News Team Boulder

Issue date: 4/23/09 Section: News

Walking through campus it's easy to spot the students who are stressing over final exams. Just look for the ones with frazzled hair, bags under their eyes, and nervous twitches from running on a seemingly endless flow of coffee and Red Bull.

This time of year students are looking for any edge that can make that ever-precious study time more effective. Now a new study has been released that suggests chewing gum improves memory. The study from the Wrigley Science Institute (that's right the Wrigley gum company) plan to present the findings at this years national experimental biology meeting. And while many intellectuals are quick to decry these findings as a mere ploy to boost the sale of gum, support for this discovery is out there.

In Houston, the Baylor College of Medicine sampled 108 teenage students and followed them for 14 weeks. They found that students who chewed gum not only scored higher on a standardized math exam, but had better overall final grades than their non-chewing counterparts.

"Chewing gum is an easy tool students can use for a potential academic edge," says Dr. Craig Johnston, the head researcher of the Baylor study. Johnston also says that teachers reported that students who chewed gum were usually better focused and required fewer breaks.

The end of year crunch is truly upon us, and personally I'd take any help I can get. I guess you could say that gum is the study option you "chews".

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools