Are sugar alcohols the same as sugar?

They are a third category, and the name is unhelpful in both halves. There is no alcohol in them in the sense anyone means, and they are not sugars.

Chemically they are carbohydrates with a structure that stops the body handling them the way it handles sugar. They taste sweet, they deliver fewer calories, and they raise blood glucose less. That is why almost everything sold as sugar-free is built on one.

The part the panel may not tell you

The US nutrition rule lists sugar alcohols as a voluntary declaration. A manufacturer may state the grams and may equally leave the line out.

This is unusual and worth sitting with. A product can be sweetened entirely with Sorbitol, and the nutrition panel need not say how much is in it. The ingredient list will name it, because ingredients must be named, but naming is not quantifying.

For anyone counting carbohydrate that gap matters, and it is the reason the ingredient list is the more reliable document here even though the panel looks more precise.

They are not interchangeable

This is the second thing the category name obscures. The members behave differently enough that treating them as one group produces the wrong expectation.

Erythritol is absorbed and excreted largely unchanged, so it contributes very little.

Xylitol and maltitol are absorbed more, and maltitol in particular raises glucose considerably more than the others.

Sorbitol sits in between and is the one most associated with digestive trouble, because what is not absorbed draws water into the bowel. That is the mechanism behind the laxative warnings on sugar-free sweets, and it arrives at ordinary portions rather than extreme ones.

So “contains sugar alcohols” is not a single fact. Which one, and how much, are two different questions and the label reliably answers only the first.

Xylitol and dogs

Worth stating plainly because it is the one genuinely urgent fact in this area, and it has nothing to do with people.

Xylitol causes a severe reaction in dogs at small doses. Sugar-free gum, peanut butter and baked goods are the usual routes. If a dog eats something containing it, that is a veterinary emergency rather than a wait-and-see.

What to actually do with this

If you are watching blood sugar, sugar alcohols are usually a better option than sugar and a worse one than nothing, and maltitol is the member least likely to behave the way the category promises.

If a sugar-free product gives you digestive trouble, the sugar alcohol is the first suspect and the amount is likely not on the label, so switching brands is often more informative than reading harder. The wider approach is on the page for reading labels when you are watching blood sugar.