WASHINGTON, May 22 (UPI) -- Stomach ache? Not too far in the future, the remedy could be, "Chew gum." Already if you want white teeth, chewing gum promises a set of glistening gnashers.
The ancient confectionery, invented by the Greeks, that makes its masticators look like brainless bovines has been targeted to become the purveyor of health and beauty cures.
Leading manufacturers have targeted gum as a satisfactory medium to deliver unpleasant medicines in pleasant form. A Danish pharmaceutical company thinks chewing gum could be used to treat migraine and even obesity.
It's what happens when the market slumps.
Sales of chewing gum in the U.S. were on the decline. But now, thanks to the competitive efforts mostly of Cadbury Schweppes and Wrigley, the market for gum has bubbled -- if you'll forgive the verb -- to $2 billion a year, up by 15 percent from 2003, according to Information Resources.
If you consider Nicorette, the idea is not so farfetched. The very first drug-delivery gum, from GlaxoSmithKline, it is nicotine-enhanced to support smokers trying to kick the habit. Sales last year hit $171.3 million.
Wrigley's Airwaves Active, so far only available in Europe and Asia, contains vitamins and ingredients like guarana supposed to reinforce the immune system. Their Orbit White's sodium bicarbonate is designed to keep your teeth white and plaque-free.
GumRunners' Jolt Caffeine Energy Gum delivers half a coffee cup worth of caffeine in each piece, while their Nutri-Trim may possibly help you slim. They call it "a weight management gum" whose ingredients they claim "help increase metabolism and decrease appetite."
The Greeks and Egyptians chomped on resin from the mastic tree probably for no other reason than they found they could and not die. The Mayans preferred the sap from the sapodilla tree they called chicle. Early settlers in America learned from North American Indians to love the stringy sap from spruce trees which they made more palatable and perhaps more pliant with the addition of beeswax.
But though John B. Curtis made the first commercially sold chewing gum -- State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum -- in 1848, Thomas Adams is the true father of chewing gum. He eschewed (sorry!) sap for the Mayans' chicle, to which he was introduced in 1869 by one Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Two years later, he patented a machine to make gum as we chew it today. Though it probably didn't taste as nice as it does now.
Guess how many new varieties were introduced last year by gum makers. Five too high a figure? The answer is 257 different sorts, many with flavors a far cry from the traditional mint.
This month, Wrigley embarked on a limited launch of Doublemint Kona Crème, a coffee-flavored gum which seems to be an offspring of the Coffee Gum they introduced in China last year.
In Britain you can buy their Airwaves gum which blasts menthol and eucalyptus, cherry menthol or honey and lemon vapors into your mouth as you bite.
Cadbury makes Trident Splash, the sugarless gum that squirts a strawberry-lime or peppermint-vanilla flavored liquid into your mouth when you chomp through an outer chewy layer.
And with sales such as those for Wrigley's Orbit brand -- a jaw-dropping $235 million in 2005 -- it's not hard to picture gum makers chewing over ways to get you to buy more of their product.
But shouldn't we be a little disturbed at having our confectionery turned into drug delivery systems?
Indian and Pakistani meals end with their own Airwaves experience. Paan is a betel leaf -- and being green and living not therefore allowed into the U.S. -- that is rolled around various spice seeds that freshen the mouth with an Airwaves blast.
In Indian restaurants in the U.S. a bowl of the spice seeds alone waits at the door for you to scoop up a teaspoonful before you leave.
You can make these natural mouth fresheners by mixing the following all together, with some crystals of sugar to taste if you want a little sweetness: Dry roasted fennel seeds, green cardamom seeds and cloves from which the too pungent ball on the top of the stem has been removed.
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