Chewing gum may boost academic performance in students

Monday April 27, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- Chewing gum may boost academic performance in students, according to a recent study, but scientists say they don’t know why.

Researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine found that students who chewed gum “had a significantly greater increase in their standardized math test scores after 14 weeks of chewing gum,” according to the Wrigley Science Institute (WSI) who funded the study.

The study concluded that students who chewed gum had a three percent increase in standardized test scores, and their final grades were better than those who didn’t chew gum.

While researchers said the study results are meaningful, they can’t pinpoint the reasons for the better grades.

Dr. Gil Leveille, executive director of the WSI, said “the study found that chewing gum was associated with improved academic performance, but it did not explore the mechanism behind this relationship,” according to a quote in Confectionarynews.com. Researchers studied 108 students from 13 to 16 years old. One group was assigned to chew gum during math class, while doing math tests and even studying math. Another group was told to refrain from gum chewing. After 14 weeks the students’ test scores were assessed.

Leveille said that one possible explanation for the gum’s effectiveness is that chewing increases blood flow in the brain.

The study was presented at the Annual Meeting of Experimental Biology 2009 in New Orleans.

A similar study in Britain in 2002 found that gum chewing improved long and short-term memory, according to an article in New Scientist. Conducted by Andrew Scholey, also with the WSI, that study tested 75 adults during a battery of tests and found those who chewed gum had 24 percent higher immediate word recall and 36 percent higher delayed word recall.

Scholey stated that insulin may have been a factor in that study. “Insulin mops up glucose in the bloodstream and chewing causes the release of insulin because the body is expecting food,” he said. “If insulin receptors in the brain are involved in memory, we may have an insulin-mediated mechanism explaining our findings, but that is very, very speculative.”

The WSI stated that previous research has shown that gum chewing can help reduce stress, improve alertness and release anxiety.

(By Sheilah Downey, and edited by Heather Kelley)