Effects of prolonged gum chewing on pain and fatigue in human jaw muscles

Abstract

Gum chewing has been accepted as an adjunct to oral hygiene, as salivary stimulant and vehicle for various agents, as well as for jaw muscle training. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of prolonged gum chewing on pain, fatigue and pressure tenderness of the masticatory muscles. Fifteen women without temporomandibular disorders (TMD) were requested to perform one of the following chewing tasks in three separate sessions: chewing a very hard gum, chewing a soft gum, and empty-chewing with no bolus. Unilateral chewing of gum or empty chewing was performed for 40 min at a constant rate of 80 cycles/min. In each session, perceived muscle pain and masticatory fatigue were rated on visual analog scales (VAS) before, throughout, and after the chewing task. Pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) of masseter and anterior temporalis muscles were assessed before and immediately after the chewing tasks, and again after 24 h. The VAS scores for pain and fatigue significantly increased only during the hard gum chewing, and after 10 min of recovery VAS scores had decreased again, almost to their baseline values. No significant changes were found for PPTs either after hard or soft gum chewing. The findings indicate that the jaw muscles recover quickly from prolonged chewing activity in subjects without TMD.

Gender Differences in Pressure Pain Thresholds during Sustained Jaw Muscle Contraction

“…7,[37][38][39] The link from exercise to pain is positive for clenching 13,17,40) and mixed for chewing. 14,18,19,41) So the evidence for a simple causal chain appears to us to be contradictory in places and not clearly convincing.…”

“…Lower PPTs have been reported for the menstrual phase, 8,42) for the menstrual phase for TMD patients after two months, 31) for the follicular phase in women not using oral contraceptives, 30) and for the periovulatory phase for the bulkiest part of the masseter. 41) No significant differences among the menstrual, follicular, and luteal phases have been reported for selected parts of studies or groups within studies. 30,31) So the menstrual cycle issue is sufficiently controversial that we can say that it may have added variability to our data but it was not likely to be a clear and distinct…”

A new concept in orthodontics: faster and healthier tooth movement by regularly consuming xyilitol chewing gum

“…20 The duration of chewing and hardness of chewing gums is also essential to be evaluated to prevent from pain, muscle fatigue and TMJ problem. [22][23][24] In addition, besides gum chewing, it is plausible that other chewing actions could be done to stimulate the PDL. Several actions such as increasing chewing frequency during eating; intermittently occlude teeth or jaw clenching, which conducted with continuous light pressure between meals is considered able to give the same results as gum chewing.…”

Effect of Gum-Chewing on Facial Appearance and Stomatognathic System

“…Imfeld 1) said 560,000 tons of gum was produced annually all over the world, and if each stick of gum was chewed for about 30 minutes, humans have been chewing gum for 187 billion hours a year. Farella et al 2) reported that chewing gum promoted oral hygiene through salivation, delivered various other medicines, and helped the jawbone exercise. Also, Farella et al 3) described the influence of chewing gum on the cardiovascular system in another study.…”