Many people chew gum between meals. It’s a great way to freshen breath, prevent bored snacking and reduce hunger. However, a recent study showed a darker side to gum. While most of us consider it a neutral way to keep our mouths busy, chewing gum releases thousands of microplastics into our mouths for us to swallow. That’s true for both synthetic and natural gum.
On average, 100 microplastics are released per gram of chewing gum. “Our goal is not to alarm anybody,” said Dr. Sanjay Mohanty, the project’s principal investigator and an engineering professor at UCLA. “Scientists don’t know if microplastics are unsafe to us or not. There are no human trials. But we know we are exposed to plastics in everyday life, and that’s what we wanted to examine here.”
There are ongoing human studies on the dangers of microplastics on health. They are suspected of causing problems with respiratory, digestive and reproductive health. They have also been associated with colon and lung cancer.
“Most of the ingestion studies related to food are [about the] contamination of food with microplastic from plastic containers (e.g., plastic water bottles, plastic tea bags), but chewing gum is the only food that is made up of plastics,” said Dr. Mohanty. “Yet, most don’t know. We wanted to measure microplastics in chewing gum. This is important to estimate total microplastic exposure into the human body and any possible negative effects.”
The study used 10 chewing gums sold in stores. Five were natural, and five were synthetic. For the study, a person would chew seven pieces of gum from each brand for four minutes each. They would give a saliva sample every 30 seconds. The saliva samples were combined into one sample per brand to account for varied chewing patterns and saliva amounts.
The researchers weren’t surprised to find microplastics in the saliva samples from the synthetic gum. However, the fact that the natural gum had roughly the same amount of microplastics did confuse them.
In another test, they chewed the gum for 20 minutes and studied the saliva samples to look for plastic. From that test, they saw that most of the microplastics were released in the first two minutes because of the physical motion of chewing — not any form of chemical reaction. By minute eight, 94 percent of the microplastics had been released.
If you love gum and are concerned about microplastics, you should chew one piece for longer. Past the eight-minute mark, it was largely neutral. Even though it will have lost its flavor, you’ll still get the chewing sensation without adding more plastic to your body. Additionally, when you dispose of your gum, throw it away. Don’t throw it outside or stick it to a gum wall where the plastics will end up in the water system.
