Low osmolality enables Carb10® to speed through the stomach. So, rather than causing bloating, Carb10® passes rapidly into the large intestine where it aids the gut microbiome — all without causing a spike in insulin. In a clinical study in human subjects, Carb10 had an 82% lower insulin response and 27% lower blood sugar response than maltodextrin.

Carb10® provides almost zero blood sugar or insulin spike, so the energy from it is sustained with no crash. It is a healthier calorie that comes from a resistant starch.

Gastric emptying rate is much more directly related to (is a function of) the Osmolality of a solution that is ingested vs. the composition of what is ingested.

In other words, when it comes to carbohydrates, since simple sugars are monosaccharides and disaccharides consisting of 1 or 2 molecule compounds, a solution or drink that contains only sugars will actually have a higher Osmolality since there are more molecules floating around in solution per unit volume. So, let’s say you have 30g of just glucose & fructose monosaccharides in solution. That 30g may consist of 10 Million individual sugar molecules per 100 mL.

However, that same 30g carbs in form of Carb10® may only occupy 800K molecules of the pea starch polysaccharide molecules per 100 mL. In this case, because of the unique high molecular weight and branching structure of glucose chains in Carb10®, its Osmolality is much lower than a solution of simple sugars, or even Maltodextrin which has shorter linear chains of glucose. The low Osmolality and high molecular weight allows it to empty the stomach much faster.

However, the rate of glucose and sugar uptake has much more to do with what happens in the SMALL INTESTINE. Here is where the architecture of the carbohydrate molecule (starch or simple sugar) affects rate of uptake and appearance in the blood. This is where once glucose and fructose do eventually empty the stomach, they get almost immediately absorbed via monosaccharide (sugar) transporters that line the brush border of small intestine.

In the case of starches (polysaccharides) & disccharides like Maltodextrin, Cluster/Cyclidextrins, Carb10, Dextrose, Sucrose, etc., they depend on enzymes found only in the small intestine to break out the individual sugar units (glucose and/or fructose) from the chain. Because Maltodextrin is a basic linear chain with only 1-type of bond (alpha 1-4), it gets broken down very easily/quickly making the glucose from it available for rapid uptake. With Maltodextrin, because it empties through stomach faster than sugar solution, and it breaks down easily in small intestine, its glycemic index and rate of glucose uptake is actually faster than table sugar (sucrose).

However, this is what makes Carb10® unique. Although it empties the stomach super-fast due to low Osmolality, once it gets to the small intestine the breaks are slammed because the enzymes have a difficult time getting around the unique structure/branches and glucose bonds. Therefore, the release of glucose units from the Carb10 polysaccharide are very slow, allowing the glycemic & insulinemic response to also be very controlled and slow. This creates an almost trickle feed of sugar from small intestine where much more comfortable versus having a lot of fluid sloshing around in the stomach.

1. https://generationucan.com/pdf/technical-breakthrough-sports-innovation.pdf
2. Joy et. al. 2018, Determining the Ergogenic Effects of Carb10 Supplementation on Carbohydrate-Rich and Carbohydrate-Restricted Diets.