Chewing gum could be flooding your body with microplastics, new study warns

Microplastics are entering your body from numerous sources, some known and the others least suspected. A has found that chewing gum can release hundreds of microplastics into your saliva that can end up accumulating in your body parts, potentially causing chronic diseases.
Several research studies have vouched for the many perks of chewing sugar-free gum from releasing stress, improving oral health, to supporting digestion. However, unfortunately, they are adding to the microplastic accumulation in the body.
Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long, that not just harm the environment, but also our health. They come from everywhere - the air we inhale, the water we drink and the food we eat.

A study published in the Journal of Nature Medicine found seven grams of microplastics in the brain - the equivalent of an entire standard plastic spoon of nanoplastics.
Microplastics are known to trigger inflammation, damage cells, disrupt organ function, and alter immune responses. Plastic exposure is also linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, as well as some cancers.
Not just the brain, microplastics have been detected in the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, blood, testicles and even breast milk.

UCLA researchers who conducted the study initially thought synthetic chewing gums would have significantly more microplastics than natural ones. But what they found was surprising.
Gum is made with three main ingredients - a rubbery base, sweeteners and flavourings. While natural gums have plant-based materials for the base, synthetic gums have petroleum-based rubber.
“Our initial hypothesis was that the synthetic gums would have a lot more microplastics because the base is a type of plastic,” said Lisa Lowe, a PhD student at UCLA.
For the study, Lowe chewed seven pieces each of five brands of synthetic gum and five brands of natural gum. The number of microplastics in each sample of her saliva were then measured.

Around 100 microplastics were released per gram of gum, with some pieces releasing as many as 600.
Researchers estimated that considering a usual piece of gum weighs between 2 and 6 gm, a larger piece could release up to 3,000 plastic particles.
“Surprisingly, both synthetic and natural gums had similar amounts of microplastics released when we chewed them,” said Lowe.
The researchers estimated the annual amount of microplastic ingestion to be 30,000 if a person chews between 160 and 180 small sticks of gum per year.
“Our goal is not to alarm anybody,” said Sanjay Mohanty, the project’s principal investigator and an engineering professor at UCLA. “Scientists don’t know if microplastics are unsafe to us or not.”

To minimize microplastic ingestion, chew the same piece of gum for a longer period instead of popping another one.
The UCLA study notes that microplastics were released within the first two minutes of chewing.
One should also be mindful of discarding the gum properly to prevent plastic pollution.
“The plastic released into saliva is a small fraction of the plastic that’s in the gum,” Mohanty explained, adding that improperly discarded gum creates another layer of pollution.
Microplastic exposure has an impact on cardiovascular health, especially chronic, noncommunicable conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke, according to a research presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session.