Xylitol
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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That shit is killing dogs too. Should've been banned long time ago.
In small quantities it massively helps periodontal disease, which has way worse risks. Banning something for one reason without context hurts others.
It's basically anti-freeze to dogs. Kills them quickly and painfully from even relatively small amounts
chocolate kills dogs too
They don't sneak chocolate into peanut butter and people use peanut butter as a dog treat it as a way to hide medication from dogs.
Xylitol shouldn't be used in any product a dog might be tempted to eat. And dogs love peanut butter.
It's amazing that you can actually buy peanut butter that is just strictly peanut butter, no additives. 🤷
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The fatal dose is significantly lower for xylitol. If my 90 lb dog ate a few pieces of chocolate, he might be miserable for a few days and need a vet visit, but it would take a lot to be fatal. If he ate a few pieces of gum, it could make him much, much sicker or kill him.
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Xylotol in small amounts tastes sweet and kills the bacteria breaking you teeth. In large quantities it makes you shit hit liquid.
Edit: hit should have been hot as in burning, 37C not erotic. ;)
In large quantities it makes you shit hit liquid.
I guess I’ve never had a large quantity as I don’t know what it’s like to shit hit liquid.
Fortunately for you, you can read about the experience instead of living it.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/sugarless-gummy-bears-are-not-safe-for-humans/
https://www.boredpanda.com/hilarious-comments-sugarfree-haribo-gummies/
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I ate too many gummy bears and my toilet afterward went triple platinum
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I didn't know it was in jam as well. It's potent dog poison. Not sure about cats. Should be outlawed, it's not like we don't have other sweeteners that aren't dog poison.
It is important to note that this was an observational study, meaning it can only show an association between higher xylitol levels and cardiovascular events, rather than proving that xylitol directly caused them, and further research is needed. But it is not a green light to have more sugar instead, as we still need to reduce our free sugar intake
Correlation vs Causation caveat is strongly needed here
Nearly all dietary studies are correlation studies, unfortunately.
Another note is that this is a sweetener, so it replaces sugar, and sugar is also linked to strokes and heart attacks through diabetes and obesity.
It would make a great tag for such posts, if tags existed.
“In this observational work, however, it appears that xylitol has a negative long-term effect on cardiovascular events in the general population. As with all observational studies, causalities are difficult to infer, but this work shows that further studies are mandated into this societally important topic.”
This is important, because the outcome of the study is: we need more studies. It is not that xylitol has been shown to be dangerous, a jump so many comments have made.
There was an observed effect in people who had "high blood levels of xylitol". But there were few if any other controls:
The researchers also highlighted that the association was independent of underlying factors such as body mass index, hypertension, diabetes and lipid levels, which might predispose people to low-calorie products.
It's been known for a while that extremely high levels of xylitol can act as a diuretic, but that's true of a lot of other things, too. That's also not relevant here. It's important to not jump to unwarranted conclusions until more proper studies are conducted.
How can you ignore diabetes and the other risk factors that lead to using sugar-free products and are huge risk factors in themselves?
At least exclude certain ones.
Plenty of people use xyitol products for other reasons. For instance, I just bought a pack of xylitol gum to carry because I won't be able to brush my teeth during the day. Gum with sugar makes my teeth feel worse.
Exclude smokers and people with uncontrolled diabetes and cholesterol at least.
Study the gym goers that want to eat their sugar as treats and use xylitol drinks or breath mints daily.
How much caffeine was in everyone's system? Alcohol? Were the other blood level markers in range?
With no controls, it could be anything. Maybe they were all covering cigarette and beer breath with mints when they had a cardiac event.
I hate studies like this.
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This clickbait bullshit should not be tolerated. The ingredient name in question is only one word, instead of the stupid sentence they used.
It’s xylitol. Shame on every shitbag sellout that decided to not just say that in the headline.
I don't know, I think it's appropriate. If they just said Xylitol hardly anyone is actually going to know what that is or if it affects them. The title gives people an idea of how common it is and what foods it's used in, which is more useful information to most people.
Xylitol, sweetener used in chewing gum and jam, linked to strokes and heart attacks
There, best of both worlds.
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Heard this about Erithrytol as well. Not sure if that one is as confirmed. Cove Soda uses it, and I'm reluctant even though it's tasty and Canadian.
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Dammit. I chew a lot of gum and there is no good option. I have to start looking for sugared gum.
Avoid sugared gum. I also used to chew a lot of gum and was trying to stick with sorbitol because xylitol gave me stomach pains. That limited me to Wrigley's. Anyway, due to my confusion after it went out of stock, I was buying sugared gum instead, and finally ended up having to fill 6 cavities before I checked the label and made the connection. All that sugar sitting on my teeth all day was not good, to say the least. I quit cold turkey after that (and also gum).
Reminds me of that one actress from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who got 13 cavities from being required to constantly chew gum on set.
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Search for chewing gum that uses sorbitol as sweetener instead. Luckily for me my favorite brand, Airwaves, uses that and not xylitol.
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So glad we let companies sell us whatever poison hasn't had enough research yet to show it's unsafe...
Xylitol also kills dogs, so, whatever this study says, at least keep it away from your dogs.
Sugar alcohols are in a huge number of processed foods and might be responsible for a non negligible number of people feeling like shit. Fairly sure a local family owned bakery reduced some amount of sugar in their baked goods with sugar alcohols and it is not advertised and no ingredient list required unlike supermarkets. It is getting hard to escape stuff like this.
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What sort of diet leads to high blood levels? My guess is the xylitol in my mouthwash or toothpaste that I spit out isn't causing a high level in the blood and still benefits my oral health. Any studies on that?
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