Many parents warn the children that you can’t swallow chewing gum - supposedly it remains in the digestive system for many years (some sources even claim to be forever). We checked if it was true.

This is how the family situation in the book typical of the post -Soviet space is described "Table stories from Weba": “Yesterday I gave my son a plate of chewing gum. In television advertising it was said that she protects her teeth from caries. Usually the boy is normally chewing an elastic band, but last night he swallowed it. My husband almost killed me. “Do you know that chewing gum is excreted from the body for seven years?” He shouted. “Do you understand what danger has exposed our child?”

However, they scared and scare the perennial digestion of chewing gum not only of Soviet and post -Soviet children. The bike about seven years is widely known for West. In particular, it is mentioned in the bestseller of Stephen Choboski "The perks of Being a Wallflower".

At one time, the authors of the popular science portal Scientific American became interested in this issue. That's what they are found out.

According to the children's gastroenterologist David Milov from the NEMOURS clinic (Orlando, Florida), if the legend under consideration was true, then everyone who swallowed chewing gum over the past seven years had evidence of its presence in the digestive tract. ” However, the results of numerous procedures of colonoscopy and capsule endoscopy indicate something else. “Sometimes we see a piece of swallowed chewing gum,” he says, “but usually she is no more than a week.” Milov with complete confidence states that the legend is groundless.

Another gastroenterologist, Roger Liddle from the Medical School of the University of Duke, claims that no subject can remain in the gastrointestinal tract for so long, with the exception of large objects that, due to their size, could not leave the stomach or stuck in the intestines. Such items, according to Liddla experience, should be at least larger than a 25-center (about 24 mm in diameter), since all coins of this size or less usually pass along the tract freely.

What happens to a swallowed chewing elastic band? Some of its components, such as sweeteners, are normally dissolved, but the basis of a popular product is largely intolerant. American Office for Sanitary Supervision of the Quality of Food and Medicines Determines The basis of chewing gum as a “non -neduced chewing substance”, which can consist of any number of natural or synthetic elastomers or rubber -like materials, as well as softeners, resins, preservatives and antioxidants. The permitted elastomers (razin) include a chikl (rubberous plant juice) and a buttonage butter, which is also used in the production of internal pipes. Due to its structure, chewing gum, according to David Milov, passes through the gastrointestinal tract is slightly slower than most foods, but other substances push it through the channels and, as a result, it freely leaves the human body.

Nevertheless, the safe passage of chewing gum through the digestive system does not mean that it can be swallowed by an unlimited number of times. According to research American scientists, chronic swallowing chewing gum can cause serious problems. The study describes three children suffering from blockage of the gastrointestinal tract due to chewing gum. Two of them received chewing gum as a reward from parents and regularly swallowed it. In both cases, the children had a constipation, since the chewing gum, accumulated, formed the traction mass that had to be removed. In the third patient, girls of one and a half year old, four coins were found in the esophagus, glued with one chewing gum.

Thus, contrary to the common legend, the swallowed chewing gum does not live in the human body for years-usually it soon leaves the gastrointestinal tract. Nevertheless, given the fact that the main part of this product is bad to digest, it is not recommended to swallow it.