I can’t count the number of times that I have heard the old adage, if you swallow your gum, it will take seven years to digest. For all of you who have accidentally or purposely swallowed a piece of chewing gum, know that you are not still lugging that piece of gum around with you. Pediatric gastroenterologist, Dr. David Milov of the Nemours Children’s Clinic in Orlando, Florida, stated with “complete certainty”, that “the rumor is medically unfounded” (Matson, 2007). If there were any truth to this saying, then there would be evidence of gum in the digestive tract, but “colonoscopies and capsule endoscopy procedures turn up no such evidence”. Dr. Milov further goes on to state that although the chewing gum moves through the digestive tract
