Steviol glycoside Totally Explained

Everything about Stevioside totally explained

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The steviol glycosides are responsible for the sweet taste of the leaves of the stevia plant (Stevia rebaudiana bertoni). These compounds range in sweetness from 40 to 300 times sweeter than sucrose. They are heat stable, pH stable, and don't ferment. They also don't induce a glycemic response when ingested, making them attractive as natural sweeteners to diabetics and others on carbohydrate-controlled diets.

Structure

The diterpene known as Steviol is the aglycone of stevia's sweet glycosides, which are constructed by replacing steviol's bottom hydrogen atom (see figure above) with glucose (forming an ester), and replacing the top hydrogen atom with combinations of glucose and rhamnose. The two primary compounds, stevioside and rebaudioside A, use only glucose: stevioside has two linked glucose molecules at the top hydrogen site, where rebaudioside A has three, with the middle glucose of the triplet connected to the central steviol structure.
In terms of weight fraction, the four major steviol glycosides found in the stevia plant tissue are:

5–10% stevioside (250–300X of sugar)
2–4% rebaudioside A — most sweet (350–450X of sugar) and least bitter
1–2% rebaudioside C
½–1% dulcoside A

Rebaudioside B, D, and E may also be present in minute quantities; however, it's suspected that rebaudioside B is a byproduct of the isolation technique.

Availability

Rebiana is the tradename for a patent-pending, calorie-free, food and beverage sweetener derived from stevia and developed jointly by The Coca-Cola Company and Cargill. In May 2007, Coca-Cola announced plans to obtain approval for its use as a food additive within the United States by 2009. Coca-Cola has also announced plans to market rebiana-sweetened products in 12 countries that allow stevia's use as a food additive. The two companies are conducting their own studies in an effort to gain regulatory approval in the United States and the European Union.
Recently Blue California a US ingredient manufacturer claims to have developed an economical industrial production process for the 'natural sweetener' stevia, which promises lower prices for manufacturers. The ingredient firm said it has completed the isolation of Rebaudioside A, a sweet compound derived from stevia, using a "more economical and proprietary process". The company expects to go into industrial scale production in 2008. The isolation process for Rebaudioside A results in a product that delivers the desired sweetness without the bitter aftertaste.

Toxicity

A 1985 study reporting that steviol may be a mutagen has been criticized on procedural grounds that the data were mishandled in such a way that even distilled water would appear mutagenic. More recent studies appear to establish the safety of steviol and its glycosides. In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) performed a thorough evaluation of recent experimental studies of stevia extracts conducted on animals and humans, and concluded that "stevioside and rebaudioside A are not genotoxic in vitro or in vivo and that the genotoxicity of steviol and some of its oxidative derivatives in vitro isn't expressed in vivo." The report also found no evidence of carcinogenic activity. The report also suggested the possibility of health benefits, in that "stevioside has shown some evidence of pharmacological effects in patients with hypertension or with type-2 diabetes", but concluded that further study was required to determine proper dosage.

Further Information

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