1 week Ago By [email protected] (Kevin Jiang)
What’s fresh, flavourful, ostensibly good for oral health — and may also be releasing thousands of tiny plastic shards into your mouth ? The answer is chewing gum — or at least, that’s what a new pilot study from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) suggests. The study, which is currently under peer review, suggested popular gum brands could release an average of 100 microplastics per gram of gum, although some products released up to 600 per gram. On Earth Day, here’s a look at how microplastics were able to migrate from food and drink into the organs of research mice — and the implications On Earth Day, here’s a look at how microplastics were able to migrate from food and drink into the organs of research mice — and the implications With pieces weighing two to six grams each, a large stick of gum could end up emitting more than 3,000 microplastics into our mouths as we chew, which may then be swallowed, the study continued.
To the researchers’ surprise, both natural and synthetic gums — products made using petroleum-based polymers — ended up releasing about the same amount of microplastics, Sanjay Mohanty, an engineering professor at UCLA who led the study, said in an email. “We expected synthetic gum to release more microplastics or natural to have little to none,” Mohanty said. “The fact that both have similar microplastics indicate that they may come from how chewing gum was made or processed more than the ingredients, which companies don’t share.
” Roxana Suehring, an unaffiliated microplastics researcher and assistant professor of chemistry at Toronto Metropolitan University, found the paper to be “quite significant.” “I wasn’t surprised that they found a lot of microplastics leaching from chewing gums. It’s just not been studied,” she said.
“I didn’t see any major issues (with the methodology).” Chewing gum found to release thousands of microplastics According to an unpublished manuscript of the study shared with the Star, the researchers tested 10 brands of gum — five natural and five synthetic — based on their popularity and availability in major U.S.
stores. To reduce variance, they had the same person chew each brand of gum for four minutes, taking saliva samples every 30 seconds. After the four minutes were up, the gum tester swished their mouth with deionized water to ensure all the released microplastics were collected.
Choose spoons made of hardwood, avoid using them with uncooked meat or eggs and ensure they completely dry after a soapy wash. Choose spoons made of hardwood, avoid using them with uncooked meat or eggs and ensure they completely dry after a soapy wash. This process was repeated seven times for each of the ten gum brands.
Mohanty would not share the brands they tested “to protect all from negative publicity as all chewing gums have microplastics.” They found the synthetic gums averaged 104.0 microplastics per gram.
The natural gums averaged a slightly lower 95.8 microplastics per gram: “Thus, despite being labelled and presumed as ‘plastic-free,’ natural gums contained microplastics,” the manuscript read. “The potential source of those plastics is unknown.
” Mohanty notes the actual number could be far greater, as his team only accounted for plastic shards larger than 20 micrometres in diameter. “There could be many microplastics below that size. So the number we got might be much smaller than what is actually present in saliva.
” Based on the team’s findings, and assuming one chews an average 160 to 180 sticks of gum each year, a person could be ingesting 28,500 to 32,000 microplastics annually from gum alone, the study postulated. For context, the annual human intake of plastic from an American diet is estimated to be around 39,000 to 52,000 microplastics, according to a 2019 paper — “so if you are using gum, that could significantly increase your microplastic intake,” Suehring noted. About 94 per cent of the microplastics within gum are released within the first eight minutes of chewing, the study showed.
A ccording to a 2015 study , we tend to chew gum for five to 30 minutes on average. How might microplastics affect our health? Studies have already shown that microplastics can be taken up by plants on land or plankton in the ocean and subsequently eaten by animals or humans. Studies have already shown that microplastics can be taken up by plants on land or plankton in the ocean and subsequently eaten by animals or humans.
“The results indicate a significant human exposure and potential health risk due to the use of chewing gums, if the released microplastics accumulate in the human intestinal tract,” the manuscript read. “Additionally, larger microplastics can further break down into smaller microplastics in the highly acidic environment found in the stomach.” These plastics in the digestive lining could directly interfere with the absorption of certain nutrients, as shown in previous studies .
Their presence could also disrupt the gut microbiome, recent research suggest ed. Outside the gut, the plastics, once broken down into nanoscale particles, have been shown to slip into the human bloodstream and have been linked to cardiovascular events. Micro and nanoplastics have been identified in a multitude of organs, including the human brain , heart, lungs , placenta, penis , breast milk and more.
It remains largely unclear how these plastics are affecting our health. “There’s definitely evidence that microplastics can be associated with some inflammatory responses of the body, which makes sense — it’s a foreign object embedded in tissue,” Suehring said. Chemical additives leached from the plastics have also been associated with long-term health effects from changes in the hormone system to greater risks of certain cancers, she explained.
“I think one of the next questions from my perspective would be looking at the types of (plastic-associated) chemicals leaching out of those chewing gums as well, because those are often associated with health impacts.”.
