chewing well contributes (also) to calorie consumption – breaking latest news

We are publishing a preview of part of an article in the new Corriere Salute. You can read the full text on the issue on newsstands free Thursday 23 February or in Pdf on the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.

According to some estimates, humans chew between 7 and 35 minutes a day. Not much if we consider the time spent by other primates in the same activity: 4.5 hours a day for chimpanzees, 6.6 hours for orangutans. This difference, however, could help understand how chewing, along with other factors, may have played a role in human evolution. The reflection emerges from a study published in the journal Science Advances. Scientists have long suspected that the size of the jaw and the shape of the teeth have evolved to make chewing more efficient. Also accomplices of the change are the development of technologies such as grinding and cooking which have reduced chewing time and muscular effort. But the energy costs of chewing had never been studied much, perhaps also due to their smallness compared to those required by a run or a walk.

Without knowing how much daily energy we spend on chewing, it’s difficult to establish whether energy savings were also a factor that led to evolutionary changes, he explained Adam van Casteren, anthropologistfirst author of the study and research associate at the University of Manchester, UK. To measure the energy used in chewingthe researchers selected 21 men and women between the ages of 18 and 45 who made them wear a special helmet (reminiscent of that of astronauts) connected to a tube with which they measured the amount of oxygen consumed and that of carbon dioxide ( CO2) exhaled while chewing for 15 minutes a tasteless, odorless and calorie-free gum: this does not activate the digestive system, which also consumes energy, to the same extent as it would otherwise.

You can continue reading the article on Health Courier on newsstands for free on Thursday 23 February or in Pdf on the Digital Edition of Corriere della Sera.