Increased Chewing Benefits Weight Management

A new study claims that increased chewing of food may be an effective strategy to cut excess body fat.

Analyzing quantitative studies, researchers at the Tokyo University of Technology checked if there was a strong correlation between increased chewing of food and the energy spent in food digestion, absorption and storage.

Digestion begins with chewing, hence, it is extremely crucial to chew food properly.   In the current study, researchers Yuka Hamada, Hideaki Kashima and Naoyuki Hayashi claim that this quantitative study looks at the link between chewing and other physiological parameters that include energy expenditure and circulation.

They highlight that if chewing changes the thermogenesis that is induced by digestion then this should be included as an effective weight management strategy.

For this study the researchers evaluated 11 healthy subjects with normal body weight.  As a part of the study, the subjects were given 100 Kcal of solid food and another 10 were given 300 kcal of solid food.  The two groups of subjects underwent two trials. In one trial they had to swallow the food rapidly and in the second they had to chew the food as many times as possible.

 The researchers noticed that when the subjects ate food slowly with increased chewing, the energy expenditure linked with digestion, absorption and storage of food called the diet-induced thermogenesis, was much higher.

Studies conducted earlier revealed that the increase in energy expenditure occurs with increase in orosensory stimulation and this is further associated with effects of relaxed and careful intake of food on diet-induced thermogenesis.

To calculate the diet-induced thermogenesis, the researchers measure the levels of oxygen uptake and body mass. The flow of blood around the digestive organs was monitored by measuring the artery diameter and blood velocities for nearly 90 minutes after the intake of food.

The correlation between the measured parameters shows that the increase in energy expenditure is linked with rise in blood flow around the digestive organs.

"These findings suggest a partial link between obesity trends and chewing," they conclude. Further tests are needed to investigate responses to food that more closely resemble a regular meal with higher calorie content and greater variation in the nutritional content.

"These findings suggest a partial link between obesity trends and chewing," researchers concluded.

The finding was documented in the journal Obesity.