Recently, someone suggested to me that despite the dental association’s claims that it fights cavities, gum may actually be bad for you. The reason? Chewing gum produces saliva. This saliva “washes” your teeth (which is why it’s “good” for “fighting cavities”). However, the saliva then travels down to your stomach to digest the food your body thinks you’ve just eaten. Alas, there is no food in your stomach.
Now, having extra digestive juices in your stomach isn’t going to kill you, but certainly we can all agree that it can’t help when there isn’t anything to digest. When you chew gum, your body is being fooled into a completely unnecessary physiological reaction.
Other negatives? Almost all gum contains either sugar, or aspartame - neither of which are net positives for your body. One article I read claimed that you should chew sugar gum for at least 20 minutes - by then the sugar will be gone and you’ll be getting the saliva bath action that helps fight cavities. Or to put it another way - chew it beyond the point at which it stops tasting good. Since you should skip the sugar (or aspartame) all together, why not just chew some flavorless rubber for a few minutes?
Several articles around the internet also mention that people with irritable bowel syndrome should not chew gum because it results in swallowing more air, which leads to discomfort. Sounds like a bad idea for people without IBS too, right?
Any gum chewers out there want to defend yourselves? Or better yet, any addicts want to go off gum for a week and report the results?
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Dear R.E.:
Chewing gum seems to help my salsa dancing. I wonder what that does to my jaw muscles, though.