Chewing gum releases hundreds of small pieces of plastic straight into people’s mouths, researchers also warned Tuesday of contamination caused by rubber-based sweets.
Small research We are breathing as researchers are increasingly finding small pieces of plastic called microplastics that breathe from mountain peaks to sea peaks, and even in the air.
They also discovered microplastics that wobble across the human body, including our lungs, blood and the inside of our brains.
“I don’t want to warn people,” Sanjay Mohanty, the lead investigator of a new study that has not yet been peer-reviewed, told AFP.
Mohanty of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) said there is no direct evidence that microplastics are harmful to human health.
Instead, pilot research sought to explain yet another way of research, in which these almost invisible pieces of plastic enter our bodies, chewing gum.
Lisa Lowe, a doctoral student at UCLA, chewed seven of each of the 10 brands of gum before researchers performed chemistry analysis on saliva.
They found that grams (0.04 oz) of gum release an average of 100 microplastic fragments, some over 600. The average weight of a gum stick is about 1.5 grams.
Researchers say that people who chew about 180 gums per year may consume around 30,000 microplastics.
This pales in comparison to many other ways humans consume microplastics, Mohanty emphasized.
For example, other researchers estimated last year that liters of water (34 ounces) in plastic bottles contain an average of 240,000 microplastics.
“Tires, plastic bags, bottles”
The most common chewing gum sold in supermarkets is called synthetic gum, and researchers said it has a chewy effect due to its containing oil-based polymers.
However, packaging does not simply use the term “gum base” to list the plastics of the material.
“No one will tell you the ingredients,” Mohanty said.
Researchers tested five brands of synthetic gums and five natural gums. These used plant-based polymers such as Tree SAP.
“It was amazing to find that microplastics are abundant in both,” Lowe told AFP.
David Jones, a researcher at the University of Portsmouth in the UK, said he was surprised that he was not involved in the study, suggesting that the researchers could have found certain plastics that were not known to be in gum, suggesting that they may have come from another source in the lab.
However, the overall findings were “not surprising at all,” he told AFP.
People tend to “be a little surprised” when they’re said that chewing gum building blocks are similar to those found in “car tires, plastic bags, bottles,” Jones said.
Oliver Jones, a professor of chemistry at RMIT University in Australia, said if a relatively small number of microplastics were swallowed, “it’s likely to pass straight through you without any impact.”
“I don’t think you need to stop chewing gum yet.”
Rowe also warned of plastic contamination from chewing gum. Especially when people “spew up on the sidewalk.”
The National Confectionery Association, which represents American chewing gum makers, said in a statement that the study’s authors have admitted “there are no causes of vigilance.”
“Gum can be enjoyed for over 100 years,” he added that the ingredients have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.
This study, submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, American Chemical Society Conference in San Diego.
©Agence France-Presse
