What Really Happens When You Swallow Your Gum?

You’ve heard the warnings: If you swallow gum, it will stay in your digestive system for nearly a decade. Which would mean there‘s a decent chance you’ve got some hanging out in your gut right now.

If you look at its ingredients — a delicious mix of indigestible compounds — it certainly seems possible. And if you look at the medical books, swallowed gum has caused some serious problems. Is it possible that your mom’s crazy warnings were right?

The Worst Cases

A 1998 article in the journal Pediatrics discussed three cases in which kids took the act of gum-swallowing to Intervention-like extremes. (Warning: What follows is not for the squeamish!)

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