Chew on this: It's for your health

Kamimori and colleagues at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research have reported similar results with a caffeine-laced gum named Stay Alert, which was developed for the Army by a company called Marketright Inc. Each stick of the cinnamon-flavored product contains 100 milligrams of the stimulant, about as much as a 6-ounce cup of coffee. Though the caffeine in a cappuccino can take an hour to fully take effect, the caffeine in Stay Alert hits in just a few minutes, Kamimori says. That's about five times quicker than caffeine in capsule form, he adds.

"It's like pouring coffee directly into your bloodstream," he says.

Kamimori's studies have shown that chewing two sticks of Stay Alert for five minutes every two hours during night shifts allows soldiers to remain alert for up to 72 hours, even during overnight drives through the desert. The gum is easy to transport, he says, and stable in cold and heat. A glass of water for swallowing is unnecessary, and gum is far less likely than liquid coffee to send chewers running to the restroom. Those would be welcome features for emergency medical technicians, truck drivers and other night-shift workers.

Marketright won't say if it plans to publicly release Stay Alert. Other caffeinated gums already exist on the market, but they may not have been rigorously tested for their caffeine content or effectiveness, Kamimori says.

A variety of companies are starting to put their money where our mouths are. Last year, Wrigley Co. formed the Wrigley Science Institute to fund studies in labs around the world. Although it may someday add functional gums to its list of research topics, for now, the institute focuses on the benefits of regular gum for oral and overall health.

"What we're learning so far," says Gil Leveille, executive director of the Wrigley institute, "is that the benefits derive from chewing gum -- not any particular flavor or form."

Many studies show that chewing gum after meals fights cavities by stimulating the production of saliva, which neutralizes the acid produced by bacteria in our teeth. A 2004 study led by Wu and funded by Wrigley found that chewing the company's Big Red gum cut bad-breath bacteria in the mouth by more than half immediately after it was chewed. (The same would probably be true for other cinnamon-flavored gums, Wu says.)