Effects of Chewing Training on Orofacial and Cognitive Function in Healthy Individuals: A Systematic Review

Ricardo B Viana,Wellington F Da Silva,Claudio A.B De Lira

doi:10.3390/cosmetics7020023

Ricardo B Viana, Wellington F Da Silva + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/cosmetics7020023

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Journal: Cosmetics	Publication Date: Apr 6, 2020
Citations: 4	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidade Federal de Goiás

Abstract

Background: There is some evidence showing significant correlations between acute chewing gum and orofacial function, and between acute chewing gum and cognitive function; however, as far as we are aware, little is known about the chronic effects of chewing gum training on cognitive and orofacial functions in healthy adults. Objectives: To evaluate the chronic effects of chewing gum training on orofacial and cognitive functions in healthy adults. Method: Searches of the electronic databases PubMed, Scopus, BVS, CENTRAL, Scopus, and Google Scholar were conducted from inception to 14 January 2020. The inclusion criteria used were: clinical trial or randomized controlled trial lasting a minimum of four weeks, chewing gum intervention in at least one arm of the study, presence of a non-exercise control group, study population consisting of healthy adults, study outcomes consisting of orofacial function and/or cognitive function. Results: Starting from 5973 sources, a total of six articles met the inclusion criteria, and they were subjected to a systematic review. The main findings were that chewing gum training improved some variables related to orofacial function. No clear effect of chewing gum training on cognitive function was found. Conclusions: Chronic chewing gum training has an unclear positive effect on specific variables related to orofacial and cognitive function in healthy adults.

Highlights

Chewing is a process generated by the central pattern generator in the brain stem [1], which involves rhythmic opening and closing of the jaw with coordinated movements of tongue, lips ad cheeks [2,3]
Little is known about the improvements in cognitive and orofacial function after chronic chewing gum interventions in healthy adults compared to a non-exercise control group. Taking together all this lack of information about the chronic effects of the chewing gum training on orofacial and cognitive function, our systematic review aims to evaluate the chronic effects of chewing training on orofacial and cognitive function in healthy adults compared to a non-exercise control group
After reading full-text copies, seven studies were excluded from this systematic review due to the following reasons: (i) one studied was performed in adolescents’

Summary

Introduction

Chewing is a process generated by the central pattern generator in the brain stem [1], which involves rhythmic opening and closing of the jaw with coordinated movements of tongue, lips ad cheeks [2,3]. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis reported that there is a modest link between chewing gum and sustained attention in healthy adults [8]. Objectives: To evaluate the chronic effects of chewing gum training on orofacial and cognitive functions in healthy adults. The inclusion criteria used were: clinical trial or randomized controlled trial lasting a minimum of four weeks, chewing gum intervention in at least one arm of the study, presence of a non-exercise control group, study population consisting of healthy adults, study outcomes consisting of orofacial function and/or cognitive function. The main findings were that chewing gum training improved some variables related to orofacial function. No clear effect of chewing gum training on cognitive function was found

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