Swallowed Gum Stays Inside You for Seven Years. Nobody Asked Where the Number Came From.

Swallow your gum and it stays inside you for seven years. Your mother said so. Nobody ever asked where the number came from.

Here is what happens instead. Your body cannot digest gum base, so it does not try. It just moves it along. Gone in days.

And doctors have looked. Thousands of colonoscopies. If the myth were true, every gut would hold seven years of gum. They find nothing.

One honest warning. In 1998, doctors reported kids who swallowed gum every single day, until it clumped into a blockage. The habit is the problem. One gulp is not.

So seven years is an invention. A number scary enough to work on a child. Including the one who raised you.

Verdict: BS. Your gut moves it out in days. The seven years came from nowhere.