Living Well: Reasons to stick with chewing gum

Tag : enamel

Whether your school years were high tech or no tech, the issue ofchewing gum during class has been constant -- as in kids want tosneak it and teachers look to prevent it.
There are some good reasons for a gum ban during the school day.The list starts with -- yuck -- gum under desks and includesgum-snapping and bubbles that distract rows or tables of kids. Gumin the hair? Enough said.
Yet new Australian research, funded in large part by gum brandsWrigley and Cadbury, makes a case for gum-chewing on bothphysiological and mental levels. Andrew Scholey, a professor ofbehavioral and brain sciences at Swinburne University in Melbourne,led a team of researchers who discovered that chewing gum beforestressful events can reduce stress and anxiety while boostingalertness.
Sounds great, and that's exactly the idea for chewing-gum makers,who revived flat sales in recent years with, well, a jaw-droppingvariety of sugarless products. But even though we chew 100,000 tonsof gum throughout the world each year, gum companies are lookingfor ways to put gum in the functional food category.
There already are some functional niches for gum, includingnicotine replacement products that help stop a smoking habit.Dentists, such as Dr. Matthew Messing, a Cleveland practitioner andspokesman for the American Dental Association, are happy to go onrecord saying gum benefits your oral health because it "causes usto salivate and saliva is a buffering solution that washes theteeth."
In fact, a growing number of dentists encourage chewing sugarlessgum after meals to prevent tooth enamel erosion from bacteria andacids in plaque that is highest after a meal or snack. It can takeup to two hours for the acids to dissolve by normal salivaproduction in the mouth, but gum significantly accelerates theprocess. So does eating a crisp apple as your finishing food.
Note the sugarless recommendation. Sugary gums can lead to cavitiesat any age. Rather than counter them, the sugar introduces evenmore bacteria and acids to your mouth.
If you are wondering about the long-held recommendation to brushafter meals, that works too. Along with brushing and rinsingactions to eliminate plaque, many toothpastes contain hydrogencarbonate, an alkaline substance that neutralizes acids. Our salivais plentiful in hydrogen carbonate and enamel builders calcium,phosphate and fluoride (depending on drinking water supply) to helprepair any potential decay.
One practical note about sugarless gum: some brands containsorbitol, which can cause bloating and diarrhea in someindividuals, especially if you overdo it.
The Australia study was presented this fall during the 10th annualCongress of Behavioral Medicine at Rissho University in Tokyo.Scholey and his colleagues used a proven stress-inducing series oftests on 40 volunteer young-adult subjects. While causing anxietyand nervousness, the battery of tests includes objective methodsfor measuring stress and performance under pressure.
Gum helped most during episodes of mild stress but still provedstatistically significant during bouts of moderate stress. Onaverage, individuals in mild stress situations reported 17 percentless anxiety and 19 percent more alertness when compared to acontrol group not chewing gum. During moderate stress, theexperimental group experienced 10 percent less stress and 8 percentmore alertness.
Susan Kleiner, a nutritionist based on Mercer Island and co-author-- along with this writer -- of "The Good Mood Diet" (Springboard,240 pages, $23.99), has long recommended crunchy foods to help tampdown stress during a hectic day. As a bonus, Kleiner says the rightcrunchy foods are satisfying and can help curb appetite. Someresearchers have found the more we chew each mouthful of food, theless overall food we choose to eat.
The numbers in the chewing gum study get more intriguing in termsof reduced cortisol in the saliva from gum chewing (cortisol is theprimary biomarker for stress in the body) and performance duringwhat the researchers called "multi-tasking activities." Allparticipants underwent the battery of tests before the study for abaseline score. During the experiment, gum chewers improved theirresults by anywhere from 67 to 109 percent compared to the controlgroup.