5 ms·

Unfortunately none of these news articles or papers discuss whether consuming ~2--3g of xylitol/day in the form of gum (e.g., Pur) is OK. I'm guessing it's fine

by moab 2y ago

Unfortunately none of these news articles or papers discuss whether consuming ~2--3g of xylitol/day in the form of gum (e.g., Pur) is OK. I'm guessing it's fine, given that the warning is for products that are artificially sweetned with xylitol with a lot more xylitol, and they say that toothpaste/mouthwash with xylitol should be OK.

_heimdall 2y ago
That is a bit tricky at least in the US, I'm not sure how it's done elsewhere. The FDA has a habit of defaulting of assuming foods and additives are safe unless proven dangerous. They also frequently default to safety recommendations from manufacturers. It's very possible that xylitol in toothpaste or mouthwash is considered safe because no one has identified those levels as dangerous. That isn't necessarily an indicator that we know it's safe, just that we haven't looked.
- voisin 2y ago
  > The FDA has a habit of defaulting of assuming foods and additives are safe unless proven dangerous This seems like an insane default. What’s the rationale?
  - ethan801 2y ago
    My assumption is that when the FDA was created there were already a large number of foods and food additives and testing all of those would have been impossible (and would have struck the public as absurd). You also have to deal with the fact that food processors are fairly powerful and that the number of new foods/additives created a year would swamp the agency and be virtually untestable.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      That's a reasonable guess, and on the more benign end of the spectrum for reasons it works the way ths title does. We really just have to guess at intent though, the best we can do is look at their output and see if we're okay with the quality of regulation they put in place.
      - ethan801 2y ago
        I mean it appears the explicit answer is due to the 1938 FDC act. Whereby congress explicitly empowered the FDA to enforce the fact that new drugs must be shown safe before selling and advertising can begin. However no such rule was passed for food or supplements as such the regulatory authority in that space is oriented towards preventing "adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious food, drugs, medications, and liquor" (https://library.weill.cornell.edu/about-us/snake%C2%A0oil%C2%A0-social%C2%A0media-drug-advertising-your-health/food-and-drug-administration-continued https://library.weill.cornell.edu/about-us/snake%C2%A0oil%C2...)
        _heimdall 2y ago
        Having the legislative mandate definitely helps. Interestingly, the Chevron case would have left the FDA well within their rights to decide that a similar rule was important for food and supplements, they chose not to do that. Our food supply was totally different in 1938, I can understand why the original legislation didn't include this. Processed foods weren't common, seed oils were even less common, and I assume supplements like we gave today didn't exist though I'm less sure about that one.
        ethan801 2y ago
        Well two of the major reasons for the original act were because of highly unsanitary conditions at slaughter houses (Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) and the use of known unsafe preservatives (e.g formaldehyde, spurred on heavily by Harvey Washington Wiley). While I do think some oversight of food additives is warranted, given the way the FDA currently operates, having them have oversight over them would essentially be tantamount to banning new additives. If the cost was even 1/100th as high as it is to get drug approved it seems likely that there would be no economic payoff worth the hassle.
        _heimdall 2y ago
        Yep that's a totally fair point. I was actually just talking to my father-in-law about that earlier today. We were processing a couple roosters and he was mentioning stories from his mother about how bad meat processing plants used to be. If I wasn't generally opposed to an ever-growing scope of federal powers, I'd probably support an effective ban or extremely high bar on new additives. If food companies aren't willing to test it they shouldn't bother trying to sell it.
  - hobs 2y ago
    The same rationale for the Chevron defense (attacking the root of its power) - there's a large base of republicans who don't want to increase regulation on much of anything, and especially big business. Mel Gibson even famously was part of an ad campaign to make sure that nobody COULD regulate supplements and to this day there's basically just about anything in those things you can buy at any convenience store.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      This isn't a party problem, executive agencies have run the same way for decades regardless of who is in charge of the White House or Congress. Republicans aren't against regulation more than Democrats, each side just wants a different set of regulations. Both parties want some level of restrictions on abortion for example, they just disagree on what the regulation should be.
      - Spooky23 2y ago
        Republicans aren’t republicans anymore, they are populist right wingers. The business dudes who just want to make money are in the back seat. It’s fanatics and reactionaries now. “Starve the beast” in the context of chevron means that regulatory adjudication moves from administrative law judges in agencies to Federal courts. Supposedly this is to align with constitutional principles, but the reality is the except for the richest companies and individuals, litigation in federal court is prohibitively expensive.
        _heimdall 2y ago
        Party platforms change over time. They're Republicans because that's the name of the party. Its totally fair to say they aren't conservative anymore though, much like the Democratic party isn't liberal (at least classic liberal, I'm not a fan of the term having been co-opted and redefined). More importantly to me, I just don't see much light between the base goals of the Republican and Democratic parties. They have done a hell of pushing voters into diametrically opposed corners, but I don't see the same with the parties. They debate details of most topics, but at the end of the day they both seem to be focused on growing the federal government, locking down our borders, and completely ignoring the concept of a budget. If anything, both parties appear more to be run by neocons putting on a show of division to keep people distracted from what they're actually doing.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    Wish I had a good answer to that. I can only really judge their actions, I don't have any insight into their inner workings or intent behind it.
  - xandrius 2y ago
    I think it's the US beloved default of non-regulation. While it can have its positives, it also creates monstrosity such as the FDA. I'd personally rather go to the store and assume that most (if not all) the products available are proven to be safe rather than one which can sell anything that no one has yet proven to be unsafe.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      I'd personally rather go to a farmers market or local store and buy food that was all grown and produced locally. Where the US really got off the rails, in my opinion, was holding onto our distaste for regulation while simultaneously providing legal cover for corporstions to become massive and centralize industry so massively. The FDA shouldn't be necessary at all. I don't need an organization to tell me raw milk from a local dairy is safe. The FDA is only needed for milk because we have a handful of massive, industrial dairies raising animals in terrible conditions and selling their product to everyone through national infrastructure balanced like a house of cards.
      - xandrius 2y ago
        Eh, I wish that was always the case but it really depends on the individual farmer: I know many small and medium-scale farmers which use pesticides and chemicals. Even many people in their own small allotment don't shy away from using them willy nilly. And raw milk is one of those things that it's all good and dandy until it's not. I still prefer buying raw milk and doing a LTLT pasteurisation to have the best of both worlds.
        _heimdall 2y ago
        Totally agree on both counts. The benefit of local is that you can know the farmer at all. You'll just never get that with industrial ag. You'll never know how the animals were raised, how they were processed, or who all was involved as the animal likely was shipped all over the country or even overseas before you ate it. I definitely get people's apprehension with raw milk. I very much need to know where it came from, and have a good idea for the health of the animal. We hand milk when our cows are lactating, and occasionallu buy from a local family dairy that we've worked with for years.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    Additives and supplements grew into the loophole between food processing and drugs. Those lobbies grew as the US developed a political movement against regulation. A lot of people make a lot of money selling ground up bark and food flavoring.
iLoveOncall 2y ago
They kind of do: > In studies performed by Dr Hazen’s team, healthy volunteers were given a drink sweetened with 30 grams of xylitol. That’s similar to the amount found in a single scoop of keto-friendly ice cream or several cookies marketed for people with diabetes. > > In every volunteer studied, platelets were significantly more prone to clot after consuming xylitol.
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  What size scoop is that? A normal one has like 70g, that would be unbearably sweet.
rjh29 2y ago
"No serious health risk exists in most humans for normal levels of consumption. The European Food Safety Authority has not set a limit on daily intake of xylitol. Due to the adverse laxative effect that all polyols have on the digestive system in high doses, xylitol is banned from soft drinks in the European Union. Similarly due to a 1985 report, by the E.U. Scientific Committee on Food, stating that "ingesting 50 g a day of xylitol can cause diarrhea", tabletop sweeteners, as well as other products containing xylitol are required to display the warning: "Excessive consumption may induce laxative effects" Xylitol gum exists in the EU too. It would almost certainly be banned if consuming even a slightly high amount of gum was linked to health risks. It's not a lack of regulation problem.

by moab 2y ago

_heimdall 2y ago

That is a bit tricky at least in the US, I'm not sure how it's done elsewhere. The FDA has a habit of defaulting of assuming foods and additives are safe unless proven dangerous. They also frequently default to safety recommendations from manufacturers. It's very possible that xylitol in toothpaste or mouthwash is considered safe because no one has identified those levels as dangerous. That isn't necessarily an indicator that we know it's safe, just that we haven't looked.

voisin 2y ago
> The FDA has a habit of defaulting of assuming foods and additives are safe unless proven dangerous This seems like an insane default. What’s the rationale?
- ethan801 2y ago
  My assumption is that when the FDA was created there were already a large number of foods and food additives and testing all of those would have been impossible (and would have struck the public as absurd). You also have to deal with the fact that food processors are fairly powerful and that the number of new foods/additives created a year would swamp the agency and be virtually untestable.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    That's a reasonable guess, and on the more benign end of the spectrum for reasons it works the way ths title does. We really just have to guess at intent though, the best we can do is look at their output and see if we're okay with the quality of regulation they put in place.
    - ethan801 2y ago
      I mean it appears the explicit answer is due to the 1938 FDC act. Whereby congress explicitly empowered the FDA to enforce the fact that new drugs must be shown safe before selling and advertising can begin. However no such rule was passed for food or supplements as such the regulatory authority in that space is oriented towards preventing "adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious food, drugs, medications, and liquor" (https://library.weill.cornell.edu/about-us/snake%C2%A0oil%C2%A0-social%C2%A0media-drug-advertising-your-health/food-and-drug-administration-continued https://library.weill.cornell.edu/about-us/snake%C2%A0oil%C2...)
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        Having the legislative mandate definitely helps. Interestingly, the Chevron case would have left the FDA well within their rights to decide that a similar rule was important for food and supplements, they chose not to do that. Our food supply was totally different in 1938, I can understand why the original legislation didn't include this. Processed foods weren't common, seed oils were even less common, and I assume supplements like we gave today didn't exist though I'm less sure about that one.
        ethan801 2y ago
        Well two of the major reasons for the original act were because of highly unsanitary conditions at slaughter houses (Upton Sinclair's The Jungle) and the use of known unsafe preservatives (e.g formaldehyde, spurred on heavily by Harvey Washington Wiley). While I do think some oversight of food additives is warranted, given the way the FDA currently operates, having them have oversight over them would essentially be tantamount to banning new additives. If the cost was even 1/100th as high as it is to get drug approved it seems likely that there would be no economic payoff worth the hassle.
        _heimdall 2y ago
        Yep that's a totally fair point. I was actually just talking to my father-in-law about that earlier today. We were processing a couple roosters and he was mentioning stories from his mother about how bad meat processing plants used to be. If I wasn't generally opposed to an ever-growing scope of federal powers, I'd probably support an effective ban or extremely high bar on new additives. If food companies aren't willing to test it they shouldn't bother trying to sell it.
- hobs 2y ago
  The same rationale for the Chevron defense (attacking the root of its power) - there's a large base of republicans who don't want to increase regulation on much of anything, and especially big business. Mel Gibson even famously was part of an ad campaign to make sure that nobody COULD regulate supplements and to this day there's basically just about anything in those things you can buy at any convenience store.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    This isn't a party problem, executive agencies have run the same way for decades regardless of who is in charge of the White House or Congress. Republicans aren't against regulation more than Democrats, each side just wants a different set of regulations. Both parties want some level of restrictions on abortion for example, they just disagree on what the regulation should be.
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      Republicans aren’t republicans anymore, they are populist right wingers. The business dudes who just want to make money are in the back seat. It’s fanatics and reactionaries now. “Starve the beast” in the context of chevron means that regulatory adjudication moves from administrative law judges in agencies to Federal courts. Supposedly this is to align with constitutional principles, but the reality is the except for the richest companies and individuals, litigation in federal court is prohibitively expensive.
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        Party platforms change over time. They're Republicans because that's the name of the party. Its totally fair to say they aren't conservative anymore though, much like the Democratic party isn't liberal (at least classic liberal, I'm not a fan of the term having been co-opted and redefined). More importantly to me, I just don't see much light between the base goals of the Republican and Democratic parties. They have done a hell of pushing voters into diametrically opposed corners, but I don't see the same with the parties. They debate details of most topics, but at the end of the day they both seem to be focused on growing the federal government, locking down our borders, and completely ignoring the concept of a budget. If anything, both parties appear more to be run by neocons putting on a show of division to keep people distracted from what they're actually doing.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  Wish I had a good answer to that. I can only really judge their actions, I don't have any insight into their inner workings or intent behind it.
- xandrius 2y ago
  I think it's the US beloved default of non-regulation. While it can have its positives, it also creates monstrosity such as the FDA. I'd personally rather go to the store and assume that most (if not all) the products available are proven to be safe rather than one which can sell anything that no one has yet proven to be unsafe.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    I'd personally rather go to a farmers market or local store and buy food that was all grown and produced locally. Where the US really got off the rails, in my opinion, was holding onto our distaste for regulation while simultaneously providing legal cover for corporstions to become massive and centralize industry so massively. The FDA shouldn't be necessary at all. I don't need an organization to tell me raw milk from a local dairy is safe. The FDA is only needed for milk because we have a handful of massive, industrial dairies raising animals in terrible conditions and selling their product to everyone through national infrastructure balanced like a house of cards.
    - xandrius 2y ago
      Eh, I wish that was always the case but it really depends on the individual farmer: I know many small and medium-scale farmers which use pesticides and chemicals. Even many people in their own small allotment don't shy away from using them willy nilly. And raw milk is one of those things that it's all good and dandy until it's not. I still prefer buying raw milk and doing a LTLT pasteurisation to have the best of both worlds.
      - _heimdall 2y ago
        Totally agree on both counts. The benefit of local is that you can know the farmer at all. You'll just never get that with industrial ag. You'll never know how the animals were raised, how they were processed, or who all was involved as the animal likely was shipped all over the country or even overseas before you ate it. I definitely get people's apprehension with raw milk. I very much need to know where it came from, and have a good idea for the health of the animal. We hand milk when our cows are lactating, and occasionallu buy from a local family dairy that we've worked with for years.
- Spooky23 2y ago
  Additives and supplements grew into the loophole between food processing and drugs. Those lobbies grew as the US developed a political movement against regulation. A lot of people make a lot of money selling ground up bark and food flavoring.

iLoveOncall 2y ago

They kind of do: > In studies performed by Dr Hazen’s team, healthy volunteers were given a drink sweetened with 30 grams of xylitol. That’s similar to the amount found in a single scoop of keto-friendly ice cream or several cookies marketed for people with diabetes. > > In every volunteer studied, platelets were significantly more prone to clot after consuming xylitol.

ricardobeat 2y ago
What size scoop is that? A normal one has like 70g, that would be unbearably sweet.

rjh29 2y ago

"No serious health risk exists in most humans for normal levels of consumption. The European Food Safety Authority has not set a limit on daily intake of xylitol. Due to the adverse laxative effect that all polyols have on the digestive system in high doses, xylitol is banned from soft drinks in the European Union. Similarly due to a 1985 report, by the E.U. Scientific Committee on Food, stating that "ingesting 50 g a day of xylitol can cause diarrhea", tabletop sweeteners, as well as other products containing xylitol are required to display the warning: "Excessive consumption may induce laxative effects" Xylitol gum exists in the EU too. It would almost certainly be banned if consuming even a slightly high amount of gum was linked to health risks. It's not a lack of regulation problem.