This study was an attempt to investigate the usefulness of maltitol as an alternative sweetener. The acute effects of oral ingestion of 50g of maltitol or glucose on blood glucose and insulin levels following test dose were investigated by using five healthy normal subjects and ten diabetic patients. The data demonstrated marked differences between the utilization of maltitol and of glucose in both groups. Blood glucose and insulin responses to glucose were significantly greater than to maltitol in normal subjects(p<0.05). In diabetic patients, the peaks of the mean increment in blood glucose concentration after glucose and maltitol were reached at 60 minutes with mean values of 135mg/dl and 49mg/dl, respectively, and these differences were statistically significant(p<0.001). As for blood insulin responses in diabetic patients, the peak of the mean increment after glucose was 25.03$mu$U/ml at 120 minutes. In contrast insulin responses to maltitol were significantly lower than to glucose(p<0.05), and the peak value was 7.98$mu$u/ml at 60min. From these results it can be concluded that ingestion of maltitol resulted in significantly lower blood glucose and insulin increments than did glucose in both normal and diabetic patients.