A gumball tree in your belly
Swallowing gum creates a lump in your stomach that lasts for seven years. Or stick your intestines together. There would even be a gumball tree growing in your belly. With these fables, parents warn their children to spit out chewing gum. Is there a kernel of truth in it?
Chewing gum is nothing new. In 2007, a British archeology student discovered a piece of tar made from birch bark during an excavation in Finland that still contained the teeth marks. This flexible Stone Age material is probably the oldest chewing gum. The ancient Greeks chewed resin from the mastic tree. Indians used sap from trees mixed with some herbs for this purpose.
War Chewing gum as we know it today was invented in the 19th century. It was made from the sap of the sapodilla, a tree in Central America. In the Netherlands we became acquainted with the elastic stuff during the Second World War. After the liberation, American and Canadian soldiers handed out chewing gums. They always got chewing gum in their provisions, because they relaxed, but also stay alert.
Ingredients
Chewing gum consists largely of gum, a substance that is elastic and holds the ingredients together. Gum can be made from the sap of various trees, but today it is mostly synthetic. In addition, it contains glucose syrup, dyes, flavors and sugar or sweeteners.
Most of today’s chewing gum contains no sugar, but is sweetened with xylitol, sorbitol or maltitol. That is a lot better for your teeth, but these sweeteners do have a slightly laxative effect. If you are sensitive to it or use a lot of chewing gum, the sugar-free version can therefore be used diarrhea yield. And you don’t even have to swallow the chewing gum.
swallow If you swallow chewing gum, it ends up in the stomach. Some ingredients, such as the sweeteners, are broken down in the stomach and intestines. But most of it resists your acidic stomach contents and digestive enzymes, preventing the digestive system from digesting it.
Yet there is no chewing gum lump in your stomach. The movements of the stomach and intestines transport the piece of undigested chewing gum to the exit. A chewing gum therefore ends up in your toilet a day or two after swallowing.
Children In people with a severe narrowing in their gastrointestinal tract, for example due to the Crohn’s disease or a tumor, swallowing gum can cause a dangerous blockage. The same goes for small children, because their digestive system is narrower than that of adults and they are therefore more likely to suffer from constipation. They can also choke. Accidentally failing to spit out chewing gum isn’t a disaster, but some kids have a tendency to eat lots and lots of chewing gum, as if they were candies.
The scientific journal Pediatrics described three cases of young children where doctors had to remove a stuck lump of gum from the stomach or intestines. It turned out that the children sometimes swallowed as many as seven pieces a day. A toddler also liked coins. The coins stuck together with chewing gum caused coughing and swallowing problems that sent him to the emergency room. Chewing gum is therefore not suitable for young children.
