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This is fascinating. I had read before about xylitol's dental benefits, but I had not heard that they were so pronounced. I want to do some more independent res

This is fascinating. I had read before about xylitol's dental benefits, but I had not heard that they were so pronounced. I want to do some more independent research before I jump to any conclusions, but you can get pure xylitol pretty cheap online. It's a lot more expensive than sugar as a sweetener (~4x) and way more expensive than sucralose (~20x), but factor in dental bills and it starts looking downright cheap.

verisimilitude 14y ago
When you search on xylitol, use "futile cycle" in the query --essentially, bacteria take xylitol up because it looks enough like a genuine, useful sugar, but can't do anything metabolically useful with it. It would be like humans spending all our energy chewing wood.
- npsimons 14y ago
  Interesting. Reminds me a bit of the parts in Greg Egan's "Permutation City" (fiction) where the protagonist is trying to force simulated bacteria to evolve to digest a "sugar" analogue that is poison. Hope our real world bacteria don't evolve to do anything useful with xylitol.
berntb 14y ago
Let me do some free advertising -- Jenkki professional chewing gum don't have any artificial sugars. They only have xylitol and some base. You can only buy it in Finland, not even in Sweden (grumble).
meaty 14y ago
Only problem is that xylitol gives you the shits. My dental hygiene routine which has worked well for 20 years is brush my teeth twice a day, avoid dentists altogether (most of what they do is unnecessary) and soft drinks and stay the hell away from non natural and refined sugars. I can munch ice cubes quite happily.
- pinko 14y ago
  I do the opposite. I almost never brush (maybe once a month), but get my teeth cleaned twice a year religiously. Never had a cavity, (almost) never have bad breath. Normal diet. My guess is that the specific bacteria in your mouth make all the difference.

verisimilitude 14y ago

When you search on xylitol, use "futile cycle" in the query --essentially, bacteria take xylitol up because it looks enough like a genuine, useful sugar, but can't do anything metabolically useful with it. It would be like humans spending all our energy chewing wood.

npsimons 14y ago
Interesting. Reminds me a bit of the parts in Greg Egan's "Permutation City" (fiction) where the protagonist is trying to force simulated bacteria to evolve to digest a "sugar" analogue that is poison. Hope our real world bacteria don't evolve to do anything useful with xylitol.

berntb 14y ago

Let me do some free advertising -- Jenkki professional chewing gum don't have any artificial sugars. They only have xylitol and some base. You can only buy it in Finland, not even in Sweden (grumble).

meaty 14y ago

Only problem is that xylitol gives you the shits. My dental hygiene routine which has worked well for 20 years is brush my teeth twice a day, avoid dentists altogether (most of what they do is unnecessary) and soft drinks and stay the hell away from non natural and refined sugars. I can munch ice cubes quite happily.

pinko 14y ago
I do the opposite. I almost never brush (maybe once a month), but get my teeth cleaned twice a year religiously. Never had a cavity, (almost) never have bad breath. Normal diet. My guess is that the specific bacteria in your mouth make all the difference.