Chewing Gum Can Reduce Calorie Intake, Increase Energy Expenditure

Now who would fund a study like this?

"A nutrition professor at the University of Rhode Island studying the effects of chewing sugar-free gum on weight management has found that it can help to reduce calorie intake and increase energy expenditure.

Kathleen Melanson, URI associate professor of nutrition and food sciences, compared gum chewing to non-gum chewing in healthy adult volunteers who came to her lab for two standardized tests in random order. When study subjects chewed gum for a total of one hour in the morning (three 20-minute gum-chewing sessions), they consumed 67 fewer calories at lunch and did not compensate by eating more later in the day."

A whole 67 Calories!

And a real-world test:

"In her study, 35 male and female subjects made two visits to the URI Energy Metabolism Lab after having fasted over night. During one visit, they chewed gum for 20 minutes before consuming a breakfast shake and twice more during the three hours before lunch. During both visits, participants remained as still as possible as measurements were conducted of their resting metabolism rates and blood glucose levels at regular intervals before and after breakfast and lunch. They also conducted periodic self-assessments of their feelings of hunger, energy and other factors during both visits."

Well, maybe not real-world.

As to the funding source...

"The study was supported by a $25,000 research award from the Wrigley Science Institute..."

$25K for two days work.

Good work if you can get it, eh, Prof. Melanson?