Benefits
Satiety and calorie intake at the next meal
In single-day tests, a mid-morning drink or snack with polydextrose cut calories eaten at lunch, and larger doses cut more. A pooled analysis by the maker found no reliable drop over the whole day, a 15-day trial in overweight adults and a trial in women found no change, and 12 g a day for 6 months did not change body fat or food intake, so results are mixed.
Hunger and appetite ratings after a snack or meal
Pooled ratings from seven studies, five of them funded by the maker, showed only a small drop in desire to eat while eating; hunger, fullness and satisfaction did not change overall. In 18 adults with obesity, 15 g with a high-fat meal lowered hunger afterward by 40% and raised the gut hormone GLP-1. Other trials found no change in appetite ratings.
Stool bulk and bowel movement frequency
In 36 healthy adults, 20 g a day for 10 days increased stool weight and stools per day and softened stools, though EU regulators noted two longer trials at 18 and 21 g a day that did not. In adults with constipation, 4 to 12 g a day did not shorten transit time in either of two trials; 12 g a day gave more bowel movements than placebo in a maker-run trial of 192 people, but not in a 128-person trial at 8 or 12 g a day.
Gut bacteria shifts as a prebiotic fiber
In healthy adults, 8 g a day raised butyrate-producing bacteria, and 21 g a day for three weeks raised Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and related groups compared with no added fiber. People recorded less abdominal discomfort at 8 g a day. These are changes in stool bacteria, not measured health outcomes.
Post-meal blood sugar when it replaces sugar or starch
In 18 overweight adults, swapping 30% of the digestible carbohydrate in breakfast and lunch for polydextrose lowered the peak glucose and insulin rise, and these fiber meals held less usable carbohydrate. Adding 8 to 16 g to a drink or bar did not lower post-meal glucose or insulin in healthy adults, and at 12 g glucose rose more than without it, so it does not blunt the sugar you still eat.
Mechanism of action
Resists digestion and is slowly fermented
Its random, branched glucose bonds resist human digestive enzymes, so little is absorbed. Part of it reaches the large intestine and is fermented there into short-chain fatty acids, which is why it supplies about 1 calorie per gram instead of the 4 of sugar.
Adds stool bulk and lowers stool pH
The unfermented part adds mass to stool, while fermentation lowers stool pH. In healthy adults eating 20 g a day, stool weight rose, stools were softer and stool pH fell compared with a low-fiber diet.
Gut hormone signals linked to fullness
In two maker-run human trials, polydextrose with a meal raised the gut hormone GLP-1, which signals fullness. Ghrelin, CCK and PYY did not change, so how it affects appetite is not fully explained.
Displaces digestible carbohydrate
Because little of it is absorbed as glucose, using polydextrose in place of sugar or starch lowers the usable carbohydrate and calories in a food. Simply adding it to a drink or bar did not lower post-meal blood sugar in a controlled trial, so any blood sugar benefit appears to come from this swap.
Clinical trials
Randomized within-subject crossover trial of a liquid preload containing 0, 6.3, 12.5 or 25 g polydextrose, with an ad libitum test meal 90 minutes later and food diaries for the rest of the day (Astbury et al. 2013, Br J Nutr).
21 adults (12 men, 9 women).
Test-meal calorie intake was lower after every polydextrose dose than after the control, falling from 5,756 kJ to 4,362 kJ at 25 g. Intake for the rest of the day did not differ, and total daily intake was lower after 12.5 and 25 g. Appetite ratings did not differ, and each test lasted a single day.
Acute, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of 12.5 g polydextrose given with breakfast or as a mid-morning preload, with DuPont-affiliated authors (Ibarra et al. 2017, Appetite).
32 healthy normal-weight and overweight women.
Polydextrose did not change later calorie intake, the primary outcome. Mid-morning polydextrose lowered hunger by 31% during the satiation period; with breakfast it lowered insulin by about 16% and raised GLP-1 by about 40%. Other appetite ratings and gastric emptying did not change.
Single-blind randomized crossover trial of a mid-morning cereal bar with 16.7 g polydextrose versus an energy-matched control bar for 15 days each, with a 15-day washout (Martinelli et al. 2018, Int J Food Sci Nutr).
Overweight adults.
Calorie intake at lunch, for the rest of the day and for the whole day, and appetite ratings, did not differ between the polydextrose and control bars on day 1 or day 15.
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of 20 g/day polydextrose or soluble corn fiber in a muffin and cereal versus a low-fiber control, 10 days per period (Timm et al. 2013, J Nutr).
36 healthy men and women.
Polydextrose increased 5-day fecal wet weight, stools per day and daily fecal output, and gave softer stools than control. Whole-gut transit time did not change. Flatulence and stomach rumbling were reported more often with polydextrose.
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 8 or 12 g/day polydextrose for 4 weeks, with transit time measured by radiopaque markers; funded by Nestle, with most authors Nestle employees (Duncan et al. 2018, Nutrients).
128 adults with chronic constipation.
Transit time did not shorten at 2 weeks in any group, and stool frequency and consistency did not improve at 2 or 4 weeks; at 12 g/day, transit through the left colon was slower than with placebo. Some questionnaire scores for rectal and stool symptoms improved, mainly at 8 g/day.
Double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial over 2 weeks after a 2-week run-in, with colonic transit time as the primary outcome; run by DuPont, the maker of Litesse Ultra, through a hired research firm (Ibarra et al. 2019, Nutrients).
192 adults with functional constipation by Rome III criteria (baseline transit 42 hours and 8.7 bowel movements a week).
Colonic transit time, the primary outcome, did not change within or between groups, and the authors state the group was not constipated enough at baseline. At 12 g/day, weekly bowel movements were higher than with placebo after 2 weeks, while placebo fell slightly. Questionnaire scores improved from baseline at 12 g/day, as they also did with placebo. No serious adverse events were reported.
Double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover human feeding study of 8 g/day polydextrose (Costabile et al. 2012, Br J Nutr).
Healthy adults.
Polydextrose raised the butyrate producer Ruminococcus intestinalis and Clostridium clusters I, II and IV and lowered the Lactobacillus-Enterococcus group. Participants recorded less abdominal discomfort, with a trend toward fewer hard stools. Bacterial shifts are lab measures, not health outcomes.
Two controlled, randomized, single-blinded crossover trials testing 0, 8, 12 or 16 g polydextrose in a drink and 0 or 12 g in a bar, funded through a research agreement with the US FDA (Rahman et al. 2017, J Food Sci).
34 healthy adults (drink) and 19 healthy adults (bar).
Polydextrose did not lower post-meal glucose or insulin in either the drink or the bar. At 12 g, glucose rose more than without polydextrose in both foods, and insulin rose more with the bar. It was well tolerated at all doses.
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, four-arm parallel trial of 12 g/day Litesse Ultra polydextrose, the probiotic Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis 420, both together, or a cellulose placebo for 6 months, with body fat measured by DXA; led by DuPont authors (Stenman et al. 2016, EBioMedicine).
225 healthy adults with overweight or obesity (BMI 28 to 34.9).
Polydextrose alone did not change body fat mass compared with placebo (+0.3%), and the authors report it had no effect on any measured outcome, including food intake. The probiotic, alone or with polydextrose, lowered body fat only in the per-protocol group; no group differed in the intention-to-treat analysis. Adverse events did not differ between groups.