Wikipedia says "Xylose is said to be one of eight sugars which are essential for human nutrition, the others being galactose, glucose, mannose, N-acetylglucosamine, N-acetylgalactosamine, fucose, and sialic acid." PubMed uses it - https://bit.ly/2Mxdxez.
What do you think about that?
With references please.
Hi Ilya
If the term "essential" in your question has a common meaning as for other nutrients (i.e. compounds that our body needs but can't synthesize and thus must obtain from diet), than there is no scientific evidence that any sugar is essential. For all the essential nutrients known to man thus far the recommended daily intake or adequate intake has been set in order to prevent deficiency. There is no RDA value for any of these sugars and to the best of my knowledge a "sugar deficiency" has never been described in the history of mankind. It is well known that our body can make a glucose from non-sugar sources, and convert it to other sugars. On the other hand, certain compounds can become essential for individuals with a specific genetic disorders. If you are interested in those rare specific cases you might find evidence on therapeutic use of certain sugars - eg. mannose (Article Mannose Metabolism: More than meets the eye.
; Witters et al. Nutritional Therapies in Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG), Nutrients, 2017). As for xylose I am not familiar with any ill state in humans that will result in xylose deficiency. I hope this helpsBest regards
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