I just purchased a 500ml (16.67 fl.oz) bottle of Good Life oyster sauce. Apart from the cleverly worded potentially misleading statement 'Oyster Sauce, 60% Less Sodium Formula' (only 30% Oyster Sauce content in reality), it contains 20% Sorbitol.

According to Wikkipedial Sorbitol is a sugar subsitute and it also occurs naturally in many stone fruits and berries from trees of the genus Sorbus.

^{The overdose affects are stated as follows:}

Ingesting large amounts of sorbitol can lead to abdominal pain, flatulence, and mild to severe

diarrhea. Sorbitol ingestion of 20 grams (0.7 oz) per day as sugar-free gum has led to severe diarrhea leading to unintended weight loss of 11 kilograms (24 lb) in eight months, in a woman originally weighing 52 kilograms (110 lb); another patient required hospitalization after habitually consuming 30 grams (1 oz) per day

Considering that the 16.67 fl oz bottle contains 3.334 fl oz of Sorbitol (20%) does this mean that consuming 1 bottle over the period of about 5 days could lead to severe diarrhea. Maybe the bottle should contain a health warning?

Sorbitol is also found in prunes and prune juice (the reason why those bad boys have laxative action if you have enough). Some people I know have a cup of prune juice 1-2x a week just to um, eliminate. It's also found in less quantities in apples, pears, and some other fruit if I recall correctly. As you mentioned, it's a sugar alcohol, that's why it's used to sweeten things. Sort of like xylitol which also has similar laxative effects.

Unless you plan on ingesting a cupful or more of oyster sauce (not recommended), I don't think you have to worry about any issues. Everything has a negative effect if overdosed - even water. A couple of spoonfuls should probably be alright. Try it out and see how you feel. At least you know now what to expect. All the best.

With the Good Life low sodium oyster sauce, I wouldn't worry so much about the sorbitol, but the taste: it's dreadful.

Strange, I quite like it. Of course I squirt some soya sauce into the mix to get a bit of salt back in!