Comment by wxw
5 hours ago
Tangentially related, apparently xylitol gum can reduce cavity risk by killing off bacteria (which cannot digest but cannot differentiate xylitol from regular sugar) in the mouth.
5 hours ago
Tangentially related, apparently xylitol gum can reduce cavity risk by killing off bacteria (which cannot digest but cannot differentiate xylitol from regular sugar) in the mouth.
Just be careful around dogs and presumably other pets as it's toxic for them.
Xylitol is really cool that way. The bacteria waste energy trying to convert it to a form they can use, but they just end up with at a dead end with xylitol-5-phosphate. Once they realize that they need to get rid of it, they convert it back to xylitol (so it can cross the membrane easier and probably to keep the phosphate). Of course, that means the xylitol is back to fool some other nearby bacteria into wasting its energy.
They end up wasting their energy on work that won't help them reproduce and needing to waste more energy getting rid of it.
In that way I'm like a bacteria. "Ah beans, gotta undo all this work"