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. And

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