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Chewing/Bubble gum debate:
A bit of Googling turned up loads of articles, some examples here, here and here. According to Wrigley's: 'Chewing gum consists of five basic ingredients, four of which dissolve in your mouth--flavor, sweeteners, corn syrup and softeners. The fifth ingredient, gum base, doesn't dissolve but eventually passes through your system undigested, much like fiber.' Excessive gum-chewing can cause digestion problems (you're over-stimulating a system with nowt in it), but the main problems mentioned in relation to swallowing it appear to be related to certain artifical sweeteners (e.g. hexitol, sorbitol, mannitol) which in sufficient quantities cause bowel purge (i.e. diarrhea) and abdominal pain in some individuals. Many sites view warnings of blockage as an old wive's tale, however, there are several examples of the creation of bezoars (intestinal blockages) in small children who repeatedly swallowed chewing gum. These subsequently required surgery to remove. Adults have a much wider range of substances that they are capable of digesting and their intestinal tracts are larger, but, hypothetically, the same result is entirely possible in an adult.
So, unfortunately, it appears that your mother really was right and you ought to spit and not swallow.
At least in this case. |
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