We hear a lot about microplastics and how products we use all the time, like cutting boards, cleaning sponges and clothes, can expose us to them. And now there’s another one to add to the list: chewing gum. New research finds that chewing gum can shed hundreds to thousands of microplastics into saliva … and that’s per piece.
The American Chemical Society is sharing the results of their study on chewing gum, which finds that each stick releases an average of 100 pieces of microplastic into saliva, but some shed as much as 600 pieces. The study involved testing of 10 brands - five synthetic and five natural.
- First, participants chewed a piece of gum for four minutes, with a saliva sample taken every 30 seconds.
- Then, saliva samples were taken again after the gum was chewed for 20 minutes.
- The results show most of the microplastic is released during the first two minutes of chewing, as the grinding of teeth causes the plastic to break off.
- Big pieces of gum were found to release up to 3-thousand pieces of microplastic into saliva.
- Researchers estimate that if someone chews up to 180 sticks of gum a year, they could ingest 30-thousand pieces of microplastic.
- While researchers initially thought synthetic gums would shed more microplastics since the gum base is a type of plastic, they found both synthetic and natural gums release a similar amount when chewed.
“Our goal is not to alarm anybody,” explains Sanjay Mohanty, the project’s principal investigator. “Scientists don’t know if microplastics are unsafe to us or not. There are no human trials. But we know we are exposed to plastics in everyday life, and that’s what we wanted to examine here.”
Source: People