Ask Mike: Gum in the stomach
Hey Guys,
When I was going to school, gum was strictly forbidden. If a teacher saw you chewing a piece, it was the fourth grade equivalent of a capital crime. In order to avoid being caught, many a kid swallowed the gum (aka “the evidence”). I never did, because I had heard horror stories around the playground. Swallow a piece of gum, the legend went, and it was in your stomach for ten years.
True or false? There are a number of sites dedicated to answering this very question. KidsHealth.org explains that while a person’s stomach “can’t break down a piece of gum the same way it breaks down other food, your digestive system can move it along through normal intestinal activity.” In other words, it’s not gonna stick around for ten years. It’ll be gone just as soon as you, well, you know.
That said, there are extreme cases. For example, if a person were to swallow a tremendous number of pieces of gum, he or she might have some problems with their digestive tract. But that’s obviously a rare situation. As KidsHealth.org puts it, “swallowing an occasional piece of gum is harmless.”
The urban legend experts at Snopes.com confirm this, saying that once gum goes down the gullet, “it’s no more remarkable in that respect than anything else we swallow.” Snopes theorizes that the misinformation may have started due to gum being often referred to as “indigestible.” That’s misleading. While the stomach doesn’t really break down the gum, it exits the body at the same rate as anything else.
So, it turns out the sages of the playground had it wrong. Wonder if they were lying about not sticking my tongue to a frozen flagpole, too…
Thanks for reading,
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lol. Many adults even believe this. As for the tongue on a flagpole… that hurts… bad.
lol thats a fun fact to learn thank you
Playground sages should never practice medicine without a license.
Chewing gum is a minor object to pass through the digestive system. It was once considered “state-of-the-art” medical practice to pour liquid mercury into a standing patient to remove bowl obstructions.
What does running do for your body??
Thanks for clearing that up Mike!
I remember being told this as a kid too. I was in 8th grade science class when our teacher busted the myth with facts about our digestive system & our stomachs having hydrochloric acid in them to break down what we eat & drink. It’s never good to swallow your gum as you can choke on it. It’s better to toss it into the trash. If you can’t find a trash can, use a tissue or small piece of paper to wad it up in & dispose of later. I’ve swallowed my fair share pieces of gum over the years & it always feels gross going down. You get this feeling of “rock in the stomach” from the old sayings as a kid.
Do it! Wait, let me get my video camera!
LoL if that was the case, there would be a thousand pieces of gum in my stomach sitting for all the times ive swallowed em
You spelled tract wrong.
hi i chew gum once in a while and have swallowefd a few pieces now and then,but nothing ever happened ,it usually passes out of your body harmlessly.
I guess I’m one of those rare cases. I used to love to eat gum. Especially chiclets and the gum that came in the colorful pack with the zebra on it. I was too young to remember the name of it. It was always hard for me not to swallow my gum. I ended up getting really clogged up and didn’t have a BM for a while and it became a problem. I have too get a laxative up my bum and a pill to go with it. Talk about discomfort. And on top of all of that I was only 7. Very traumatic.
hehehehhehe Nice. I swallowed a gum 4 years ago……… when I was reading the first part I totally freaked out but I am relieved now! Digestible or not, I am never swallowing a gum again!
:P
Its false, just because your body cant break something down doesnt mean it will stay in you. It will pass through you just like anything else would.
Okay, Mike, good to know. Now, what if I ingest my gum, cola and Pop Rocks at about the same time? Will I implode?
P.S. It’s the “digestive tract”, not “digestive track”.
Hey, Mike. You ended your column with “Thanks for reading”,
and my response is “Thanks for sharing”.
Perhaps you could have finished your post by asking if there
are any other childhood / schoolyard myths we grew up with,
which later turned out to be untrue.
One that I especially remember is “Step on a sidewalk crack,
break your mother’s back”.
That makes more sense than the stupid rumor I heard. “It’ll stay in your stomach for 7 years.” Psh. Yeah right.
that was great when I was little my brother told me dont swallow gum it will be there for 7 years he was wrong I so emailing him to tell him he’s wrong
thanks anyway!
Good to know! I remember trying to ration myself as a kid–oops, accidentally swallowed a piece, better lay off it for a while. Don’t want to go to the doctors when I’m twenty and find out I’ve got a big lump of gum in there!
Looking back on it now, it does seem pretty silly.
Dear Mike,
no , they are lying, a gum would only take no more than one day to get out of your digestive system !
have fun swallowin what you want..!
Good Luck
xoxo
Secretz
Seriously, the numbers of victims falling too Gum, is about NILL/NONE
The absence of actual Medical regulation to handle this Plague dousnt exist and no warning Labels on gum exist.
Its common sense for the Average Joe
“Wonder if they were lying about not sticking my tongue to a frozen flagpole, too…”
That in fact isn’t a lie. Your tongue will stick to it immediately (if it’s cold enough that is).
I can relate this to my personal experiences from my youth.
weird……….
My grandmother always told me if you swallowed a piece of gum, it would stick to your lungs. Lol.
i’ve eating and swallowed tons of gum over my forty plus years and i’ve never heard about the ten year thing..is this like the ten second rule when you drop food on the floor?
i have never stuck my tongue onto a frozen pole outside…but my brothers and i use to dare each other to stick our tongues onto the frozen wire basket in the freezer…circa 1960′s…samething hurts like heck…p.s.it is safer to stick ones tongue onto a piece of ice then to a pole
“Digestive tract”, not “track”
And you get PAID for this?
My two year old daughter swallowed some gum….and when I went to change her….there was gum in her diaper! Question solved – it doesn’t stay there for ten years.
LOL, Oh my gosh, I use to be afraid of my gum getting stuck to my tummy as a little one too! I had heard that it was a myth as well, but your blog put me at ease!
Thanks Mike
♥
be very careful because gum does not digiest
i kno a litle boy he was 12 yrs old had to get sergury over gum so just don’t chew gum untill u get out of ur school ok good luck
Thanks. I wondered about that too. I heard it was really really bad to swallow it for other reasons too.
I asked my friends mother who was an orthepedic doctor, and she told me that it was just a myth. It digests like all other foods, except will be majorly sugary.
Ha! I knew the gum stuff was all lies.
The frozen flagpole isn’t though. Take it from someone who’s tried it… ouch.
Good info
this is funny, except i ignored th warnings. i heard it stayed there for the rest of your life!! i had an endioscope done last year and there was no gum there. wouldnt it finally take up a persons whole stomach? anyway, i dont even chew gum anymore. i had a teacher that wopuld let you chew, but if he could tell you what color it was, he made you spit it out…in front of him.(i think he started the story…hello, mr. burgess!…loved your class!
Nope. DON’T stick your tongue to that flagpole. Hurts like a b*tch to get it off…
I was always told it wrapped around your heart… but that’s quite obviously retarded.
I for one don’t like gum, after about 2 minutes of chewing, bacteria starts going in it, and it makes me want to vomit. I do chew the occasionnal piece when I am really tired or my breath smells really bad, but I don’t enjoy it. I don’t know about you guys but gum is just for when you feel like chewing or when you have bad breath. I don’t know how people chew on gum all day long, but we all know that it’s just like anything else, once you start, you get addicted, and you just can’t stop
Nice that was very interesting
There were news about how surgeons found a pine tree in guy`s lungs. They speculate he must have inhaled the seeds and it started growing. as the environment (lungs) is pretty prosperous.
Haha I remember that, before you swallowed it you and anyone else who had to do it like had to hype themselves up to just do it. By the time you hit Middle School it was just F it and swallow it I am not getting detention for chewing gum XD
Good to finally know it didn’t stick around for 7 – 10 years
i always swallwed my gum
ppl were like ewww
but i was wayy smarted than them (:
I never heard that about the gum before. It makes sense that the gum just passes through the digestive system without any harm. It’s like wax; it’s inert.
I always knew that this was true because if you put a piece of gum in your mouth, after a few hours it breaks down into little bits. So its obviously gonna do a similar thing inside ur stomach.
een if that’s true, don’t think any harm is done. i’m sur I swolled gum when I was eight, ten years later, I am ok.
gum is allowed at my school…
NOT TRUE
No kidding, if you didn’t know this by the time your were 12 then I am seriously wondering how you have a job.
me too
Thanks for the tip! I’ll now never swallow gum!
~ Nathan
haha it maybe true for gum, but not swallowing at little balloon!
some kid i used to know actually swallowed a BALLOON back in elementary school. it melted to the side of his stomach and had to be surgically removed O_o
what’s up with guys and swallowing things?
Digestive tract, not track.
I always heard 7 years.
No, this isn’t true. The digestive jucies are strong enough to break down Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola can crrode a transmission. In other words, it can break down a car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111
It definitely stays in your stomach for at least a few years. Long story short, I swallowed a cellophane bag from a pack of cigarettes. When it came up, so did 2 pieces of old gum which were stuck on it. They were unmistakably gum. When you find an old piece of gum from years ago, it looks exactly the same as when it comes out of your stomach. Say what you want, cite whatever websites or “experts” you want, it happened. It stays there.
I’ve always wondered whether that was true or not. Except at my school it was 7 years that it’d stay in your system for.
But when it comes to that whole flagpole thing.. very painful.. VERY…
I actually want to try the sticking your tongue to a pole thing. sounds like fun..
and i already knew about the gum thing…
I just have to share this because though I do know how rare it is I also know that bad things can happen(to some people) if you swallow gum.When I was a kid one of the boys I went to school with had a little brother that swallowed gum all the time.It got hooked on his apendix at some point and over the years (of swallowing I have no idea how much gum) it bridged his intestines and he had to have it cut out.I know this almost never happens but knowing that it happened to even one person stoped me from swallowing gum as a child ha.
Thanks Mike! Now my friends can stop complaining about bubble gum, I never really chew it anyway but they always sook about it so now I can prove them wrong!
i think my gum had digested. yeah.. i never think about this, thanks for the fact mike.
i rate that 10 yahoo points, i wonder if anyone hass googled yahoo points… probably CAPS LOCK ON
Lolz! Ya, I heard that too. The tounge on a flag pole (cold) is true. I did that in the freezer by accident… lolz
Much as I generally dislike people who point out spelling and grammar erors, Mike, you represent Y/A, and we expect a higher standard from you.
it’s digestive TRACT not track.
Did you and Michael Jackson go to the same school?
he sings “you and I must make a pack” when it’s PACT.
Well, Mike, that’s exactly what happened when I was in school. In fact, chewing gum and being caught with it in class would earn you an “F” in conduct.Ugh. So we just quickly swallowed it and denied it. Lol. My grandma said swallowing gum was “dangerous, cause it could get caught in your appendix.” Ridiculous, huh?
digestive track?
Believe me, they weren’t lying about sticking your tongue to a frozen flagpole. Happened to me, yanked a whole inch of taste buds off my tongue. Worst feeling ever when I was 9.
Good post Mike, so true I also was afraid to swallow the chewing gum
I have dont it so many times . Also itonly stays in your stomache for 7 days.
Anytime teachers say this, kids should just point them to the videos of the guy eating a glass, bicycles, and even an entire Cessna airplane!
http://wrongtown.blogspot.com/2006/01/man-eats-plane.html
The rather anarchic “science” show, Brainiac tested this.
Never sure what the point of the show is, other than finding creative ways to blow up caravans and microwaves.
Haha nice one, Mike. I love that, as I always thought it was true. Anyways, now I don’t have to worry! lol.
Grandma told us there was a little boy who had a cat, chewed his nails and swallowed his gum. He had to have surgery because his appendix (whatever that was!) had become a huge ball of cat hair, fingernails and gum! Thanks for clearing that up – I’m going to finally get a cat, start chewing my nails and swallowing gum – yipee!
HA! that’s hilarious! I always knew that it was not true that it stuck in your stomach for 10 years. My mom still insists it is true. She’s 62….not gonna change her mind!!
I had a friend who had her gallbladder removed and the surgeon saved the golf ball size of green gum that was found inside of it to show her. She said she never swallowed another piece of gum!
Ever since I started chewing gum, I always swallowed and never threw it out in the garbage. You know how annoying is it when you don’t have a wrapper and trying to find a piece of paper? Its a nightmare.
My parents always scolded me when I swallowed my gum with this urban legend that it’ll get stuck on my larynx and I can stop breathing (blah blah blah) but hey that was more than 10 years ago.
I”m still alive. I’m still swallowing my gum. What gives? Are you going to say next that sucking my teeth will cause it to fall out? Give me a break.
That’s so funny, I still hear that today, even from my husband, I’ve been (turning red) guilty of swalling my gum even into adulthood!
Isn’t it funny how many people comment on this blog reaffirming the above information? As if the information isn’t correct until they have said their piece (or restated Mike’s post in a different way)! And the grammar hounds are pretty entertaining as well.
Mike, Mike!! You spelled tract wrong!
Anyway, this was interesting. Although you would have to be a blockhead to think that there still could be gum in your stomach from when you were seven
lol. When I was a baby I got a hold of some gum and ate it. My parents had to pull gum from my bottom because it got stuck. My son was luckier than that. The stride gum he snatched from my purse came out but all crumbly. Spearmint poo, yuck!
OK i am NEVER EVER EVER doin that again! @_@
hahaha. i wonder if that flagpole thing is true… if it is, i’m so doing that to one of my friends. >:)
Hey well it alright as long as it didn’t happen too often, if it did then there might be a problem and sould tal to a doctor soon!!
xoxo mE
lol i do remember the rock in the stomache feeling. omg now i so careful as an adult though it did happen once a few months ago and I got the same feeling again and freaked out quietly. Whats even crazier I used to watch my brothers dare each other swollowing ants and pennies when we were all younger. Gross!
I doubt that I’ve ever diesposed of a piece of chewing gum in any way other than swallowing it! (No one can blame ME for any of that gum on the sidewalk or the underside of soda fountain tables.) People used to tell me that swallowing gum would stick my insides together, but maybe that’s why I haven’t defeloped much middle-aged spread.
there are some rumor here that a boy died because of swallowing a gum,,,, the gum stick into his vessels and when he cough it went out and had an internal bleeding
its soooooooooooooo weird?????!!!!!
LOL, I too heard this as a kid in school and admit I have even said it to my boys to keep them from swallowing it.
My mother is a labor and delivery nurse and had a patient who craved juicy fruit. She found out the bad way that gum does NOT stick inside your belly…ewwww.
I always wondered what made ppl have to correct spelling errors on sites like these…who cares…we ALL knew what he was referring to.
In the 9 years I have been a gastroenterologist I have never seen anyone with a bowel obstruction having swallowed gum. It can cause diarrhea though, due to the sugar substitute having a laxative effect particularly if chewed (or swallowed) in large quantities.
PS It is digested in the same way as other foods are digested!
Peter
(http://www.ibs-help-online.com)
You would not believe how many worries you just took off my mind! Thank you!
I’m really surprised at the amount of people I’ve encountered who wholeheartedly believe this. I mean, if you never have swallowed it in fear, it’s hard to confirm as false, but uh…I’ve seen evidence, after it was swallowed, that it digests (if you know what I mean).
I swallow gum at least once every day, sometimes several times a day, and I have for at least three years. It’s kind of a sick habit, but I haven’t seen any negative results. Hopefully I won’t anytime soon…but I might. D:
i still chew Bazooka bubble gum & Chicklets like they are candy.
never had a problem.
the myth i remember from childhood is: don’t swallow watermelon seeds otherwise one will grow in your belly. haven’t had one grow their yet either.
NO actuly it is only seven years!
they’d always tell me it went to the apendix an stayed there.
I’m sure some of you will now stick your tongue on something frozen- make sure you have a glass of warm water -or even cold water- nearby.
Also, while some grammar and spelling fanatics just need to feel superior, some of us are truly trying to educate. A combo of both may be just an neurotic intellectual with a sense of humor (or humour) To tell which you are: Do you add your comment without noting whether it’s been stated already? and, Do you get upset if someone refuses to listen and/ or change once you’ve corrected them?
THE COMMENT I HEARD MOST WHEN I WAS A KID WAS: Swallow gum & it will stick to your ribs !! & may need to go to the hospital because of it being stuck to your ribs ! ? ! Ha Ha ha . r’`R`’r
Does your chewin’ gum lose it’s flavor
On the bedpost over night?
If your Mama says “Don’t chew it!”,
Do you swallow it in spite.
An you catch it on your tonsils,
and you heave it left and right-eek-eek!
Does your chewin’ gum lose it’s flavor
On the bedpost over night?
with interversal goodies like “If tin whistles are made og tin, what are foghorns made out of?”