Losing weight is hard work. It's all about eating less, exercising more and, at least initially, latching on to any tip or trick that will help make the process easier. Any method or distraction that helps you buy time (or kill time, depending on how you look at it) between meals can be especially helpful early on, while you are trying to train yourself to eat less and to eat less often.

Weight loss experts have long recommended chewing sugar-free gum as simply "something to do with your mouth" instead of eating, or, like brushing your teeth or rinsing with mouthwash, as a way to coat your mouth with a layer of mint flavor that can temporarily diminish your desire for other flavors. Now, researchers at the University of Rhode Island (URI) may have stumbled onto some real physiological benefits of this popular dieting distraction.

When the study participants chewed gum for 20 minutes before eating breakfast and twice again for 20 minutes each time before eating lunch, they consumed, on average, 67 fewer calories at lunch and did not eat excessive calories later in the day to make up for those lost. When their metabolic rates were measured in the lab, the participants burned about 5 percent more calories when they chewed gum than when they abstained. They also reported feeling more energetic on their gum-chewing days.

Researchers at Louisiana State University and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center reported similar results from a study sponsored by the Wrigley Science Institute to determine if using sugar-free gum could help reduce calories from snacks. The 115 men and women who participated in this study chewed gum for 15 minutes every hour between lunch time and a designated snack time three hours later. They reported feeling more energetic and less hungry when they chewed gum than when they didn't. Overall, the gum chewers consumed 40 fewer calories and when given the choice between sweet and salty snack foods, opted for fewer sugary snacks

Gum chewing can have it's down side, however, as reported in a 2008 issue of the British Medical Journal. Medical professionals found that two patients who complained of severe and ongoing diarrhea and weight loss were habitually chewing between 15 and 20 sticks of sugar-free gum sweetened with sorbitol. Sorbitol, in high quantities, has laxative properties and since it is found in many sugar-free gums, candies and processed foods, has the potential for overuse. Weight loss due to excessive use of any product that results in diarrhea and loss of fluids is certainly not healthy weight loss.

 

 

Chewing Gum Can Reduce Calorie Intake:

Science Daily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091027132245.htm

 

 

Science Daily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080110190852.htm

British Medical Journal:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/336/7635/96?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=gum&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=336&issue=7635&resourcetype=HWCIT