Discussion [0] (43 points, yesterday, 55 comments)

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40596089

It's still pretty great for toothpaste (I use Squiggle) and chewing gum that cleans your teeth (I chew Mentos).

it makes me poop funny

I already try my best to avoid it since it's extremely toxic to dogs. Why aren't other sweeteners just used instead?

Yes. Beware, it's in MOST Benadryl too.

My dog did not get any xylitol BUT it was close -- he got stung by a bee, and was having difficulty breathing. And we received bad advice from a clinic to give him Benadryl. Which would have been good advice but for the fact Benadryl is VERY often sweetened with Xylitol. We got a 2nd opinion and better treatment from another emergency vet, by luck.

> VERY often sweetened with Xylitol

Where did you see Benadryl with Xylitol? They don't list it in any of their product ingredients, nor do they list it in their ingredient transparency page[1].

[1] https://www.benadryl.com/benadryl-difference/ingredients-tra...

Seems to be a common myth https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/benadryl-xylitol-dogs/

I mean you could say the same about chocolate. Erythritol has the same issue btw, and let’s see what they find out about the others.

Lethal doses of Xylitol for dogs is 0.5g per kg of pet weight, while for chocolate it 5g per kg for pure baking chocolate all the way to not being lethal at all for white chocolate. We're talking a magnitude of difference is lethal even for the most potent form of chocolate, and for dark chocolate it's 15g/kg versus 0.5g/kg for xylitol.

To give an example, a typical hershey's milk chocolate bar is nearly impossible to kill your dog with, even if it's a small dog.

Most sweets are not 100% sugar or xylitol either. You‘d need to compare cocoa powder to xylitol instead, not the diluted form (baking chocolate).

How much xylitol is there in things that a dog might eat? When I imagine any kind of artificial sweetener, I assume it's hundreds or thousands of times sweeter than sugar and the quantities present are correspondingly lower.

Xylitol is roughly as sweet as sugar, unlike others.

Ugh I use xylitol impregnated floss as it has huge cavity prevention abilities. I guess there is no free lunch

I use gum for the same reason. I wonder what amount they used for the study. Afaik the amount you ingest with floss and gums is not very high. I've not been thorough but I couldn't find it in the study.

It is also highly toxic for dogs.