artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose do not contain carbohydrates and do not have any effect on blood sugar levels. But the problem is that these artificial sweeteners are often paired with other artificial sweeteners that do have an effect—especially those that are sugar alcohols, which are a type of carbohydrate with a chemical structure that partly resembles sugar and partly resembles alcohol. You can identify sugar alcohols on food labels, as they usually end in -ol; look for sorbitol, xylitol, and maltitol. Ingesting sugar alcohols can lead to the same kind of
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