Can Chewing Your Food More Prevent You From Falling Sick?

There’s a lot of reasons you should chew your food well before you swallow. It can prevent you from choking on hard foods like chips or apples. It can help your stomach digest your food. It can help you better appreciate the taste of a particularly good meal. And, a recent study has shown, it can improve your mouth’s immune system.

Protect Yourself From Illness By Chewing Better

Researchers at The University of Manchester found that chewing can stimulate the TH17 cell, an immune cell. In an experiment, the researchers fed groups of mice foods of different hardness, which affected the amount of time they spent chewing.

They found the mice that chewed more stimulated the TH17, the immune cell.

The stimulation of TH17 cells, increases immune function in the mouth. “Because inflammation in the mouth is linked to development of diseases all around the body, understanding the tissue-specific factors that regulate immunity at the oral barrier could eventually lead to new ways to treat multiple inflammatory conditions,” said one of the study authors, Joanne Konkel.

Chewing food may therefore be able to increase your body’s immunity on the whole.

There are numerous other benefits of chewing food for a longer time; it can help with weight control as you’ll get full faster, it’s good for the teeth and also because it’ll help you absorb more nutrients from the food.