What Happens if You Swallow Gum? | One Truth & One Lie

Truth and lies about the human body.

Like if you were to swallow chewing gum, would it really stay inside your body for extended

periods of time?

Well, that's a question we get frequently and it came up again and again on our latest

community post where we asked you guys to tell us about myths, legends, or old wives

tales about the human body that you'd heard about while growing up and that list became

amazing.

There's a lot of information that we're gonna be able to use for future videos.

So, we decided that we should do one truth and one lie because some of things that people

mentioned actually had some truth to them.

So, today's topics, we're gonna cover what happens when you swallow chewing gum.

Does it really stay in your body for over 7 years like some of you have heard about?

And is it really more healthy to sleep on the left side of your body?

What's the truth?

What's the lie?

Let's find out.

So, let's start with my chewed up gum here and what would happen if this gum got down

into the stomach here.

Now, to help us with this story, it's going to be very helpful to understand what this

stuff is truly made of.

Now, most gums have things like sugars, flavoring, artificial sweeteners, and even dyes or colors

so we can have, you know, pretty green.

Well, that's not very pretty green color but green, pinks, reds, and other colors that

you've seen in gums but also, they have something called the gum base.

If you were to look at the back of a wrapper or the ingredients of gum, you would see gum

base likely on those ingredients.

The problem with that is, gum base is this umbrella term for multiple ingredients that

make up that base that manufacturers don't like to list cuz apparently, they don't wanna

share their trade secrets on what makes their gum more bubbly or gooey or whatever makes

it so great and so they just say gum based and the FDA has essentially allowed 40+ different

ingredients to be included under that umbrella of gum base.

So, what really is the gum base?

Generally, the gum base includes things like elastomers, waxes, resins, and even fillers

and that is what gives gum it's you know, stretchy or gooey nature and I probably should

have anticipated being sticky on my gloves, but that's what we need to look at when we're

talking about how well does our body break this stuff down.

Now, most of the time, we start the story by unwrapping the gum and throwing it into

our mouth or what we like to call the oral cavity in anatomy.

So, you can see the sagittal cut here.

Here's the tongue and here is the mouth or the oral cavity.

Now, some important points or features about this, if we were to get to the lining of the

cheek on the other side where I'm sticking the probe, we would see ducts for glands like

the parotid glam which is the salivary gland which would secrete saliva in here.

There's also secretions that would come from salivary glands from underneath the tongue

and that saliva will help to moisturize and even soften whatever reading and even contains

enzymes to start breaking things down.

Now, that saliva and those enzymes can definitely help with tasting the gum and the flavor but

after a while, we all know that gum loses its flavor and then it truly feels like you're

just munching on rubber.

So, that saliva and those enzymes don't break down the gum base at all.

Now, the other component of digestion in the oral cavity because - if I didn't mention

that already, keep point - digestion starts in the mouth or the oral cavity is mechanical

digestion where we chew and break things down.

Now, most food does break down a bit when we chew it but again, gum, we all know, the

whole point of it is to be able to chew it for prolonged periods of time and again, doesn't

break down that gum base.

Now, for most of us, it stops in the oral cavity and we don't go any further with this

story and we toss the gum in the garbage when we're done with it and most of us do it because

we don't like munching on what feels like rubber.

Some of us might be scared that we heard those stories about it could stay in your stomach

for over 7 years and so, we're gonna be a little bit adventurous and pretend - what

if we did swallow that gum.

Then, it would move back to what we call the throat or the pharynx and then, down to the

food tube or the esophagus here.

Now, one thing I need to mention about gum before we go a little bit further into the

stomach.

Now, we're used to and it's already happening now, as you can see, it's sticking to my gloves.

We're used to that when we take this out of our mouth, we've seen it stuck under desks,

we've seen it on the ground and accidentally stepped on and it's impossible to get off

your shoes and it seems like it stays in public where it was for time and all eternity and

so we may have this fear, "Is that gonna happen in our stomachs?"

But let's take a step back here and just compare the environments.

I throw it outside of my mouth.

It's no longer coated in saliva or moisture and then it tends to dry out a little bit

and get a little more firm.

That isn't gonna happen when we swallow the gum because as it moves down the esophagus

or the food tube here, it's still gonna be coated in mucus on its journey to the stomach.

So, let me show you that as we go on to a different cadaver here.

So, what you're looking at here is the windpipe or the trachea here, not the food tube but

just a reference here but here is the rest of the esophagus.

You saw the beginning of it again over here on the sagittal head dissection but we can

see that tube coming down like so and the gum would move down that tube and eventually,

here's the bottom part of the esophagus, get into the stomach.

Now, obviously, as we know, from the previous part of our story is the mastication or the

chewing and the enzymes in the saliva didn't do anything to break down that gum base.

So, now let's throw some different things at it and see how we do.

Inside the stomach, we've got hydrochloric acid and other enzymes that are gonna try

to break things down and typically does a pretty good job at breaking down a lot of

the components of food but what we find out that even those additional enzymes and even

the mixing nature of the stomach to mix things up, and even the acid doesn't break it down.

And just for good measure, to kinda prove the point - hours ago, prior to starting filming

this video, I mixed some hydrochloric acid and diluted it to the same concentration as

stomach acid and then plopped some gum into that mixture to see what it would do or at

least to prove that we know it's not gonna break it down.

Look at me go....

And even hours later, we look at it again and you can see that it hasn't changed much

at all.

So, let's stop there and just kinda think, okay....

So, we're that the gum is not breaking down in the mouth, it's not breaking down in the

stomach...

So now, it's going to be stuck there forever.

It's never gonna get out of there.

I'm just gonna build up gum in there.

If I swallow more than one piece, I'm dead, right?

No, that's not what's gonna happen here.

The stomach has an ability to mix and move and propel things along and eventually, the

gum will make it out of the stomach into the small intestine and to give you guys a little

bit more context on that, I've had pain, typically they're kids, that swallow things they're

not supposed to.

My latest patient was a 2 year old who thought he was a hero because he was really proud

of himself when I saw him in the clinic and he swallowed a pendant from a necklace of

his mother's.

She was not happy about it but she was also worried.

It was almost the size of a quarter and we did an X-ray and made sure - sure enough it

was down in the stomach.

Now, his mom was totally surprised what the next answer was cuz she's like, "Okay, well,

what do we do now?"

And I said to her, "Well, check his diapers for next couple days and make sure he passes

it" and she looked at me like I was a little bit crazy there.

But that's often what happens with certain foreign bodies as long as we don't have toxic

or noxious things like batteries and other things.

A lot of times we just let the digestive tract propel it along and that's what happens with

the gum that you swallowed or the piece that I mentioned that we could have swallowed,

comes in here to the small intestines and we let the small intestines take a crack at

it because even in the beginning of the small intestines here, there's go to be some secretions

that come in from the pancreas and the liver and the gallbladder.

The pancreas is gonna throw pancreatic enzymes to help digest things and again, typically

does pretty good with food and the liver and the gallbladder are gonna dump in bile.

Does the gum even care?

Cuz gum has feelings about this?

No, it doesn't at all.

The gum just does not get dissolved anymore by the bile or the pancreatic enzymes because

again, that gum base tends to be indigestible.

Now, take a minute and just kinda think about this for a second before we get worried about

all this gum building up in us.

We eat indigestible material all the time.

We eat things that are - like in our food, you have broccoli, you have vegetables, things

like that, things that have high fiber.

Fiber is indigestible and it just propels things along.

Anything that ends up in the toilet is essentially indigestible material.

So, the gum in essence is not going to behave any differently.

It's just gonna move right along through the small intestine, probably mixed with some

other food here.

I'm just gonna slide this over so you guys can see more here and we come up through the

small intestine and it's gonna zigzag all through the twenty feet of the small intestine

not being absorbed because it's indigestible and essentially - if it's not - if it's not

digestible, we can't bring it into the bloodstream and then eventually, it'll make it to the

colon and once we get into the colon and we've been in the colon, well, not we but the food

necessarily cuz if we were in there, that'd be a really bad environment because this is

where essentially you create poop or we can be a little more professional and say feces

or stool but again, that's coming down and it would mix with that waste and eventually

make it out of the human body.

Now, that'll take anywhere from two to 3 days for that to happen depending on what you've

been eating and things like that and digestive rates and motility rates but again, should

have no problem making it to the toilet, but, there's always a "but" and there's always

exceptions.

That is just swallowing one piece of gum here and there.

Typically, no big deal.

What if you swallowed multiple pieces per day?

I've come across case studies where pediatric patients or little kids swallowed multiple

pieces or whenever they had gum, they would eventually swallow it rather than spit it

out.

There's particular case studies where kids would swallow anywhere from five to ten pieces

per day.

Now, in that case, it can start to build up because you're getting too much of it in there.

And there's other cases where we swallow indigestible material.

For example, I know we all don't like to think about this - we've all swallowed hairs here

and there and tends to not have a big deal when we swallow small amounts of hairs or

you know, every so often, but there are psychiatric disorders where people who will eat their

hair and they'll get what's called a Bezoar or Trichobezoar which is a buildup of hair

and when you take them out sometimes, they look like they're the shape of the actual

- here it is - the shape of the actual stomach and those bezoars have to be removed if they

build up too much.

So, in certain cases, extreme cases of swallowing multiple pieces of gum, you can get a gum

bezoar and that could be a problem if it causes an obstruction and a build up.

So in general, what do we take home from this?

Is it true that gum will stay in your system for seven years?

No, it will not unless we have some of these extreme examples.

That doesn't mean I say swallow your gum.

I would still recommend spitting it out but you know, if you had an occasional accident

here and there where you swallowed it, not too big of a deal.

So, that takes care of our first topic in the truth versus lie and yes, technically,

it is a lie or inaccurate to say that gum is going to stay in the stomach for over seven

years.

So, does that mean that really sleeping on the left side of your body is going to create

health benefits?

Well, we have to look at that within certain situations or within context because just

generally sleeping on the left side of your body is gonna magically create all these health

benefits but instead like a situation with acid reflux or what a lot of people just refer

to as heartburn, then we can see some potential benefits.

Now, for those of you who've not experienced heartburn, that is when acid from the stomach

regurgitates or refluxes and moves up the esophagus, which is in the center of the chest

behind the heart hence the nickname heartburn, and that acid is irritating to the esophagus.

So here's the idea - the stomach sits about like so on the left side of the body here

and you can see that curvature - if I can get my fingers on it, I'll show you on the

lower camera here, like so.

So, if you were to sleep on your left side, it would tilt this curvature towards the bed

and then the esophagus right here would actually be a little bit higher and the idea is that

the gravity would help keep the acid down in this portion of the curvature and slow

it or at least help prevent it sliding up the esophagus than say if you were just sleeping

on your back.

The problem with that is, is if you're anything like me and you start on your left side, you

could wake up in a completely different position later in the middle of the night, especially

if you're having say like a nightmare from like the scariest thing on planet Earth which

by the way is Pennywise: The Dancing Clown from Stephen King, its movies or books...

I digress but regardless, you can have this idea where you're moving around and so, you

might get a benefit for a little while and then you toss and turn and go the other side

or lay on your back.

And so, that is why instead of recommending laying on your left sides, say to like patients

or medical professionals recommending to their patients, they would say, "Raise the head

of the bed".

In other words, they have patients put blocks on the back, two legs on the bed or the legs

that are at the head of the bed that are say like six to eight inches high.

In that way, the bed slightly tilts.

So that no matter on your left side, your right side, or your back, that would help

keep the acid from coming up into the esophagus.

Now, if you want more information on that, we have a really cool YouTube video for two

reasons - Justin One does a really good job explaining acid reflux and so we'll put that

- a link to that but he also looks like he did the video by just rolling out of bed.

So, you'll have fun being able to make fun of him in the comments as an added benefit.

The other situation where you could see a potential benefit from sleeping on your side

is during pregnancy, especially towards the end the second trimester and into the third

as the uterus enlarges as well as the fetus and laying on the back could compressure vasculature

or blood vessels.

For example, there is a huge vein called the inferior vena cava that runs close to the

spine and it drains blood from the lower limbs and the pelvis and if that were to get slightly

compressed from the fetus and the uterus, that could decrease blood flow back to mom's

heart and overall decrease the general circulation and eventually even maybe affect the circulation

back to the fetus.

So, the idea is sleep on the side and that would take the pressure off of that posterior

vasculature.

Now, in that case, it doesn't necessarily have to be the left side or the right side.

So, this is a little bit of a stretch when we're talking about a total truth or a total

lie, but one side or the other could be beneficial.

Now, I've never been pregnant, so, I'm not about to tell a mother in her second and third

trimester totally how to sleep.

But you know, we can get those benefits, left versus right and it may improve the circulation

and help mom be a little bit more comfortable during that pregnancy.

Jeffrey and I wanna take the time to say thank you for watching this video.

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