You probably wouldn't give a second thought to how fast you walk when you chomp down on a stick of fresh, minty gum. But new research presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington suggests your gum-chewing practice actually increases your walking speed � and could ultimately prove helpful for certain clinical populations.
Roughly, you chew about 75 times per minute, but walk only 60 steps per minute, says Steve Morrison, the director of research at the school of physical therapy and athletic training at Norfolk, ******ia-based Old Dominion University, and author on the study.
"If you chew it and you try to walk at any other speed than what you're chewing at, you can do it but it's very difficult. You have to think about how to change that," says co-author Brittany Samulski, a physical therapist, also of Old Dominion University.
The research started out as more of a simple thought in the lab, but turned into a full-blown study. Researchers, including Samulski, couldn't find any previous research on the subject. Neither could Morrison.
Following a pilot project with four students, the research team designed a study on a larger scale. It featured 15 young adults and 15 healthy older adults (more than 60 years old), all asked to chew gum and walk. Researchers were able to collect the data via accelerometers on the foot as well as the side of the jaw. A pressure-sensitive walking surface tracked metrics like walking speed, cadence and stride/step time. Participants were tested under four conditions:
Walking and not chewing (control)
Walking and chewing at the speed they liked
Walking and chewing faster
Walking and chewing slower
The study showed young and older participants followed the same pattern, walking faster to keep pace with their chewing rate. For every chewing condition, people walked faster, compared to any test where they weren't chewing. Researchers concluded chewing has a strong influence on how you walk � no matter where you are in the aging process.
"You think you get slower at everything, but not with chewing," Samulski says.
But why?
It could be that the connection occurs top-down: Chewing is one of the motor functions you develop early in life, Morrison says, so one of the thoughts is that it's heavily ingrained in our central nervous system this way.
Morrison says researchers next want to test what happens over longer distances in both younger and older people. He also says they'd like to see the test tried in clinical populations, such as Parkinson's disease patients in addition to frail and older adults. It begs the question: If you need to get people to walk quicker, anecdotally, couldn't you just give them gum?
Implications notwithstanding, what's clear is that the study brings a smile to people's faces.
People suspect what the results should be, "but they haven't really thought about it," Morrison says.
Comment