This article used to be built on the premise that “chewing acts as a temporalis-muscle pump that rebuilds scalp infrastructure.” We could not confirm any research connecting chewing and hair, so we rewrote the premise in August 2026.
To be clear about the claim this article was built on: we followed every source it cited and found no study showing that chewing makes hair thicker. The scalp massage research below used a device, not chewing.
Two studies from the Lotte Central Institute do exist, published in Japanese-language journals: scalp blood flow during gum chewing rose by 44.0% at the vertex and 47.1% at the front in 20 healthy adults (Jpn Pharmacol Ther 2022), and a cross-sectional survey of 27 institute researchers found thicker vertex hair among those who chewed gum longer (Anti-Aging Medicine 2021). Both measure momentary blood flow or a snapshot association. Lotte itself states that no research has yet demonstrated an effect of gum chewing on hair.
Here, separately from that claim, this article is about tracking hair thickness itself.
Why thickness rather than count
The number of hairs you shed varies a lot day to day: how often you wash your hair, the season, how many hairs happened to be in the resting phase at that moment. Fixating on the count alone is an unstable way to judge things.
Hair thickness changes more slowly by comparison. As a metric to compare over some interval of time, it is easier to work with than a daily count.
The study behind E12 also used hair thickness as its outcome measure. Nine healthy men had scalp massage for 24 weeks, and their hair thickness reportedly increased from 0.085mm to 0.092mm.
What is worth noticing about that number is how small the change is. 0.007mm over 24 weeks. That is not something you can feel with your fingers. Tracking it requires a tool.
A way to record it at home
Photograph shed hairs side by side
Lay a few naturally shed hairs on white paper and photograph them next to a ruler. Keeping the same distance and lighting each time matters.
Compare month to month. Week-to-week intervals will not show a difference.
What to record
- The date of the photo
- The number of hairs shed (as a rough reference only)
- What you changed at that time (shampoo, sleep, diet, starting a treatment or medication, etc.)
If you don’t note what you changed, you won’t be able to tell later what actually made a difference. Conversely, changing several things at once makes it impossible to isolate a cause.
What this record cannot tell you
A self-observation log is for tracking your own change over time, not for identifying a cause.
- There is seasonal variation
- There is age-related change
- Measurement variability can be larger than the change itself
- And a 0.007mm difference is not something a home photo setup can capture in the first place
Clinics use a microscope to magnify and observe the scalp and hair. If you want to know for certain, that route is more reliable.
When keeping a record is a good fit
Turning the numbers themselves into the goal can end up making things harder. For some people, keeping a record is calmer than checking the mirror every day and reacting to it.
On the other hand, if keeping a record makes you more anxious, stop doing it. If thinking about your hair is genuinely distressing, consulting a clinic will bring relief faster than continuing to track it.
See a dermatologist, or a clinic that treats AGA/FAGA. This site introduces research related to chewing and is not reviewed by medical professionals.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment.
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