The Effect of Chewing Gum on Periodontal Disease

Background Chronic periodontitis is an inflammatory disease that affects the supporting tissues of the teeth and its a common chronic adult condition. Chewing sugar-free gum helps protect your teeth and gums in between meals and it helps the mouth to produce more saliva. Aim of the study To study the effect of chewing gum on a patient which have periodontal disease. Material and MethodA study of forty patient divuided into two group, chewing gum and non-chewing gum. The chewing gum group was composed of twenty patients and control gum group was composed also of twenty patients. The patient was selected from periodontal department in college of dentistry/university of Baghdad. The subjects for the study were selected randomly and they were in a good general health and were not using any medications and the subject we take contain male and female patients we carried out a careful examination of patients using the plaque index (PI) (silness and loe in 1964), Gingival index (GI) (silness and loe in 1964) of those patients make a comparison analysis. ResultThe study demonstrate no significant differences between thee chewing and control group in the amount of plaque accumulation and also in the degree of gingival inflammation. Conclusionas health care providers, we should include in our dental education programmes the role of chewing gum as an adjunct to individual self-care such as routine daily brushing, flossing and regular dental check. With the various community-based preventive measures underway, it is likely that chewing sugar-free gum can play an important role in the improvement of oral health status of the country.