What happens to the body if you swallow chewing gum
'28.05.2021'
Source: Zen.Yandex
There are many myths around why chewing gum cannot be swallowed. For example, some believe that chewing gum will be digested for 7 years. No matter how ridiculous this myth may seem, almost no one ever swallows cud ... But why? And what will happen if swallowed?
Humans are the only animals on Earth that chew gum. If you give the monkey a piece, she will chew it for a couple of minutes, and then she will get it and stick it to her hair, the channel writes From a different angle for Zen.Yandex.
So, let's start with the obvious. When we chew food, it breaks down - this is because in our saliva there is an enzyme that, along with chewing, begins to break down food. Then we swallow, and the proteins and enzymes in our stomach break down the food further, so that all the necessary nutrients are ready for absorption by our intestines. What is not absorbed is excreted in the form of waste along with other by-products that our body wants to get rid of. But the chewing gum does not break down, no matter how much we chew and swallow it ... it just is not suitable for our digestive process, which begins in the mouth!
100000 tons of chewing gum are chewed worldwide every year.
Chewing gum is far from a new discovery. Archaeologists have discovered clumps of birch bark resin marked with teeth dating back to the Mesolithic period of the Stone Age. Ancient Greek women chewed mastic to brush their teeth and freshen their breath; Native Americans taught the colonists that they can quench their thirst by chewing tar from fir trees; and in the 19 century people chewed sweetened paraffin.
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Before World War II, the basis of chewing gum was a chickle, juice from sapodilla trees. Modern chewing gum uses synthetic or natural rubber, which mimics the properties of the chikl ... it's rubber mixed with a sweetener and flavorings that are released in the mouth when chewing it ... appetizing, isn't it?
It is believed that the ancient Greeks found relief from stress by chewing gum, which was made from resin.
So swallowing gum comes down to swallowing rubber, which sounds like it is harmful to your body! The Food and Drug Administration has classified chewing gum as “non-food chewing substance”. The downside is that the gum base, gum, is not absorbed by the body; our bodies can break down some sugars that give the chewing gum its sweetness and taste, but the lump of rubber does not break down.
The body, on the other hand, has other ways to excrete indigestible substances; your digestive tract is a great tool for this. The muscle contractions that propel food through your body will guide chewing gum to the end. The same thing happens, for example, with husks from seeds.
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Our bodies cannot digest them, but they do not just accumulate in our stomachs. The husk is removed after a few hours or a couple of days, depending on your own digestive system. But this does not mean that you should start to swallow gum. Since it does not break down, your body pushes a significant amount of mass through your system, and if you add something else to this mass, you can get intestinal obstruction, which can stop the entire digestive process. The immediate symptoms are abdominal pain and constipation, but if left untreated, the problem can become much more serious. But this happens quite rarely.
Children in North America spend about half a billion dollars on chewing gum every year.
If you swallow one piece of chewing gum, then probably nothing bad will happen to you, but try not to do it. However, there are many myths about why chewing gum should not be swallowed.
Write in the comments what strange and possibly terrible myths about swallowing gum you heard.
