But do choose sugar-free chewing gum.
Chewing gum can remove bacteria from your mouth
Chewing a piece of gum for 10 minutes can remove millions of bacteria from your mouth. Chewing gum is therefore just as effective as flossing, although you clean other parts of your teeth with flossing. Chewing gum is therefore not a substitute for your daily flossing.
Research
That's what researchers from the University of Groningen discovered. Volunteers chewed chewing gum for 10 minutes, then it was checked how many bacteria were in the piece of chewing gum:an average of 100 million.
You don't have to chew for a long time
In the first 30 seconds, chewing gum absorbs the most bacteria, but the number of bacteria in the chewing gum also increased after that. Constantly chewing gum probably wouldn't make sense, as the bacteria could end up back in your mouth.
Sugar-free chewing gum
Choose sugar-free chewing gum. That's not only better for your teeth; bacteria feed on sugars, so chewing gum with sugar has no positive effect on the bacteria in your mouth.
