Oral health benefits of chewing gum

In the last decades sugar-free chewing gum has developed in an oral healthcare product, next to the conventional products such as the toothbrush and mouthrinses. In this thesis we investigate the oral health benefits of chewing gum and the effects of additives to chewing gum, such as antimicrobials. Herein, the focus is on oral bacteria and the oral biofilm, or dental plaque, which is a sticky layer of bacteria that forms on the teeth. Oral bacteria can be divided into good and bad bacteria, in which the formation of the oral biofilm is the root cause of many oral diseases as caries, gingivitis or periodontitis.
In this thesis it is shown that the major oral health benefits of sugar-free chewing gum are centered around the stimulation of saliva during mastication and that the effects of additives to chewing gum require long term use and are often difficult to prove.
Furthermore, we looked into new possibilities to improve the oral health benefits of chewing gum. In which we emphasized removing specifically bad bacteria from the mouth. First of all it was investigated whether chewing gum could trap and thereby remove bacteria from the mouth, as an important first step in the development of a chewing gum that specifically traps bad bacteria. Second, we did research on the possibilities to change the hydrophobicity of oral bacteria, used to specifically target certain types of oral bacteria. Herewith this thesis can form a framework for the development of the oral health benefits of chewing gum.