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Trehalose Sugar seems to be virtually unknown unless you are closely associated with the Sugar industry.

 The product, Trehalose, it is pronounced trē’hu-lōs”.

 TECHNICAL DATA

Trehalose, also known as mycose or tremalose, a natural alpha-linked disaccharide, synthesised by fungi, plants, and invertebrate animal, implicated in anhydrobiosis the ability of plants and  animals to withstand prolonged periods of desiccation. It has high water retention capabilities and rehydration then allows normal cellular activity to be resumed without the major damage that normally follows a dehydration/rehydration cycle.  Trehalose also has the added advantage of being an antioxidant.

In nature, trehalose can be found in animals, plants, and microorganisms. In animals, trehalose is prevalent in shrimp, and also in insects, including grasshoppers, locusts, butterflies, and bees, in which blood-sugar is trehalose. The trehalose is then broken down into glucose by the catabolic enzyme trehalase for use. Trehalose is also present in the nutrition exchange liquid of hornets and their larvae.

Production                                   

Trehalose was previously being manufactured through an extraction process from cultured yeast. But production costs were prohibitive, and use was limited to only certain cosmetics and chemicals.

In 1994, Hayashibara, a saccharified starch maker in Okayama prefecture, Japan, discovered a method of inexpensively mass-producing trehalose from starch. The following year, Hayashibara started marketing trehalose by activating two enzymes, the glucosyltrehalose-producing enzyme that changes the reducing terminal of starch into a trehalose structure, and the trehalose free enzyme that detaches this trehalose structure. As a result, a high-purity trehalose from starch can be mass-produced for a very low price.

 Uses

 Since Trehalose has been accepted as a novel food ingredient under the GRAS terms in the U.S. and the EU….

Trehalose has also found commercial application as a food ingredient. It’s primary one being its use in the processing of foods.

Trehalose being used in a variety of processed foods such as dinners, western and Japanese confectionery, bread, vegetables side dishes, animal-derived deli foods, pouch-packed foods, frozen foods, and beverages, as well as foods for lunches, eating out, or prepared at home.

This is due to the multi-faceted effects of trehalose’s properties,  its inherently mild, sweet flavor; its preservative properties, which maintain the quality of the three main nutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, fats);

Its powerful water-retention properties,  preserves  the texture of foods by protecting them from drying out or freezing. Also its ability to suppress bitterness, stringency, harsh flavors, and the odor of raw foods, meats, and packaged foods.

Cosmetics: Capitalizing on trehalose’s moisture-retaining capacity, it is used as a moisturizer in many basic toiletries, such as bath oils and hair growth tonics.

Pharmaceuticals: Using trehalose’s properties to preserve tissue and protein to full advantage, it is used in organ protection solutions for organ transplants.

 Other fields of use

Trehalose  has a broad spectrum including fabrics,  that have deodorization qualities, plant activation, antibacterial sheets, and nutrients for larvae. 

 Research is bein g conducted, especially in the field of medicine, to achieve uses for trehalose in post-surgery adhesion suppressants, dry-eye treatments and the manufacturing of dry blood.

It is rumored in the biomedical research community that trehalose, when eaten over a length of time in sufficient quantities, may sometimes provide a partial cure to Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. A lot of research into brain-based illness has focused on proteins in the human brain, but it may be important in research to look at sugars that the brain uses, such as trehalose.