erythritol is largely absorbed in the small intestine and excreted in urine, so relatively little reaches the colon to ferment, and it grades low FODMAP. Maltitol does the opposite. Erythritol also has essentially no effect on blood glucose, while maltitol has a meaningfully higher glycaemic index. If you want a sugar free bulk sweetener and you react to polyols, erythritol is the gentler starting point.
How much maltitol is too much?
There is no single number, and tolerance varies a lot between people and with what else is in the meal. What is consistent is that the threshold is low enough for regulators to act on it: EU labelling requires a laxative effect warning once a food carries a meaningful proportion of added polyols. A practical approach is to log the product and the amount in your journal, since maltitol tolerance is one of the easier things to pin down from a few entries.
References
Read the background
Ratings reflect the Triggerbites ingredient database and may vary with portion size and preparation.