Everyone knows that chocolate (specifically, the chemical theobromine) is toxic to dogs, yet is harmless to humans. My question is, what specific biochemical difference between humans and dogs makes this happen?
Source: Molecular Facts and Structures
See also …
http://www.envtox.ucdavis.edu/cehs/TOXINS/dogs.htm
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000607.html
Chocolate is proof the IPU (Blessed be her hoves) loves us and wants us to be happy. She is not, however, a dog lover.
Scott_plaid. This is General Questions. In general, we want posts to be contributing to answering the OP. We do allow some latitude, and a funny now and then is overlooked.
But, having said that, you’ve racked up warnings in Great Debates. Let’s not make it a habit over in GQ.
I’d seriously look at my posting style, if I were you. Enough warnings, and you could be out of here. Just saying…
samclem GQ moderator
I’ll be good.
From Duckster,
Uh-oh, does that mean frequent doses of theobromine are bad for humans?
Single observation: subject has about 1.5 tsp of black cocoa every morning in the form of choc. drink with milk, sugar, & vanilla. Subject has had no indisputable symptoms from the list in Duckster’s citation. Subject also consumes other chocolate, less that one day out of 10. When does subject die?
(For extra credit, guess who is subject.)
Subject dies when something else kills her. Or when you eat an entire canister of baking cocoa for breakfast.
Frequent doses of moderate amounts of chocolate aren’t harmful, because we break them down long before they can build up toxic levels of theobromine. It’s a matter of total amount in the body at any given time, not how much you’ve had sum total over an extended period. That said, it typically takes a whopping lot of milk chocolate to kill a dog. The LD50 for that particular form is something like an ounce per pound of body weight. Dark chocolate and baking chocolate, however, are far more concentrated and so the LD50 is far lower. I’m wanting to say that baking chocolate is something like an eighth of an ounce per pound of body weight, but I don’t really remember. (I don’t check that part of the chart very often, because baking chocolate’s bitter and dogs typically don’t eat it.)
My veterinarian and I were discussing this a few months ago, and she told me that theophylline is only part of the picture, and that it is actually a lesser component of chocolate’s toxicity to dogs. She said that there is a another chemical in chocolate which is even more insidious. Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly what she told me, but the gist of it is that feeding chocolate even once to a dog can cause them to develop a fatal blood disease as much as five years later! I think she said that is some sort of hemolytic anemia. I have to go see her sometime within the next couple of weeks to refill a prescription, so I’ll ask her again, and this time I’ll write it down and report back here.
Something else to watch out for in addition to actual chocolate: nurseries sell cocoa-hull mulch which is just as toxic, but perhaps not as tasty. If your neighbors are in the habit of using this stuff, you might want to keep your dogs clear of their yards…
Some facts:
Not a whole lot, but answers to some questions asked here, including: