As a child, I remember friends saying that you shouldn’t swallow chewing gum because it stays in your stomach for seven years. The outcome of swallowing chewing gum regularly would result in a ball of gum in your stomach. I asked Jennifer Anderson, the diabetes education coordinator at Boone Hospital Center, for the truth behind this myth.
“The notion that gum sits in your stomach for 7 years is definitely a myth,” Anderson said. “The base of gum (the rubbery part that allows you to chew and chew gum without breaking it down) is indigestible. Even though our bodies cannot break down the gum base, it still gets moved through at the normal rate, virtually unchanged. There are other ingredients added to the gum base, vegetable oils to make them softer, glycerin to retain moisture, and sweeteners. All of these ingredients are digestible.”
