The Science

The global economic burden of caries treatment is significant. A recent analysis of published data conducted on behalf of the non-profit Alliance for a Cavity-Free Future estimated that the combined direct and indirect costs total as much as $245 billion.¹ The caries-preventive effects of regular use of sugar-free chewing gum may have significant economic advantages with high savings on health expenditures due to treatment of caries.

In April 2017, the American Journal of Dentistry published a paper entitled “A global approach to assess the economic benefits of increased consumption of sugar-free chewing gum”, which suggests that chewing one additional piece of sugar-free gum per day, as part of a complete oral hygiene routine, could reduce the global dental expenditures from treating tooth decay by $4.1 billion a year.² For the first time, an economic model has been used to analyze the impact of increasing the average consumption of sugar-free gum on dental expenditures due to caries by the national healthcare systems in 25 industrialized countries.

Funded by Wrigley, the research was undertaken by a specialist health economics research group, the Institute of Empirical Health Economics (IfEG), with input from an international scientific steering committee comprised of thought-leaders in dental and public health, and economics:

• Hanny Calache, PhD, MDSc, Centre for Population Health Research, Deakin University, Australia
• Franklin Garcia-Godoy, DDS, MS, PhD, phD, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, USA
• Elizabeth Kay, BDS, MPH, PhD, Foundation Dean, Peninsula Dental School, Plymouth University, UK
• Yan Si, PhD, Department of Preventive Dentistry, Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology, China
• David Zilberman, PhD, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, USA
• Stefan Zimmer, DDS, MPHD, PhD, Department for Dental, Oral and Craniomandibular Sciences, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany

Similar studies focusing on specific markets have also shown that chewing sugar-free gum can help reduce the burden of treating dental disease. A paper published in 2016 found that if all members of the 12-year-old population in the UK chewed sugar-free gum after each meal (three times per day), the subsequent prevention of dental caries could save the National Health Service £8.2 million each year.³

A separate study published two years later found that elevating the level of chewing gum consumption per capita in Germany to that of Finland, a country with a much higher level (202 pieces of gum per year compared to 111 pieces per year in Germany), could result in annual per capita savings of more than €80.⁴

Published Research