Department of Clinical and Developmental Neuropsychology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
Appetite. 2010 Dec;55(3):679-84. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2010.10.001. Epub 2010 Oct 8.
Impairments of attention are cardinal features of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and can seriously affect the daily life of children with ADHD. Despite effective treatment strategies, there is a need of further treatment options that can be added to available and well established treatments. Further treatment options are needed since available treatments are often time consuming, expensive and limited regarding their external validity. Recent research demonstrated that gum chewing has beneficial effects on cognition including certain aspects of attention. Therefore, gum chewing may benefit children with ADHD in situations requiring particular cognitive efforts. In a crossover study, attentional functioning of 32 children with ADHD and 32 children without the condition was examined. All participants were assessed with chewing gum and without chewing gum. A computerized test was used for the assessment of vigilance and sustained attention. The findings of the present study suggest that gum chewing during task execution has detrimental effects on vigilance of both healthy children and children with ADHD. Sustained attention was not affected by gum chewing. Chewing gum, therefore, appears not to improve attentional performance in children with ADHD.
注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）的核心特征是注意力受损，这可能会严重影响 ADHD 儿童的日常生活。尽管有有效的治疗策略，但仍需要进一步的治疗选择，可以添加到现有的、成熟的治疗方法中。这是因为现有的治疗方法通常耗时、昂贵，并且在其外部有效性方面存在限制。最近的研究表明，咀嚼口香糖对认知具有有益的影响，包括注意力的某些方面。因此，在需要特别认知努力的情况下，咀嚼口香糖可能对 ADHD 儿童有益。在一项交叉研究中，研究人员检查了 32 名 ADHD 儿童和 32 名无 ADHD 儿童的注意力功能。所有参与者都接受了咀嚼口香糖和不咀嚼口香糖的评估。使用计算机测试评估了警觉性和持续注意力。本研究的结果表明，在执行任务期间咀嚼口香糖会对健康儿童和 ADHD 儿童的警觉性产生不利影响。咀嚼口香糖不会影响持续注意力。因此，咀嚼口香糖似乎不能改善 ADHD 儿童的注意力表现。
