Dextrose
Another name for glucose in its commercial form, a simple sugar that is absorbed extremely quickly, used in the food industry and in sports nutrition.
Dextrose is simply glucose in crystallised form, usually made from (hydrolysed) maize starch. The term “dextrose” comes from its optical property (it rotates light to the right, “dextro”). It is chemically identical to blood glucose.
A fresh angle (the hidden sugar with 1,000 names): dextrose is one of the many aliases for sugar in ingredient lists. The industry uses a multitude of names (dextrose, glucose syrup, maltodextrin, invert sugar, evaporated cane juice…), which sometimes allows sugar to be “diluted” across several ingredients so that none appears at the top of the list (ingredients being listed in descending order of weight). A product can thus look “low in sugar” when the total sugars, scattered under various names, are high.
Sports use: dextrose, with a very high GI (~100), is prized in sports nutrition for rapid glycogen replenishment after intense, prolonged exercise, or during endurance effort. It is one of the few contexts where an ultra-fast-absorbing sugar is justified (the glycogen resynthesis window).
Medical use: dextrose is used in intravenous drips (glucose solution) and to correct low blood sugar quickly.
In everyday practice: for sedentary people, added dextrose has no nutritional value: it is pure glucose, with no fibre or micronutrients. Spotting its different names on labels helps identify over-sweetened products.