Chewing gum is one of the activities to spend time especially while waiting. Whether you realize it or not actually there are a lot of health benefits of chewing gum though perhaps it depends on the type of gum you chew. Spearmint gum is one of the most favorite flavors of gum around the world but not everyone knows that spearmint gum is actually the signature product of Wrigley’s.
What Is Spearmint Gum?
The product of spearmint gum from Wrigley’s could be traced back as early as 1893 because that year was the first year this brand was launched. Wrigley’s itself was an American company specifically in producing chewing gum initially founded on April 1891 based in The Global Innovation Center, Chicago, Illinois. Spearmint itself is a flavor tastes similar to spearmint plant well known as Mentha spicata. Though there are a lot of gum brands with similar taste but Wrigley’s is among the famous ones. Nowadays, it is not only gum that taste like spearmint but also popular for toothpaste.
Health Benefits of Spearmint Gum
One thing to remember, spearmint gum is not only tasty but also there are a lot of health benefits of spearmint gum you should know and the list below will tell you in details. The most important thing you should know is there are a lot of health benefits of spearmint leaves while chewing gum has its own benefits as well and the combination of benefits of chewing gum and spearmint are quite fascinating.
- Improve Appetite
One of the main causes why someone could lose appetite is due to unhealthy snacking habit between meals. Chewing gum could help controlling the excessive snack-craving and the result may help improving the appetite during the meal times.
- Instant Fresh Breath Solution
Whenever you feel like needing instant freshness for your breath, chewing the spearmint gum is the instant solution. Furthermore, spearmint contains antibacterial agents that could help killing the bacteria that could cause bad breath.
- Helps Reduce Cavity
A specific study related to chewing gum which could help reducing cavities has been conducted. The saliva production during chewing gum activity could protect the oral organs. However, it only applies to sugar-free chewing spearmint gum only.
- Possible to Reduce Anxiety and Depression
There is no easy way to fight the symptoms of depression or reduce the anxiety. However, there are some studies that showed significant result about the possibility of chewing gum affecting the mental health condition.
- Maintains Healthy Weight Management
Do you know that activity as simple as chewing gum could help burning the calories? Aside from that chewing gum could help controlling your appetite so you could replace your unhealthy snacking habit with chewing gum.
- Improves Digestion
Some studies have found the connection of some active contents of spearmint have essential contribution to improve digestion. As tonic spearmint could help relieving conditions like bloating, cramping and even vomiting and nausea during pregnancy.
- Boost Respiratory Health
The natural soothing effect and anti-inflammatory properties found in spearmint are beneficial for respiratory health. Due to that chewing the spearmint gum could help relieving sore throat and even help clearing sinuses.
- Optimize Heart Health
It is actually a surprise for the fact that spearmint contains potassium. The health benefits of potassium are essential for heart health because potassium could help balancing the amount of sodium in the blood stream.
- Helps Against Addiction
Chewing gum is commonly used to help against addictive like smoking or drinking. Whenever the feeling like smoking occurs, most people will replace it with chewing gum. This activity is a natural distraction to help overcoming certain addiction.
- Maintains Oral Hygiene
Spearmint contains antimicrobial and antibacterial agent that could help maintaining the oral hygiene. Not only spearmint could help protecting your throat from infection but also spearmint is commonly found in anti-expectorant medicine, toothpaste and also chewing gum.
- Natural Solution to Dry Mouth
Dry mouth is also well known as xerostomia; a condition that could lead to dental cavities and other oral conditions. While chewing gum, the saliva production is improved to help reducing the uncomfortable effect of dry mouth.
- Prevent Tooth Decay
The chewing activity could improve the saliva production. It could help preventing tooth decay. However, it only applies to sugar-free spearmint gum because sugar could accelerate the decaying process.
- Improves Memory
There are actually some studies that proved this claim. The oxygen intake during chewing activity is increasing significantly and it has positive effect to the oxygen regulation or benefits of oxygen in the brain that could affect memorizing ability.
- Combat Stress
Chewing the spearmint gum could help combatting and relieving stress because the combination of chewing activity and spearmint flavor have powerful soothing effect that could produce calmness.
- Boost Self-Confidence
There are some studies that stated chewing gum could calm your mind and relax your body. Due to that chewing gum could help boosting someone’s self-confidence as well. So, whenever you feel nervous, just try chewing some gum to calm yourself instantly.
Cautions of Spearmint Gum
Aside from the health benefits of spearmint gum there are also some cautions you should aware of because no matter how beneficial they are, chewing gum contains sugar that could be bad for your oral organ.
- The sugar content in spearmint gum could cause tooth decay if consumed too much. That is why consuming it in the proper amount is suggested.
- Just like any gum product is not recommended to be consumed by children because there are a lot of choking cases have been reported.
- Spearmint gum is quite high in calories as well due to its sugar content, though perhaps it is not affecting significantly to weight gain but those who are currently in calories diet should read the calories label to ensure your daily intake of calories are not excessive.
- Those who are allergic to mint may need to avoid spearmint gum since spearmint flavor obtained from plant which comes from mint family.
However, today there are a lot of options of sugar-free or low calories chewing gum that you could choose for alternative option.