The Daily Vet is a blog featuring veterinarians from all walks of life. Every week they will tackle entertaining, interesting, and sometimes difficult topics in the world of animal medicine – all in the hopes that their unique insights and personal experiences will help you to understand your pets.
Xylitol is a low-calorie sugar substitute that’s helped diabetics and weight loss seekers get their sugar fix––in spite of dietary restrictions. And, just like chocolate and grapes, it’s natural, further disproving the claim that “natural is always safe.”
That’s because Xylitol, a sugar compound sourced from the Birch tree, has been recently discovered to be 100 percent lethal to dogs. In many cases, the quantity of Xylitol-containing food was small––as in a box of sugar-free Tic-Tacs (really), a Jell-O sugar free pudding snack or one sugar-free cupcake.
With Xylitol poisoning the most obvious sign is seizuring...as your dog's blood sugar levels plummet. Should she survive this phase, liver toxicity and clotting problems often result.
As if that wasn't enough to strike fear into the heart of any dog lover, the additional danger in Xylitol is three-fold:
- Only small quantities are needed to do serious damage
- Xylitol is found in an increasing number of consumer products and foodstuffs (kid’s vitamins, mints, gums, toothpaste, sugar-free baked goods, etc.)
- Most dog owners don’t yet know about it
As a veterinarian, the latter hazard seems most pressing to me. After all, if you have no idea that Starbucks mints contain Xylitol, you won’t be so careful about where you leave your purse. If you don’t know that a sugar-free cupcake contains it, you might not think twice about throwing a stale one your dogs’ way––or leaving the box on the counter.
Not until your dog starts seizuring, as her blood sugar drops, will you begin to wonder what could have led to her physiological free-fall.
This is really scary stuff. More so because many veterinarians are still in the dark about Xylitol, its effects and its prevalence. A seizuring dog? Could be from anything. Unless you’re asked about specific food poisons, you might not think to check if your gum is still in your pocket. You might have forgotten about the pastry, stressed out as you now are.
Which begs the question: Should these products be labeled “unsafe for canine consumption”?
Though I’d like that to be the case, it’s not happening anytime soon. After all, chocolates and grapes don’t host warning labels. Because ultimately, it’s up to YOU to know better. And now you do.
Spread the word among your dog-loving friends. Read your labels. Don’t buy these products unless you truly need them in your diet (until they switch to another sweetener choice). Inform your family. And, if you choose to use these products, be very careful where you leave them.
Finally, feel free to lobby your local Starbucks to substitute Xylitol for safer sweeteners in their mints and gums. Tell Flintstone’s their vitamins need not contain it. Send out emails to companies who use Xylitol in their product lines. For those of you willing to get in on the act and save a few dogs’ lives, here’s a list of the consumer products that currently contain Xylitol. Make YOUR voice heard.
Oh, and don't forget to email me ([email protected]) the topics you’d most like to hear about––medical, money, ethical or otherwise––and prepare yourself for my opinionated answers.
Dr. Patty Khuly
Comments 4
Leave CommentYes the manufacturers are touting the benefits of xylitol but the scientific work has not really been done, and they tout it as 'natural' even though man-made chemicals are used to process it.
No one intentionally gives it to their dogs "DUH". If you're that excited about what the benefits are for humans, perhaps you'd be better suited finding a site called "Xylitol, the next best thing to logic". I feel like throwing in another "DUH", but I will refrain. I think since you put it that way, I will go start a petition to force gum, mint, and other sugar-free candy makers to state the dangers of such to animals on their products. Thanks for the inspiration.
Xylitol is the silver bullet to sugar intake in humans. Because of it's molecular structure it acts differently than sugar in several wonderful ways. Yes, there have been studies of Xylitol...it's been manufactured for about a hundred years now...we also naturally produce it in our bodies from fruits and veggies we eat.
In regards to dogs, notice that all the referenced articles say "can be" and "could be". After discovering Xylitol and it's benefits I actually started giving it to my Shepard in his water to try and help with his breath. After finding an article about how it's not good for dogs I stopped giving it to him but he had no ill reactions to it, so as is the case in humans, different individuals react differently to various substances and the claim above that it's "100% lethal" is simply not true.
In reading many of the comments here I see a number of people mentioning gums with Xylitol as an ingredient. What they fail to mention is that these popular brand gums, like Trident & 5, also contain sucralose and aspartame among other ingredients. I don't see the need of having up to 3 completely different types/brands of sweeteners in one product except to hook the consumer regardless of how they act in your body. Xylitol benefits your oral health (and even your digestive health) but the completely artificial sweeteners have no benefits and can even cause health issues in people and dogs.
No, dogs should not consume Xylitol...nor should they be given aspartame, sucralose, extra sugars or high fructose corn syrup (an ingredient in really cheap dog foods and treats...humans shouldn't consume HFCS either). They also shouldn't have onions, chocolate, raisins/grapes, milk, garlic, avocados, alcohol, caffeine, certain fruit seeds, yeast dough and macadamia nuts. Think of all the different foods these various items are combined with and you'll see that telling people to "kill Xylitol in your diet" is an unreasonable alarmist reaction when what you should just say is "watch what you feed your pets".
Another thing about this topic is the amount of a substance is relevant. In other articles referring to the danger in dogs, the amount of Xylitol that can be harmful is larger than what you would generally find in products like gum or in a cookie...as is also the case with aspartame or just about any substance but I don't see you saying that these other foods or substances "strike fear" in pet owners like you did about Xylitol. I don't doubt people's reported experiences but then I just told you my experience which appears to differ from their's so go ahead and warn but watch your wording a little more closely.
I doubt anyone's "wording" needs watching. It's simply a heads up, so to speak.