Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1742895202319pexels-enginakyurt-10112471.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Chewing gums. <em>Photo from Pexels</em></span></span></span></div><p>PARIS, France — Chewing gum releases hundreds of tiny plastic pieces straight into people&#x27;s mouths, researchers said on Tuesday, also warning of the pollution created by the rubber-based sweet.</p><p>The small study comes as researchers have increasingly been discovering small shards of plastic called microplastics throughout the world, from the tops of mountains to the bottom of the ocean -- and even in the air we breathe.</p><p>They have also been discovered microplastics riddled throughout human bodies -- including inside our lungs, blood and brains -- sparking fears about the potential effect this could be having on health.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/2/13/invisible-threat-how-microplastics-are-polluting-our-cities-and-bodies-0850">Invisible threat: How microplastics are polluting our cities and bodies</a></div><p>&quot;I don&#x27;t want to alarm people,&quot; Sanjay Mohanty, the lead researcher behind the new study, told AFP.</p><p>There is no evidence directly showing that microplastics are harmful to human health, said Mohanty of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).</p><p>The new pilot study instead sought to illustrate yet another little-researched way that these mostly invisible plastic pieces enter our bodies -- chewing gum.</p><p>Lisa Lowe, a PhD student at UCLA, chewed seven pieces each of 10 brands of gum; Then the researchers ran a chemical analysis on her saliva.</p><p>They found that a gram of gum (0.04 ounces) released an average of 100 microplastic fragments, though some shed more than 600. The average weight of a stick of gum is around 1.5 grams.</p><p>People who chew around 180 pieces of gum a year could be ingesting roughly 30,000 microplastics, the researchers said.</p><p>This pales in comparison to the many other ways that humans ingest microplastics, Mohanty emphasized.</p><p>For example, other researchers estimated last year that a liter (34 fluid ounces) of water in a plastic bottle contained an average of 240,000 microplastics.</p><div><strong>&#x27;TYRES, PLASTIC BAGS AND BOTTLES&#x27;</strong></div><p>The most common chewing gum sold in supermarkets is called synthetic gum, which contains petroleum-based polymers to get that chewy effect, the researchers said.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/2/7/study-finds-microplastics-in-us-brains-are-they-dangerous-1026">Study finds microplastics in US brains: Are they dangerous?</a></div><p>However packaging does not list any plastics in the ingredients, simply using the words &quot;gum-based&quot;.</p><p>&quot;Nobody will tell you the ingredients,&quot; Mohanty said.</p><p>The researchers tested five brands of synthetic gum and five of natural gum, which use plant-based polymers such as tree sap.</p><p>&quot;It was surprising that we found microplastics were abundant in both,&quot; Lowe told AFP.</p><p>The gum shed almost all of the microplastics during the first eight minutes of chewing, she added.</p><p>David Jones, a researcher at the UK&#x27;s University of Portsmouth not involved in the study, told AFP that manufacturers should be forced to give more specific ingredients than just &quot;gum-based&quot;.</p><p>Jones said he was surprised that the researchers found certain plastics not known to be in gum, suggesting they could have possibly come from another source.</p><p>But the overall findings were &quot;not at all surprising&quot;, he added.</p><p>People tend to &quot;freak out a little bit&quot; when told that the building blocks of chewing gum were similar to what is found &quot;in car tires, plastic bags and bottles&quot;, Jones said.</p><p>Lowe also warned about the plastic pollution from chewing gum -- particularly when people &quot;spit it out onto the sidewalk&quot;.</p><p>The study, which has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal but not yet published, was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego.</p><p>The world&#x27;s biggest chewing gum manufacturer, Wrigley, did not respond to AFP&#x27;s request for comment.</p><div><strong>— By Daniel Lawler, Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7I3Q4KQq7lM?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>The small study comes as researchers have increasingly been discovering small shards of plastic called microplastics throughout the world.</p>

The small study comes as researchers have increasingly been discovering small shards of plastic called microplastics throughout the world.

Chewing gum releases microplastics into mouth: researchers

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Chewing gum releases microplastics into mouth: researchers

Agence France-Presse

Published Mar 25, 2025 05:49 PM PHT

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