Yeah, xylitol inhibits bacterial growth in the mouth. I like it in gum, it seems to help me. It seems like different people have different tolerances for xylito

Yeah, xylitol inhibits bacterial growth in the mouth. I like it in gum, it seems to help me. It seems like different people have different tolerances for xylitol to some extent; I know that my wife, who is much smaller than me, has a higher absolute tolerance than I do (i.e. if we eat the same amount without accounting for body weight, I will experience discomfort and she will not). I'm not a vet but I'm waiting on some batch tests at work so I did some reading. According to http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/new-findings-effects-xylitol-ingestion-dogs http://veterinarymedicine.dvm360.com/new-findings-effects-xy..., dogs absorb Xylitol much more quickly than rats or humans do. Xylitol also provokes dogs to release insulin, but not people. The reasons behind that are not completely clear to me, but since they quickly and completely absorb Xylitol, they end up producing a ton of insulin very quickly which tanks their blood glucose levels. That's dangerous without any complicating factors. Additionally, dogs metabolize xylitol differently, and it's thought that a side effect of the metabolization is to deplete adenosine triphosphate in the liver, which can cause liver necrosis (obviously very bad news). Humans don't absorb xylitol well (it's only partially digestible and some of it acts as dietary fiber, sort of), and we don't metabolize what we do absorb very efficiently. The difference is likely in both the dose relative to body weight, and the intensity (since dogs metabolize it much faster and more completely). That's all secondhand info though, I don't have a JSTOR or equivalent account so I couldn't read any interesting primary papers. If we coincidentally have a vet wandering through I'd love to learn more about this.