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StingerAE t1_j45sg1f wrote

Reply to comment by Kriggy_ in where does epinephrine comes from? The one used for people with allergies because Google only says It comes from glands so I don't understand if it's donated or sintethized by other means. by SALAMI_21

Isn't cane sugar sucrose anyway?

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Chemputer t1_j45z8at wrote

Yes, but he said derived from sugar cane, so you take cane sugar, sucrose, which can then be (either by your body or through industrial processes, usually using enzymes) split into fructose and glucose.

Like the other poster said, it's impurities in that from the cane sugar that would cause that, not the glucose itself. To put it mildly, if you're allergic to glucose, I don't think you could live. (Yes, the body can digest other forms of sugar for energy, but energy storage is done as glycogen which is a linked branching polymer of glucose molecules, and when it releases those from storage, it's glucose.)

The processes involved in extracting sucrose from cane sugar and then breaking it down into it's components, fructose and glucose, and then purifying just the glucose are likely not set up to purify it to 99% purity. Obviously, if they did have glucose from cane sugar that was purified to a significant enough degree (say 99.99% or LCMS grade), they'd get no allergic reaction to it unless it was nocebo/psychosomatic.

I mean, it's like saying you're allergic to the letter L in light but not in any other word. It's ridiculous. The letter L is the letter L, glucose is glucose, therefore glucose cannot be responsible for their allergy.

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StingerAE t1_j463b3t wrote

Yeah, I realise it is ridiculous. I just want sure is they had understood and meant what they said. Why would anyone source glucose that way? The fact sucrose from sugar cane would need processing and into glucose is the craziest part.

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Chemputer t1_j466ha9 wrote

Because it's an easy source of glucose. You have to process something into glucose, it isn't a naturally occurring sugar in large quantities in plants, so since sucrose is literally just glucose and fructose stuck together, why wouldn't you? It's one of the many ways it's made at industrial scale efficiently.

This short article describes the process and the various feedstocks commonly used, if you're curious.

Edit: While the most dominant feedstock is starch, processed sugarcane (i.e. once the sugar has been largely removed) is used as a feedstock for glucose since it would otherwise just go to waste. Interesting research article here.

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