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As youngsters, we had been warned to not swallow chewing gum, as a result of it supposedly takes seven years to digest. However is there any fact to this outdated wives’ story, or is it merely a fable?
Fortunately for many who have by accident downed a stick or two, it would not take anyplace near seven years for swallowed gum to exit our our bodies, based on Julia Zumpano, a registered dietician on the Cleveland Clinic’s Heart for Human Vitamin in Ohio. “It takes 40 hours, simply as meals does, to make its manner by way of your digestive system and out by way of stool,” she informed Dwell Science.
That stated, we do not truly digest chewing gum. “Our our bodies haven’t got enzymes to digest a few of the merchandise in gum,” stated Dr. Nancy McGreal, a gastroenterologist at Duke College Medical Heart. “So, in the event you swallow it, it does journey by way of your intestinal tract entire.”
Because of this in the event you swallow gum, you poop it out entire, identical to you’d pieces of undigested corn (which will not be digested as a result of they’re excessive in fiber and have a cellulose coating, which we additionally lack enzymes to interrupt down).
“I’ve had just a few situations the place I am doing a process like a colonoscopy, and I’ve discovered just a little little bit of gum {that a} affected person had swallowed. However once more, that was in all probability one thing they swallowed inside the final 24 hours and never one thing from seven years in the past,” McGreal stated.
Associated: Why do our stomachs growl?
Gum is made out of a synthetic product referred to as gum base — which comprises non-food ingredients comparable to resins, emulsifiers and softeners — that may’t be digested, based on the Cleveland Clinic. Nevertheless, our our bodies are in a position to digest a few of the different components added to gum, comparable to sweeteners.
So, if we’re in a position to cross undigested gum by way of our digestive programs, is there any threat to swallowing it?
“If it is one or two items of gum, in all probability nothing untoward or adversarial goes to occur to somebody,” McGreal stated. In accordance with the Illinois Poison Control, swallowing small quantities of gum should not trigger a difficulty, however massive quantities may result in “vomiting, constipation, stomach bloating and ache or modifications in bowel habits.”
Nevertheless, swallowing gum can in uncommon instances trigger obstruction in the intestines if somebody eats lots of it directly, Zumpano stated. A 1998 paper within the journal Pediatrics, for instance, reported three instances of kids creating esophageal or intestinal tract obstruction after swallowing gum. There’s even been a case of a teen having obstruction of the higher airway for days after swallowing gum, based on a 2020 case report within the journal Respiratory Medicine Case Reports.
However these obstructions do not simply happen in youngsters. A 2020 case report within the ACG Case Reports Journal detailed a 53-year-old girl who admitted to swallowing 25 items of nicotine gum per day for the previous three years earlier than a colonoscopy revealed 30 items of gum caught in her cecum, a pouch on the entrance to the big gut. The authors wrote: “We imagine encouraging sufferers to discard chewing gum slightly than ingesting is critical for sufferers utilizing massive quantities of chewing gum every day, though it’s apparent.”
Moreover, swallowing an excessive amount of sorbitol — a sugar alcohol typically current in sugar-free gum — could cause digestive points, primarily diarrhea, as a result of it attracts water into the intestines, McGreal stated. When she was a medical pupil, for example, she noticed a affected person with unexplained diarrhea. Medical doctors ran a slew of assessments on him to try to work out the case, however made no headway till one doctor seen the trash can crammed with sugar-free gum wrappers by his bedside. The affected person then recounted how he had chewed and swallowed many items of gum.
