What happens if you swallow chewing gum?
We started by typing three words into the Yahoo! search field: chewing, gum, and swallow. We weren’t impressed with the site matches, so we focused on the web page matches. We noticed a page from Ask Dr. Weil, a popular health and alternative medicine web site. Dr. Weil reassures us that the body will get rid of the gum in due time. However, he does point out that sugar-free gum, whether swallowed or chewed in large amounts, can cause digestive problems. The sugar substitutes (hexitol, sorbitol, and mannitol, to name a few) found in sugar-free gum are not absorbed, but pass into the small intestine and colon, where they can cause diarrhea. We wanted a second opinion, so we headed over to the Loyola University Health
