The study by Andrew Scholey, professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at Swinburne University in Melbourne, said chewing gum helped relieve anxiety, improve alertness and reduce stress among individuals in a laboratory setting.

The findings will be presented Saturday at the 2008 10th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine in Tokyo.

The Wrigley Science Institute, which helped funded the research, said gum chewers showed a reduction in anxiety as compared to non-gum chewers by nearly 17 percent during mild stress and nearly 10 percent in moderate stress. Gum chewers showed improvement in alertness over non-gum chewers by nearly 19 percent during mild stress and 8 percent in moderate stress.