Microplastics In Chewing Gum: Chewing gum releases microplastics into mouth: Researchers

Paris: Chewing Gum leaves hundreds of small plastic pieces directly into the mouth of people, the researchers said on Tuesday, also warned of pollution made by rubber-based sweet.
Small study comes when researchers are rapidly searching for small physicals of plastic called microplastics, from the top of the mountains to the sea bottom and even in the air we breathe.
They have discovered microplastics throughout the human body, inside our lungs, blood and brain, which promotes apprehensions about the possible effects on health.
“I don’t want to give alarm to the people,” Sanjay Mohanty, the lead researcher behind the new study, told AFP.
There is no evidence that microplastics are harmful to human health, said Mohanty of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
The new pilot study instead tried to describe in another small research way that these most invisible plastic pieces enter our body, chewing gum.
Lisa Lov, a PhD student at UCLA, chew seven pieces in each of the 10 brands of gum; The researchers then conducted a chemical analysis on their saliva.
They found that one gram of gum (0.04 ounces) released an average of 100 microplastic pieces, although some sheds over 600. The average weight of a stick of gum is about 1.5 grams.
Researchers said that those who chew about 180 pieces can consume about 30,000 microplastic in about 30,000 microplastic.
This is compared to many other methods that swallow human microplastic, Mohanty insisted.
For example, other researchers estimated last year that a plastic bottle contains a average of 240,000 microplastic in a liter (34 fluid ounces) of water.
‘Tires, plastic bags and bottles’
The most common chewing gum sold in supermarkets is called synthetic gum, which includes petroleum-based polymers to achieve that chouby effect, the researchers said.
However, the packaging does not list any plastic in the material, simply using the words “gum-based”.
“Nobody will tell you the material,” said Mohanty.
Researchers tested five brands of synthetic gum and five brands of natural glue, which use plant-based polymers such as Tree SAP.
“It was surprising that we found that Microplastics were abundant in both,” Lov told AFP.
He said that almost all microplastics are shed during the first eight minutes of chewing gum.
David Jones, a researcher at the University of Partsmouth in the UK, did not include the study, told the AFP that the manufacturers should be forced to give more specific material than only “gum-based”.
Jones said that he was surprised that researchers found that some plastic were not going to go into gum, suggests that they might come from another source.
But the overall conclusions were “not surprising at all”, he said.
Jones said that people “get out a little bit” when it was reported that the construction blocks of chewing gum “were” the same as the same in the car tires, plastic bags and bottles, Jones said.
Lowe also warned about plastic Pollution from chewing gum – Especially when people “spit it on the pavement”.
The study, presented in a magazine reviewed by a colleague, but has not been published yet, was presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego.
The world’s largest chewing gum manufacturer, Wrigley, did not respond to AFP’s request for comments.