Dietary xylitol retards bone resorption in rats

Dietary xylitol has previously been found to promote the content of calcium and minerals of the bone during rehabilitation following dietary calcium deficiency and during a normocalcemic diet in rats. This in vivo experiment was performed in order to study whether a short-term dietary xylitol supplementation affects bone resorption and calcium incorporation into bone during two different experiments utilizing either calcium-deficient or normocalcemic diets. Xylitol reduced bone resorption measured by the urinary excretion of 3H radioactivity both during calcium-deficient and normocalcemic diets. However xylitol reduced vitamin D levels only during calcium deficiency, indicating that the decreased bone dissolution was not associated with changes in 1,25(OH)2D3 concentration alone. Dietary xylitol did not alter 45Ca incorporation into bone, although this does not exclude the possibility that xylitol may have caused alterations in bone apposition. These results suggest that a short-term xylitol ingestion retards bone resorption in the rat.