Doctors have finally spoken out on whether or not it’s dangerous to swallow chewing gum.
We’ve all been there haven’t we? You’ve had enough of the gum, there is no bin in sight, what do you do?
Often you end up swallowing it, despite the long-running theories suggesting gum stays in your stomach undigested for up to seven years and can even become wrapped around your heart.
These have been debunked over the years, with experts providing less catastrophic outcomes to swallowing chewing gum.
Sorry everyone who was convinced they were gonna die in primary school from swallowing too much gum, you were never really in that much danger.
Gum doesn’t hang around in your digestive tract for seven years either, so swallowing too much in a seven-year period isn’t going to kill you either.
Your body can’t break down and digest the gum base, but that basically means it’s going to be exiting your body alongside pretty much every other thing you swallow that isn’t put to work somewhere inside you.
You’ll crap it out in short order is what I’m saying, as you’re not going to end up with chewing gum stuck inside your stomach.
While you can’t digest the gum base, you can absorb sweeteners present in the chewing gum through the act of chewing. This is how products such as nicotine gum work to help people quit smoking.
There have been very rare cases where swallowing too much gum has caused health problems, but it’s an exceptionally rare occurrence so as long as you’re basically not eating the stuff on purpose the occasional glob of gum going down your gullet shouldn’t be too much of an impediment.
Although generally harmless when swallowed, there was the case of one boy who directly ate chewing gum on purpose and blocked about 25 percent of his stomach and gastrointestinal tract.
He started complaining of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, which is when doctors discovered a large mass of gum in his stomach.
Doctors ultimately decided to remove the gum by placing a metal tube down the child’s throat to get all of the gum out, with it taking ‘several passes’ to remove the lot.
At the end of the day the boy complained about having a ‘sore throat’ and went home, which is better than having your digestive system clogged up.
While it’s not going to kill you to swallow the odd bit of gum from time to time it probably is for the best health-wise if you try your best not to.
According to Cleveland Clinic, chewing gum is made of a substance called gum base.
Because it’s not made from any real food ingredients, gum base is certainly not nutritious and it’s also non-digestible.
Essentially, your body can’t break down chewing gum like it can any other foods.
As per the Cleveland Clinic, dietician Beth Czerwony said: “Gum base isn’t able to be digested, so it just stays in your guts all the way through and doesn’t break down.”
The expert went on to reassure gum eaters you don’t have to worry if you swallowed one or two recently.
She continued: “You’d have to be experiencing some other medical condition for anything you swallowed to stay in your body for seven years.
“If you’ve swallowed a piece of gum, it’ll come out about 40 hours later in your stool. Because it can’t be digested, it comes right out whole.”
Meanwhile, on Mayo Clinic, a concerned parent wanted answers surrounding chewing gum after their six-year-old daughter consumed some.
“My 6-year-old daughter accidentally swallowed a wad of chewing gum. Should I be concerned?” the parent asked.
Elizabeth Rajan MD replied: “If you swallow gum, it’s true that your body can’t digest it. But the gum doesn’t stay in your stomach. It moves relatively intact through your digestive system and is excreted in your stool.
“On very rare occasions, large amounts of swallowed gum combined with constipation have blocked intestines in children. It’s for this reason that frequent swallowing of chewing gum should be discouraged, especially in children.”
If you experience symptoms such as abdominal pain, constipation, or severe cramping after you’ve swallowed a lot of gum then you should pay a medical expert a visit.
Other symptoms include vomiting and a feeling of extreme fullness or swelling, according to Cleveland Clinic.
Source: unilad.com; ladbible.com
