Is Chewing Gum Good Or Bad For Your Teeth?

Did you know that the average American consumes 1.8 pounds of gum each year? With so much gum going into our mouths it’s important to know how chewing gum affects our dental health.

You may have heard that it’s both good and bad for your teeth… so what’s the real answer? Read on to find out!

Avoid Chewing Gum Sweetened With Sugar

Gum has always been a childhood favorite! What child doesn’t love that sweet burst of flavor or a bubble-blowing competition with friends? Unfortunately, gum sweetened with sugar is bad news for teeth.

When you or your child choose sugary chewing gum, you’re not the only ones satisfying your sweet tooth. The bacteria in our mouths like sugar too! And they enjoy it long after we’ve spit our gum out. These bacteria use sugar as fuel, producing acids that weaken tooth enamel and cause cavities.

Stick To Sugarless Gum

Here’s the good news: chewing sugar-free gum can actually boost your oral health! Chewing gum increases saliva flow in your mouth, strengthening your teeth and washing away food debris and bacteria. While the same is true for sugary gum, the increased saliva flow isn’t quite enough to offset the damage that the sugar can do.

According to the American Dental Association, studies show that chewing sugarless gum for 20 minutes after a meal can prevent tooth decay. Saliva helps neutralize acids in our mouths after eating. It also contains calcium and phosphate which strengthen tooth enamel, our teeth’s first line of defense against cavity-causing bacteria.

So, when choosing gum, “stick” to the sugarless kind!

Gum Can’t Replace Good Oral Hygiene

Chewing sugar-free gum can only act as a supplement to your daily oral hygiene routine and can’t replace daily brushing and flossing. Keep up your everyday mouth-healthy habits and you’ll have strong, beautiful teeth for life!

Check out the video below to learn more about how chewing sugarless gum can supplement your oral hygiene routine!

Video Transcript

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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Make The Right Choice For Your Smile

Chewing gum is fun and delicious! But remember, the type of gum you choose can make a big difference for your teeth. So next time you’re at the checkout counter and reach for a pack of gum, make sure it’s sugar-free. Your smile will thank you!

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