Chewing Gum

Chewing Well Associated With Healthier Brain and Less Pain

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Those who can chew properly may have less stress, pain, and trouble focusing. (William Vaccaro/Shutterstock)

Those who can chew properly may have less stress, pain, and trouble focusing.

Researchers have found that being able to chew food well lowers anxiety, improves memory, and reduces pain, providing a compelling case for early treatment of poor oral health, removal of misaligned teeth, or simply chewing more gum.

Mice with crossbites showed significantly more noticeable and persistent anxiety-like behaviours, and “early removal of crossbites results in general improvement or partial recovery of these changes,” the authors wrote in their study published in December 2022.

This might be because vigorous chewing increases brain activity, according to Clare Collins, an Australian dietician and laureate professor in nutrition and dietetics at the University of Newcastle.

“The more strongly people could chew, the more blood flowed to their brains, leading to more oxygen and activity in regions of the brain linked to learning and memory,” Collins said.

A mother with her teething baby

Studies conducted on rats have also established that difficulty chewing as a result of dysfunctional molars leads to progressive loss of memory and learning capacity and recommended dental treatment to prevent cognitive and neurological deterioration.

Inexpensive and Effective Stress and Pain Reliever

Chewing food such as gum or cloves can also be an affordable and effective way to relieve anxiety and stress.

In a study published on Jan. 31, researchers examined nearly 500 adults to explore the effects of chewing on anxiety and stress and discovered that those who chewed gum more often had significantly less anxiety than those who never chewed gum.

A Turkish study examining 73 children chewing gum during IV insertion procedures also revealed pain-relieving effects.

The children who chewed gum reported significantly lower pain levels compared to the group receiving standard care.

Rather than gums sweetened with artificial sweeteners like aspartame, doctors recommend choosing those using natural flavours and ingredients such as xylitol.

How to improve oral health

Apart from treating misaligned teeth and brushing your teeth after meals, removing sugar from your diet is often advised because people with high sugar in their diet or carbohydrates have a lot more unfriendly bacteria in their mouths that create cavities.

“This [link] between sugar and cavities was suppressed in the early 70s … instead, they shifted their attention to saturated fats,” according to Dr Eric Berg, a chiropractor who specialises in healthy ketosis and intermittent fasting.

“But out of all the foods you should avoid for your teeth and gums, sugar is at the top of the list,” Berg said.

Instead, people should reach for foods such as eggs, greens, sauerkraut, and grass-fed butter or ghee are abundant in vitamins A, C and B1, which specialise in increasing the resistance to infection, building up one’s immunity to disease, and reducing nerve inflammation in the mouth.

Chewing Gum with GMO Could Reduce the Spread of COVID

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Gum carrying a protein produced by genetically modified lettuce traps SARS-CoV-2

Chewing Gum with GMO Could Reduce the Spread of COVID

A type of chewing gum mixed with a protein that is a gateway for infections with the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, could serve as a low-cost way to help prevent its spread, a recent study suggests.

The angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) protein, which is present on the surface of many human cells, can be mixed into chewing gum. Conveyed into the mouth by the gum, ACE2 can then trap the virus by binding to its spike protein, which otherwise aids it in infecting cells. In addition, the protein in the gum can bind to cell-surface receptors, thereby blocking sites where the virus typically infects us. The combination effectively prevents the pathogen from infecting cells in the oral cavity, the researchers report.

The nose and throat are where the coronavirus usually first infects human cells. But the mouth is one of the largest reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 in an infected person, according to a March 2021 paper in Nature Medicine. Now the newer study contends that inactivating the virus in the mouth’s saliva and mucous membranes could help reduce infection in the adjoining nasopharyngeal area, too. If additional research bears out the findings, the gum could join face masks and hand sanitizer in the arsenal for curbing the virus’s spread.

To study this strategy, a team led by University of Pennsylvania pharmaceutical researcher Henry Daniell modified lettuce plants to make them produce a soluble form of the ACE2 protein. A powdered form of the lettuce was then blended with sweet-tasting cinnamon-flavor chewing gum. The researchers tested the gum’s effectiveness in hamster cells modified to produce human ACE2 receptors.

In the hamster cells, a relatively small quantity of the protein was associated with a 95 percent reduction of the amount of a stand-in virus entering cells (the so-called pseudovirus bore a spike protein matching the one that studs the surface of SARS-CoV-2), the researchers report. The amount of the virus inside unmodified monkey cells also dropped by 85 percent when using the same stand-in virus. And adding the gum to swabs of nasal and throat fluid in three people infected with SARS-CoV-2 was associated with a 95 percent reduction in the amount of the active pseudovirus. The findings were published in November in Molecular Therapy.

Daniell says his team is awaiting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to test the gum’s effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 in humans.

The protein would be released over the course of about 10 minutes of chewing, Daniell found by modeling the process with a machine that generates the same force as typical human chomping. Protection would last for four hours, he estimates. Daniell is also testing the chewing-gum approach against influenza.

One concern with the overall idea involves the issue of where the coronavirus first infects the body. “The main entry route for COVID-19 is the nose,” says immunologist Danny Altmann of Imperial College London, who was not involved in the new study. “And the gum may have little effect at stopping the virus entering from that opening—unless it is found that it provides protection at the back of the throat.”

But even if the gum is not ultimately found to defend a chewer against infection, it might still reduce spread by cutting down the amount of virus in an infected person’s mouth—and thereby reducing the amount available for transmission—says virologist Julian Tang, who also was not involved in the study. In a best-case scenario, a COVID-busting gum could be on store shelves in about two years, Daniell says.

And then, one day, if the novel coronavirus remains a threat, four out of five doctors may recommend ACE2 gum for their patients.

Does chewing gum take seven years to digest?

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As children we’re told not to swallow gum, because it will lie in your stomach for ages. Claudia Hammond chews over the evidence to find out if this is true.

gum

Imagine if you swallowed a piece of gum in the summer of 2006. George W Bush was still in the White House. Twitter had yet to be launched. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was at the top of the movie charts. It feels like a long time ago, but legend has it that if you had swallowed gum then, your body would be completing its digestion about now.

As children we’re told we mustn’t swallow chewing gum because it will take seven years to digest. Until then, we are led to believe, it will lie there in your stomach, oblivious to the usual bodily processes that break down and process foods. It’s a statement that is confidently asserted in school playgrounds in many countries, but does it have any basis in medical science?

Chewing gum consists of a gum base, sweetener, flavouring, preservatives and softeners. Sugars and flavouring ingredients such as mint oils break down easily and are soon excreted. Likewise, softeners such as vegetable oil or glycerine don’t present a problem for the digestive system. The ingredient that can withstand both the acid in the stomach and the digestive enzymes in the intestines is the gum base. 

Traditionally many manufacturers used chicle, the sap bled from the sapodilla tree, an evergreen native to southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. But after American soldiers took their gum rations overseas during the World War II, its popularity spread and sapodilla trees could no longer keep up with demand.

Today most gum uses other natural or synthetic polymers. The US Food and Drug Administration permits the use of various substances, including butyl rubber, which is used to make inner tubes. Each manufacturer has its own recipe with the aim of getting the perfect degree of elasticity.

But even though the gum base cannot be broken down, that doesn’t mean it stays in your gut for seven years. Nor does it wind itself around your heart, as some also assert. Provided it’s a small piece, it does eventually find its way down the digestive tract. Foreign bodies such as coins can usually pass out of the stomach provided they’re less than 2cm in diameter. Chewing gum has the advantage over a lot of other accidentally-ingested objects in that it’s soft.

The only way that chewing gum could stay for seven years is if there was a vast amount of it, and even then symptoms such as constipation would mean it’s probably discovered soon. A 1998 paper reports outlines alarming case studies of three children who did develop obstructions as a result of the habit.

One was a four-year-old boy who had been suffering from constipation for two years. He found it so hard to go to the toilet that his parents began offering chewing gum as an incentive to try. He ate between five and seven pieces a day and always swallowed them, rather than spitting them out. After four days of fibre supplements, oils and enemas had no effect, doctors sedated him and removed a “taffy-like” mass (referring to its similarity to chewy, toffee-like sweets from the US) from his rectum consisting chiefly of gum. It wasn’t seven years old, but it did cause him serious problems.

Inside the second patient, also aged four, doctors found a multi-coloured mass, which again turned out to be chewing gum. Doctors said the patient was in the habit of swallowing her gum quickly in order to get more.

The third child was just 18-months-old. Doctors found four coins stuck together with a “peculiar sticky wax-like substance” in her stomach. It turned out that she regularly ate chewing gum, and, it appears, small coins. The families of two of the children were aware that they were swallowing their gum and found it “a source of levity”, according to the report’s authors.

So regularly swallowing large amounts of gum isn’t a good idea. But if you have eaten the occasional piece, there’s no evidence that you will come to any harm. And, if you were to swallow some today, it will not hang around inside you until finally making its way out in time for the 2020 Olympics.

Source: BBC

 

Chewing Gum No Good for Weight Loss .

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Chewing gum has been suggested as a simple tool to help you reduce food cravings and eat less, ultimately helping with weight loss.

There is even some research bearing this out.1 However, if you’re currently looking to lose a few (or more than a few) pounds, relying on a pack of gum is not likely to be a winning strategy, as the latest research suggests it has little impact on your weight.

Chewing Gum Does Not Reduce Hunger or Food Intake

A new series of studies2 set out to determine whether chewing gum actually reduces your motivation to eat, your hunger and how much you end up eating.

One of the studies revealed that while those who chewed gum consumed fewer meals, they ate more at the meals they did consume. Further, their meals ended up being less nutritious than those eaten by non-gum-chewers.

The second study found that people who chewed gum were less likely to eat fruit and instead were more motivated to eat junk food like potato chips and candy. This is likely because the minty flavor in the gum makes fruits and vegetables taste bitter. Researchers concluded:3

“These studies provide no evidence that acute or chronic gum chewing reduces hunger or energy intake. In fact, chewing mint-flavored gum may deter consumption of fruit and reduce diet quality.”

Why Chewing Gum May be Bad for Your Digestion

Your body was designed to activate digestion through chewing. A carefully coordinated neurological reflex activates the production of enzymes when you move your jaw in a chewing motion.

However, chewing without eating food can be counterproductive. When you chew gum, you send your body physical signals that food is about to enter your body. The enzymes and acids that are activated when you chew gum are therefore released, but without the food they’re intended to digest.

This can cause bloating, an overproduction of stomach acid, and can compromise your ability to produce sufficient digestive secretions when you actually do eat food.

Besides this, chewing gum can cause jaw muscle imbalance (if you chew on one side more than the other) and even TMJ or temporomandibular joint disorder in your jaw, which can be a painful chronic condition.

I generally recommend avoiding gum chewing, but if you do chew gum, do so only occasionally or right before a meal when the acid and enzyme stimulation may actually be beneficial.

Even Sugar-Free Gum May Damage Your Teeth

You may think there’s no harm in chewing a piece of sugar-free gum, since there’s no sugar to damage your teeth. The sugar alcohol xylitol, which is popular in sugar-free foods, has even been found to help fight tooth decay. However, a label of “sugar-free” should not automatically be taken to mean “safe for your teeth.”

Sugar-free gum often contains acidic flavorings and preservatives that may in fact lead to dental erosion,4 even if it contains cavity-fighting xylitol. Unlike cavities, dental erosion is a process of incremental decalcification, which, over time, literally dissolves your teeth.

Artificial Sweeteners: Another Reason to Ditch Sugar-Free Gum

There are other health risks to artificial sweeteners commonly used in sugar-free gum as well. Aspartame, for instance, is metabolized inside your body into both wood alcohol (a poison) and formaldehyde (which is a carcinogen used as embalming fluid and is not eliminated from your body through the normal waste filtering done by your liver and kidneys). It’s been linked to birth defects, cancer, brain tumors and weight gain.

Sucralose (Splenda), another common artificial sweetener used in chewing gum, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) based on only two human studies, the longest of which lasted only four days – even though animal studies found the sweetener was associated with decreased red blood cells (a sign of anemia), male infertility, enlarged kidneys, spontaneous abortions and an increased death rate.5

Further, consuming artificial sweeteners can cause distortions in your biochemistry that may actually make you gain weight. Studies looking at this issue show very clearly that artificial sweeteners may actually cause greater weight gain than sugar by stimulating your appetite, increasing carbohydrate cravings, and stimulating fat storage. Several years ago I wrote a book called Sweet Deception, in which I expose the many concerns related to the consumption of artificial sweeteners. If you want to learn more, this book is an excellent place to start.

Wrigley to Sell Caffeinated Gum

In a bid to hook even more people on chewing gum, Wrigley is releasing a caffeinated gum that has the equivalent caffeine as half a cup of coffee in every stick. It’s not the first caffeinated gum on the market, but it is a first for the Wrigley brand, which is likely to bring it into the mainstream market.

The gum maker has been focusing on creating “functional” or “occasion-based” reasons to chew gum and is urging stores to place the caffeinated gum alongside energy drinks in stores.

Already experts have expressed concern that the gum will provide an easy avenue for children and teens to consume caffeine, an excess of which has been linked to caffeine toxicity, stroke, anxiety, arrhythmia, and in some cases death. Plus, if you’re so tired that caffeinated gum appeals to you, your lack of energy and fatigue state is likely a result of certain lifestyle choices, such as not enough healthy food, too much processed foods and sugar, and not enough exercise and sleep, plus an overload of stress. Caffeinated chewing gum is not the solution to increasing your energy levels, just as chewing gum of any sort is not the answer to lasting weight loss.

The Secrets to Finally Lose Weight and Keep it Off

For the majority of people, severely restricting carbohydrates such as sugars, fructose, and grains in your diet will be the key to weight loss. Refined carbohydrates like breakfast cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and most other processed foods quickly break down to sugar, increase your insulin levels, and cause insulin resistance, which is one of the primary underlying factors of nearly every chronic disease and condition known to man, including weight gain.

As you cut these dietary villains from your meals, it is wise to replace them with healthy vegetables and fats like avocados, coconut oil, butter, olives, olive oil and macadamia nuts. The carbohydrates in vegetables have far less of a negative impact on your body than grains and sugars because the fiber in the vegetables slows the conversion to simple sugars, and improves insulin resistance.

When you cut grains and sugar from your meals, you typically will need to increase the amount of vegetables you eat, as well as make sure you are also consuming protein and healthy fats regularly. This includes saturated fats like coconut oil, which more and more research confirms can help trim your waistline.

I’ve detailed a step-by-step guide to this type of healthy eating program in my comprehensive nutrition plan, and I urge you to consult this guide if you are trying to lose weight. Once you’ve addressed your diet, exercise, particularly high-intensity activities like Peak Fitness, can truly begin to work its magic on your physique, and help boost fat loss even further.

Source: mercola.com

Chewing gum can boost concentration.

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http://m.economictimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/chewing-gum-can-boost-concentration-study/articleshow/18890186.cms

HOW SAFE ID CHEWING GUM ?

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Recently, about thirty women, were asked whose ages were mostly under the age of forty, if they carried chewing gum with them. Twenty seven of the thirty were able to pull out a pack of gum, some even going as far as telling me why they loved a particular brand/flavor of gum.

While this demographic is not representative of all women, 90% of them chewed gum on a daily basis, some consuming more than one stick per day. As with many things that we expose our bodies to on a daily basis, let’s take a moment and analyze the ingredients of chewing gum and ask some important questions that pertain to whether it contributes to good health.

How many of us have looked at the ingredients on a pack of gum?

If you have, do you know what each one of the substances is?

Is a stick of chewing gum more of a “cancer stick” than a cigarette?

As you will see below, commercial gum products are some of the most toxic substances that you can expose your body too and literally can lead to some of the worst diseases on the planet.

Here is a list of the most common ingredients in the most popular chewing gum products on the market:

Sorbitol, Xylitol, Mannitol, Maltitol

Gum Base

Glycerol

Natural and Artificial Flavors

Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Starch

Aspartame –Acesulfame

Soy Lecithin

Colors (titanium oxide, blue 2 lake, red 40)

BHT

Malic Acid, Citric Acid

Ingredient #1: Gum Base.

Imagine if someone came up to you and said, “Hey, would you like to chew on some tire rubber and plastic?” You probably would politely decline and want to report this person to a doctor for a psychological evaluation. “Gum base” is a blend of elastomers, plasticizers, fillers, and resin. Some of the other ingredients that go into this mix are polyvinyl acetate, which is frequently referred to as “carpenter glue” or “white glue”. Paraffin wax is another ingredient that is a byproduct of refined petroleum. Is chewing plastic, petroleum and rubber safe? As you chew, these substances leach into the mouth and body. Yummy.

Ingredient #2: Aspartame.

The controversy surrounding this substance is widespread. It is one of the most body toxic substances we can consume. The political corruption and money trail behind this agent of disease is a mile long. Aspartame has been linked to all of the major brain diseases including Alzheimer’s and ALS. It is also considered a prime contributor to many other diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, asthma, obesity, and many others. It is in many diet products on the market today, but in the long run actually contributes to obesity due to his extreme acidity. Aspartame is an excitotoxin, which over excites neurons in the brain until they burn out and die. Dr. Russell Blaylock is the leading expert on Aspartame and other excitotoxins and I would highly encourage you to see the documentary entitled “Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World”.

#3: Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Starch.

Hydrogenation is chemical process that adds hydrogen across a double bonded carbon. This is done to increase the shelf life of a product, turning oil into a more plastic like substance. This process also creates Trans fats, which are now known to be very harmful to health.

Ingredient #4: Colors (titanium dioxide, blue 2 lake, red 40).

Titanium dioxide is a nanoparticle that is very common in sunscreen and many other health products, including synthetic nutritional supplements. New evidence is leading in the direction of this substance being carcinogenic, leading to cancer. We as humans are drawn to things that are colorful. Artificial food colorings, such as red 40, are made from petroleum and are dangerous to our health. Many people have extreme allergies to these substances and they have been implicated in contributing to ADD and other disorders and diseases.

Ingredient #5: Sorbitol, Xylitol, Mannitol, Maltitol.

These sugar alcohols are originally made from sugar, but are altered so much that they are considered sugar free. As a general rule, when nature is altered and changed to make a “better” product, more often than not, the result is something that is not healthy. Some even go so far as to say that these products are far worse than sugar and can stimulate weight gain. Other side effects can include abdominal pain and diarrhea. Is sugar alcohol better than sugar? Neither are good substances, so comparing the two is somewhat pointless.

Chewing Gum and Digestion

Every time you chew gum, your brain is tricked into thinking that you are eating food. Therefore, it sends signals to your stomach, pancreas and other organs involved in digestion to prepare for this “food”. Your salivary glands and pancreas will begin to emit enzymes, which are necessary to digest food and absorb nutrients from food. Constant emission of enzymes over time will deplete enzymes and over time this process can slow down. If you are not breaking down and absorbing food properly over time, you will get disease because the body needs nutrients to rebuild and thrive.

A Great Alternative for Fresh Breath

A great alternative to chewing gum is to carry around a small bottle of organic food grade peppermint oil and when you would like fresh breath, just put one drop in your mouth and you will have achieved the same effect. You can find many food grade oils that are wonderful for helping you have fresh breath.

Nothing in chewing gum is natural. It is chemical goop that in no way contributes to health or is good for your teeth. Don’t be fooled by fancy advertising. The five ingredients that we reviewed above, in one form or another, contribute to disease and poor health. Is this really a risk that you want to expose yourself to all for the sake of fresh breath? In the future, perhaps we will see that chewing gum may be as much of a contributor to disease as are cigarettes.

Source : http://www.activistpost.com/

 

 

 

Chewing Gum Before a Test May Boost Performance

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But Study Shows Chewing Gum During a Test May Give You Worse Results

Chewing gum before a test may give students an extra edge during finals season.

A new study shows chewing gum for five minutes before a test improves performance.

But be sure to get rid of the gum before the test starts. Researchers say chewing gum during testing may detract from your performance.

“Clear performance advantages emerge when gum is chewed prior to (but not during) [mental] testing,” write researcher Serge Onyper, assistant professor of psychology at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., and colleagues in a recent issue of Appetite.

Researchers say previous studies have shown that any type of physical activity may improve test performance. The new findings suggest that even mild activity may be enough to do the trick.

Chewing Before Test vs. During Test

In the study, researchers compared the effects of chewing gum before or during various testing situations in a group of about 80 undergraduate students.

The results showed students who chewed gum for five minutes before a test performed better than those who didn’t.

But the benefits of chewing gum were short-lived, lasting only about 15 to 20 minutes into the test.

Researchers say the performance benefits of chewing gum before a test are likely due to chewing-induced arousal of the brain. Chewing gum during testing, however, may detract from test performance by competing with mental or thinking processes in the brain.

In other words, don’t feel bad if you can’t take a test and chew gum at the same time.

Source:webMD