Antiviral Chewing Gum May Prevent Flu and Herpes Transmission "The gum is made from lablab beans (Lablab purpureus), which naturally contain a viral trap protein (FRIL) that binds to and neutralizes viral particles. The FRIL protein was released efficiently during chewing, with more than 50% of the protein being released within just 15 minutes of chewing. The researchers demonstrated that just 40 mg of the gum formulation was enough to reduce viral loads by over 95% in vitro, similar to what had been observed in their previous studies with SARS-CoV-2". Study: Debulking influenza and herpes simplex virus strains by wide-spectrum anti-viral protein formulated in clinical chewing gum LINK
It seems to be an effect that is only present when the gum is actively being chewed, and their formulation continuously releases the trap protein for up to 60 mins.
But flu virus goes up your nose. Even if you were chewing this stuff in the presence of someone breathing flu all over you, wouldn't you still get the flu?
Thanks. That's all relative, though! Just because risk is higher via the mouth, it doesn't mean you can't get sick from virus up the nose. Also, how is virus supposed to get into the mouth? Through mouth-breathing? All a bit baffling. (I don't expect anyone to answer these questions!)
I think probably in 'oral transmission' virus comes out of Jack's mouth and goes up Jill's nose. So chewing this gum would be largely an altruistic act, like mask wearing. Seems that wasn't so popular.
I don’t know whether the active ingredients in the chewing gum are transferred into saliva, which would place them in the oropharynx through which the virus would have to pass to trigger any infection in the lungs or the stomach. Also I have no idea if the active ingredients could be vaporised, meaning they theoretically could pass up from the oropharynx up into the nasopharynx. However though it is theoretically possible that chewing gum could also impact on transmission through the nose, I remain sceptical as with others that it could fully block any infection establishing in the nose itself.
"Ample evidence suggested that intraoral viral load is correlated with risk of disease transmission, with oral transmission 3-5 orders higher than nasal transmission"
Additional commentary on the same citation that others have quoted: “Airborne volume of saliva droplets in healthy subjects is 3–5 orders of magnitude higher than breath droplets and speaking four words transmits more virus than 1 h of maskless breathing.55” The reference is: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2203086119 So I think it is meant to be a preventive measure to reduce transmission which can be combined with other methods like masks or nasal sprays. Seeing how people were so eager to drop the masks makes me skeptical that can be effective as a population-wide prevention measure. But who knows, maybe everyone’s problem with masks was that they weren’t bubblegum flavored (sarcasm). Either way, I think this is a cool development even if it isn’t widely implemented.
