Chewing Gum Removes as much oral bacteria as flossing

Chewing sugar-free gum could be able to remove as much bacteria from your mouth as flossing - approximately 100 million bacteria, Researchers have revealed. Chewing gum has already been shown to boost cognitive function and suppress appetite. Now scientists have provided another reason to do it.

According to new research, when you chew sugar-free gum, gum traps harmful bacteria that can cause dental cavities. When you spit it out, up to 100 million bacteria is removed.

Over the past four years, the chewing gum industry sales in US decreases by 11 percent and no one's sure why. The reason behind may be mints are more appealing, or perhaps with flavors like ‘raspberry vanilla cupcake’ and ‘radiant pineapple blend’ now saturating the market, gum has veered too far into the candy side of things to be considered a dental aid anymore.

At the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, a team led by Stefan Wessel from the University Medical Centre has found that when we chew gum, we’re collecting bacteria from all corners of our mouths, and when we spit it out, the bacteria goes with it. They observed that a single piece of typical "tab" gum can trap up to 100,000,000 bacteria.

In this study, five biomedical engineering students donated their time to chewing two different standard pieces of gum for various lengths of time ranging from 30 seconds to ten minutes. Afterwards, the gum was spit into a cup filled with sterile water and analyzed.

The researchers found that the longer a piece of gum is chewed, the more microbial species from the mouth it captures. However, after thirty seconds of chewing, the gum starts to lose its adhesiveness, which means that it traps fewer bacteria overall.

They report online in the journal PLoS One, "Despite an increasing diversity in species developing over time in chewed gums, there is a gradual decrease in the number of bacteria trapped in chewed gum over time." 

Not all gum may benefit your dental health. Actually Sugar-sweetened gum feeds oral bacteria. When these microbes ferment sugars, the biofilm on your teeth grows more acidic, which, in turn, leads to cavities. Gum with artificial sweeteners, however, does not have this effect. In fact, some artificial sweeteners actually have antimicrobial properties.

The researchers think their study may lead to the production of more advanced gums that vastly improve dental health.

 

Source: Real Clear Science

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