Chewing Gum can trim down Calorie Intake; augment Energy Expenditure, Nutritionist Finds

vIndianz.com (1 Nov, 2009) — 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 assist to decrease calorie intake and boost energy expenditure.

Kathleen Melanson, URI associate professor of nutrition and food sciences, compared gum chewing to non-gum chewing in fit adult volunteers who came to her lab for two uniform tests in random order. When study subjects chewed gum for an entire hour in the morning (three 20-minute gum-chewing sessions), they consumed 67 less calories at lunch and did not balance by eating extra later in the day. Male participants too reported feeling considerably less hungry subsequent to chewing gum. Melanson in addition found that when her subjects chewed gum prior to and subsequent to eating, they exhausted about 5 percent more energy than when they did not chew gum. Additionally, her subjects reported feeling more active after chewing gum.

“Based on this outcome, gum chewing includes energy expenditure and energy intake, and that’s what energy equilibrium is about,” Melanson said. According to the URI researcher, nerves in the muscles of the jaw are motivated by the motion of chewing and send signals to the hunger section of the brain that is related to satiety, which might elucidate why the work of chewing may assist to decrease hunger.

Melanson said that she anticipated that chewing would augment the quantity of energy her subjects expended. “nevertheless, what makes the energy expenditure statistics predominantly fascinating is that this study simulated real-life gum chewing, with the subjects chewing at their own comfortable, natural pace and for rational 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 two times more throughout 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 require losing weight,” said Melanson. “But based on this preliminary outcome, one could conjecture that gum chewing may be a helpful add-on to a weight management program.”

Photo credit: ktylerconk

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