Chew Gum - Loose Weight

Good news for gum chewers! Chewing gum and fat loss have now been linked by a recent study performed at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Does gum chewing really burn enough calories to make a difference? Depending on how often you chew gum, the answer is yes. The Minnesota researchers concluded that chewing gum increases your metabolism (the rate at which you burn calories) by 20%. On average people in the study burned 11 more calories per hour than those that did not. Now, 11 calories for each hour of chewing gum does not sound like a lot, but over the course of a year that amounts to thousands of calories, or approximately 10 lbs.!

"Chewing of calorie-free gum can be readily carried out throughout the day, and its potential effect on energy balance should not be discounted. I'm not sure that many people would want to chew a big wad of gum all day long. But it does illustrate that small changes in daily activities, even something as trivial as chewing gum, can have a significant impact on weight loss," said Dr. James Levine, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and co-authors.

Just make sure the gum you chew is calorie free.

The New England Journal of Medicine.