There are currently some available treatments for COVID, according to the European Medicines Agency, whether we’re talking about remdesivir, regdanvimab, and more. But finding simpler ways of dealing with the coronavirus is surely welcomed by everyone.
A new study that ScienceAlert.com writes about claims that stopping the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could be possible with the help of a chewing gum that’s capable of trapping virus particles. The logic behind the incredible idea is pretty simple, just to summarize it: those who are infected with COVID have high levels of the virus in the saliva, and researchers suspected that a special type of chewing gum could reduce the virus in the mouth.
The coronavirus enters the human cells by clinging to ACE2 proteins. The gum contains high levels of such proteins, and researchers hope that in this way, virus particles will be trapped in the mouth.
Chewing gums improving our health is not something new
The new idea is not so wild when we think that in the past, some chewing gums had proven to be useful for an individual’s health. Reducing levels of harmful bacteria is possible due to inner substances such as bicarbonate and calcium. However, tackling a virus using chewing gum is indeed something new.
The researchers have already put the effectiveness of their gum to the test. After taking saliva samples from COVID patients and mixing them with a powdered form of the gum, they discovered that treated saliva had shown significantly reduced levels of coronavirus particles compared with the placebo cases, meaning the same gum but lacking the ACE2 proteins.
The results are promising, indeed, but there’s no use opening the champagne just yet. The research is still in its early stage. The experiments took place in a lab under controlled conditions. The difference is significant between a lab experiment and implying those similar conditions in a person’s mouth.
The new study was published in the Molecular Therapy journal.
