It’s a moment nearly everyone has experienced. You’re contentedly chewing a wad of gum when an unforeseen turn brings about a quick disposal – the hard way.
Whether the cause is imminent detection by a high school teacher, a dearth of garbage cans or even an untimely hiccup, you gulp down the rubbery gob whole. It’s only then that a refrain from childhood echoes through your mind: “Don’t swallow chewing gum – it will stay in your system for seven years!”
As the minty mass descends into your digestive abyss, you wonder: “Will I really be part gum for years to come?”
Rest assured – this decades-old bit of folklore, of unknown origin but almost universal renown, has little basis in fact.
If the legend were true, that would mean that every single person who ever swallowed gum within the past seven years would have evidence of the gum in the digestive tract, but colonoscopies and capsule endoscopy procedures turn up no such evidence.
According to Rodger Liddle, a gastroenterologist at the Duke University School of Medicine, “nothing would reside that long, unless it was so large it couldn’t get out of the stomach or it was trapped in the intestine.” To put that size into perspective, Liddle says that swallowed small coins usually pass, but that larger coins or objects might not.
So what does become of gum that’s been chewed up but not spit out? Not much, as it happens. Some of the components, such as sweeteners, are broken down, but the gum’s base is largely indigestible.
Nevertheless, it is not wise to habitually swallow gum. We can suffer from blockages when gum snowballs into a substantial mass by fusing with other objects such as swallowed coins, and in some cases, this will require an extraction procedure.