Gum base

Does chewing gum take seven years to digest?

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As children we’re told not to swallow gum, because it will lie in your stomach for ages. Claudia Hammond chews over the evidence to find out if this is true.

gum

Imagine if you swallowed a piece of gum in the summer of 2006. George W Bush was still in the White House. Twitter had yet to be launched. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was at the top of the movie charts. It feels like a long time ago, but legend has it that if you had swallowed gum then, your body would be completing its digestion about now.

As children we’re told we mustn’t swallow chewing gum because it will take seven years to digest. Until then, we are led to believe, it will lie there in your stomach, oblivious to the usual bodily processes that break down and process foods. It’s a statement that is confidently asserted in school playgrounds in many countries, but does it have any basis in medical science?

Chewing gum consists of a gum base, sweetener, flavouring, preservatives and softeners. Sugars and flavouring ingredients such as mint oils break down easily and are soon excreted. Likewise, softeners such as vegetable oil or glycerine don’t present a problem for the digestive system. The ingredient that can withstand both the acid in the stomach and the digestive enzymes in the intestines is the gum base. 

Traditionally many manufacturers used chicle, the sap bled from the sapodilla tree, an evergreen native to southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. But after American soldiers took their gum rations overseas during the World War II, its popularity spread and sapodilla trees could no longer keep up with demand.

Today most gum uses other natural or synthetic polymers. The US Food and Drug Administration permits the use of various substances, including butyl rubber, which is used to make inner tubes. Each manufacturer has its own recipe with the aim of getting the perfect degree of elasticity.

But even though the gum base cannot be broken down, that doesn’t mean it stays in your gut for seven years. Nor does it wind itself around your heart, as some also assert. Provided it’s a small piece, it does eventually find its way down the digestive tract. Foreign bodies such as coins can usually pass out of the stomach provided they’re less than 2cm in diameter. Chewing gum has the advantage over a lot of other accidentally-ingested objects in that it’s soft.

The only way that chewing gum could stay for seven years is if there was a vast amount of it, and even then symptoms such as constipation would mean it’s probably discovered soon. A 1998 paper reports outlines alarming case studies of three children who did develop obstructions as a result of the habit.

One was a four-year-old boy who had been suffering from constipation for two years. He found it so hard to go to the toilet that his parents began offering chewing gum as an incentive to try. He ate between five and seven pieces a day and always swallowed them, rather than spitting them out. After four days of fibre supplements, oils and enemas had no effect, doctors sedated him and removed a “taffy-like” mass (referring to its similarity to chewy, toffee-like sweets from the US) from his rectum consisting chiefly of gum. It wasn’t seven years old, but it did cause him serious problems.

Inside the second patient, also aged four, doctors found a multi-coloured mass, which again turned out to be chewing gum. Doctors said the patient was in the habit of swallowing her gum quickly in order to get more.

The third child was just 18-months-old. Doctors found four coins stuck together with a “peculiar sticky wax-like substance” in her stomach. It turned out that she regularly ate chewing gum, and, it appears, small coins. The families of two of the children were aware that they were swallowing their gum and found it “a source of levity”, according to the report’s authors.

So regularly swallowing large amounts of gum isn’t a good idea. But if you have eaten the occasional piece, there’s no evidence that you will come to any harm. And, if you were to swallow some today, it will not hang around inside you until finally making its way out in time for the 2020 Olympics.

Source: BBC

 

HOW SAFE ID CHEWING GUM ?

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Recently, about thirty women, were asked whose ages were mostly under the age of forty, if they carried chewing gum with them. Twenty seven of the thirty were able to pull out a pack of gum, some even going as far as telling me why they loved a particular brand/flavor of gum.

While this demographic is not representative of all women, 90% of them chewed gum on a daily basis, some consuming more than one stick per day. As with many things that we expose our bodies to on a daily basis, let’s take a moment and analyze the ingredients of chewing gum and ask some important questions that pertain to whether it contributes to good health.

How many of us have looked at the ingredients on a pack of gum?

If you have, do you know what each one of the substances is?

Is a stick of chewing gum more of a “cancer stick” than a cigarette?

As you will see below, commercial gum products are some of the most toxic substances that you can expose your body too and literally can lead to some of the worst diseases on the planet.

Here is a list of the most common ingredients in the most popular chewing gum products on the market:

Sorbitol, Xylitol, Mannitol, Maltitol

Gum Base

Glycerol

Natural and Artificial Flavors

Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Starch

Aspartame –Acesulfame

Soy Lecithin

Colors (titanium oxide, blue 2 lake, red 40)

BHT

Malic Acid, Citric Acid

Ingredient #1: Gum Base.

Imagine if someone came up to you and said, “Hey, would you like to chew on some tire rubber and plastic?” You probably would politely decline and want to report this person to a doctor for a psychological evaluation. “Gum base” is a blend of elastomers, plasticizers, fillers, and resin. Some of the other ingredients that go into this mix are polyvinyl acetate, which is frequently referred to as “carpenter glue” or “white glue”. Paraffin wax is another ingredient that is a byproduct of refined petroleum. Is chewing plastic, petroleum and rubber safe? As you chew, these substances leach into the mouth and body. Yummy.

Ingredient #2: Aspartame.

The controversy surrounding this substance is widespread. It is one of the most body toxic substances we can consume. The political corruption and money trail behind this agent of disease is a mile long. Aspartame has been linked to all of the major brain diseases including Alzheimer’s and ALS. It is also considered a prime contributor to many other diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, asthma, obesity, and many others. It is in many diet products on the market today, but in the long run actually contributes to obesity due to his extreme acidity. Aspartame is an excitotoxin, which over excites neurons in the brain until they burn out and die. Dr. Russell Blaylock is the leading expert on Aspartame and other excitotoxins and I would highly encourage you to see the documentary entitled “Sweet Misery: A Poisoned World”.

#3: Hydrogenated Coconut Oil and Starch.

Hydrogenation is chemical process that adds hydrogen across a double bonded carbon. This is done to increase the shelf life of a product, turning oil into a more plastic like substance. This process also creates Trans fats, which are now known to be very harmful to health.

Ingredient #4: Colors (titanium dioxide, blue 2 lake, red 40).

Titanium dioxide is a nanoparticle that is very common in sunscreen and many other health products, including synthetic nutritional supplements. New evidence is leading in the direction of this substance being carcinogenic, leading to cancer. We as humans are drawn to things that are colorful. Artificial food colorings, such as red 40, are made from petroleum and are dangerous to our health. Many people have extreme allergies to these substances and they have been implicated in contributing to ADD and other disorders and diseases.

Ingredient #5: Sorbitol, Xylitol, Mannitol, Maltitol.

These sugar alcohols are originally made from sugar, but are altered so much that they are considered sugar free. As a general rule, when nature is altered and changed to make a “better” product, more often than not, the result is something that is not healthy. Some even go so far as to say that these products are far worse than sugar and can stimulate weight gain. Other side effects can include abdominal pain and diarrhea. Is sugar alcohol better than sugar? Neither are good substances, so comparing the two is somewhat pointless.

Chewing Gum and Digestion

Every time you chew gum, your brain is tricked into thinking that you are eating food. Therefore, it sends signals to your stomach, pancreas and other organs involved in digestion to prepare for this “food”. Your salivary glands and pancreas will begin to emit enzymes, which are necessary to digest food and absorb nutrients from food. Constant emission of enzymes over time will deplete enzymes and over time this process can slow down. If you are not breaking down and absorbing food properly over time, you will get disease because the body needs nutrients to rebuild and thrive.

A Great Alternative for Fresh Breath

A great alternative to chewing gum is to carry around a small bottle of organic food grade peppermint oil and when you would like fresh breath, just put one drop in your mouth and you will have achieved the same effect. You can find many food grade oils that are wonderful for helping you have fresh breath.

Nothing in chewing gum is natural. It is chemical goop that in no way contributes to health or is good for your teeth. Don’t be fooled by fancy advertising. The five ingredients that we reviewed above, in one form or another, contribute to disease and poor health. Is this really a risk that you want to expose yourself to all for the sake of fresh breath? In the future, perhaps we will see that chewing gum may be as much of a contributor to disease as are cigarettes.

Source : http://www.activistpost.com/