Hold onto your jaws, gum lovers: that refreshing chew might be stuffing you with microplastics! A wild UCLA study dropped at the American Chemical Society’s Spring 2025 meeting reveals a terrifying fact—each piece of gum unleashes hundreds to thousands of plastic bits into your mouth. Yep, you’re swallowing them!
Testing 10 top gum brands, researchers found every gram sheds up to 600 microplastics—meaning a 6-gram stick could hit you with 3,000 plastic invaders per chew. Synthetic or “natural,” it doesn’t matter—they’re all plastic-spewing culprits. Chew 160 sticks a year? That’s 30,000 microplastics down your throat, joining the flood from food and air. Health risks? Think organ damage or worse—science is still digging.
“Chew longer, less often,” suggests grad student Lisa Lowe, who chomped through the study. But with microplastics already in our blood and brains, maybe it’s time to quit. Plus, that gum you spit out? It’s polluting the planet too. Chew at your own risk—this news is sticking!
