This may look kinda rude, but it’s actually kinda good for you!
Hello all!
Amy with you on DNews today.
You know how gum commercials always boast that their product can give you a fresher,
cleaner mouth?
Well, it that’s not entirely a lie.
New research published online at PLoS ONE says that chewing gum is actually as good
for your oral hygiene as flossing.
When we eat, little bits of food get stuck between our teeth or behind those permanent
retainers a lot of people have these days.
If that food gets to hang out long enough, it will become a breeding ground for bacteria.
That bacteria can lead to cavities and infections, and really, isn’t an infection in the main
hole in your face that’s pretty close to your brain about the last thing you want?
Oral hygiene is important!
Not just brushing your teeth but flossing, too.
Flossing is a great way to get those gross lingering bits of food out from tight spaces,
decreasing the overall amount of bacteria in your mouth, but apparently so is chewing
gum.
Sort of.
The researchers who ran the study enlisted five biomedical engineering students as gum
chewers.
They had the students chew gum for various lengths of time ranging from 30 seconds to
ten minutes.
When the time was up, the students spit the gum into a cup of sterile water.
From there, it was analyzed.
From analyzing the chewed gum, the researchers calculated that a single standard piece of
gum can trap up to 100-million bacteria, which is roughly ten percent of the microbes typically
found in saliva.
And that’s about the same amount of bacteria typically removed from flossing.
But before you take this as license to chew all day long, there are a few caveats.
Chewing isn’t exactly the same as flossing since flossing targets different areas of
the mouth.
And after just 30 seconds, a piece of gum starts losing its stickiness meaning it traps
less bacteria.
And not all gum is create equal when it comes to dental health.
Sugary gum basically feeds the bacteria in your mouth while gum with artificial sweeteners
actually have some antimicrobial properties.
So if these findings pan out into a line of dental health gums, would you chew?
Let us know in the comments below or you can catch me on Twitter as @astVintageSpace.
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