Instead, go for some good, clean, delicious fruits. Direct to your inbox, everyday. Email example. Because fructose is considered to be one of the most damaging forms of sugar, always use agave in small quantities and buy organic, raw agave rather than the cheaper, highly processed version. Some people also have trouble absorbing fructose and may experience unpleasant side effects such as bloating or abdominal discomfort in sensitive individuals, particularly those with irritable bowel syndrome.
The jury is out on whether agave is actually better for you than table sugar. It will have less of an immediate impact on your blood sugar levels due to its low GI score but the high fructose content may make it more difficult for your body to process. Some opponents of agave claim it is simply a condensed fructose syrup, with minimal nutritional value.
This may not always be obvious on the packaging, so doing a little research before purchase is advisable. Have you swapped sugar for agave and noticed a difference? Leave a comment below. This article was last reviewed on 14 September by Kerry Torrens.
Kerry Torrens BSc. Over the last 15 years, she has been a contributing author to a number of nutritional and cookery publications, including BBC Good Food. Jo Lewin is a registered nutritionist RNutr with the Association for Nutrition with a specialism in public health.
It was traditionally believed to have healing properties. That said, the beginning of its production process is the same. The plant is first cut and pressed to extract the sugary sap. While this sap is high in sugar, it also contains healthy fiber like fructans, which are linked to beneficial effects on metabolism and insulin 2. This process — which is similar to how other unhealthy sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup are made — destroys all of the health-promoting properties of the agave plant.
The agave sweetener sold today is made by treating agave sugars with heat and enzymes, which destroys all of its potentially beneficial health effects. The end product is a highly refined, unhealthy syrup. Generally speaking, foods with a higher GI cause greater blood sugar spikes and may affect your health more negatively 5 , 6 , 7. Unlike glucose , fructose does not raise blood sugar or insulin levels in the short term. Agave nectar has a very low GI — primarily because almost all of the sugar in it is fructose.
It has very little glucose, at least compared with regular sugar. A study in mice compared the metabolic effects of agave nectar and sucrose, or plain sugar, after 34 days.
The mice ingesting agave nectar gained less weight and had lower blood sugar and insulin levels 8. In such a short-term study, the glucose in plain sugar elevated both blood sugar and insulin levels, whereas fructose did not. The harmful effects of agave — and sugar in general — have very little to do with the glycemic index but everything to do with the large amounts of fructose — and agave nectar is very high in fructose.
This gives the sweetener a low glycemic index. Support for agave stems from its role as a vegan-friendly sweetener and its low glycemic index GI , between 10 and 19 depending on the product. The higher the GI of a food is, the faster the increase in blood glucose after eating it. Agave has a lower GI than most other sweeteners, which means that it is less likely to cause blood sugar spikes. GI, however, is not the only way to assess the impact of a particular food for people with diabetes.
A study gave four groups of participants four different diets to follow: The researchers divided groups following high-carb and low-carb diets into a further group eating only carbs with a high GI ranking and another eating only low-GI carbs.
Those following high-GI diets saw a drop in insulin sensitivity and an increase in LDL cholesterol in the group that ate more carbohydrates when compared to the low-GI group.
In the low-carb group, however, the GI ranking of the foods did not make a difference to insulin sensitivity, blood pressure , or many of the risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease apart from reducing triglycerides by a small amount. Triglycerides are fats that store excess calories. They can be harmful in combination with high cholesterol levels. For people already following a diabetes-friendly diet plan, the study found that low-GI foods produced no improvements in cardiovascular risk factors in the blood.
The findings suggest that limiting overall carb intake supports a safe diabetes diet. Agave contains higher levels of fructose than table sugar and most other sweeteners. The body releases less insulin in response to fructose. This means that blood sugar may remain higher after eating agave than other sugars. A study on mice suggests that agave syrup might be a healthful alternative to table sugar. Mice who consumed agave nectar had lower blood glucose levels compared with mice that consumed table sugar.
They also gained less weight. However, not all data gathered from research on mice applies to humans. The study also only compared agave to table sugar, which is harmful to people with diabetes. Agave may be marginally better than table sugar for people who have the condition, but it is not necessarily a healthful addition to the diet. More importantly, agave is still a sugar.
As with table sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and other sugars, people with diabetes should avoid it. People who are following a healthful diet to manage diabetes should reduce their sugar intake rather than switching from one type of sugar for another. For people with diabetes who want to try agave syrup instead of table sugar, there is another reason to avoid changing over.
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