Chewing Gum Can Reduce Calorie Intake, Increase Energy Expenditure
A nutrition professor at the University of Rhode Island
studying the effects of chewing sugar-free gum on weight management has found
that it can help to reduce calorie intake and increase energy expenditure.
Kathleen Melanson, URI associate professor of nutrition and food sciences,
compared gum chewing to non-gum chewing in healthy adult volunteers who came to
her lab for two standardized tests in random order. When study subjects chewed
gum for a total of one hour in the morning (three 20-minute gum-chewing
sessions), they consumed 67 fewer calories at lunch and did not compensate by
eating more later in the day. Male participants also reported feeling
significantly less hungry after chewing gum. Melanson also found that when her
subjects chewed gum before and after eating, they expended about 5 percent more
energy than when they did not chew gum. In addition, her subjects reported
feeling more energetic after chewing gum.
"Based on these results, gum chewing integrates energy expenditure and
energy intake, and that's what energy balance is about," Melanson said.
According to the URI researcher, nerves in the muscles of the jaw are
stimulated by the motion of chewing and send signals to the appetite section of
the brain that is linked to satiety, which may explain why the act of chewing
might help to reduce hunger.
Melanson said that she expected that chewing would increase the amount of
energy her subjects expended. "However, what makes the energy expenditure
data particularly interesting is that this study simulated real-life gum
chewing, with the subjects chewing at their own relaxed, natural pace and for
realistic time periods," she said.
In her study, 35 male and female subjects made two visits to the URI Energy
Metabolism Lab after having fasted over night. During one visit, they chewed
gum for 20 minutes before consuming a breakfast shake and twice more during the
three hours before lunch. During both visits, participants remained as still as
possible as measurements were conducted of their resting metabolism rates and
blood glucose levels at regular intervals before and after breakfast and lunch.
They also conducted periodic self-assessments of their feelings of hunger,
energy and other factors during both visits.
"This was a short term study, so the next step is to do a longer study and
to use subjects who need to lose weight," said Melanson. "But based
on these initial results, one could hypothesize that gum chewing may be a
useful adjunct to a weight management program."
Results reported at the Obesity Society conference
The study was supported by a $25,000 research award from the Wrigley Science
Institute that was presented during the 2007 annual meeting of The Obesity
Society.

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