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This Is What Actually Happens To You When You Swallow Chewing Gum

Most British schoolchildren grow up with the scare story that if you swallow chewing gum it will stay inside your stomach for seven years - or forever.

But what actually happens if you swallow a little grey lump of chewing gum?

Well, says the American Chemical Society, it’s not quite as bad as generations of children have portrayed it - in fact, the tale is largely a myth.

In a new Reactions video, ACS experts say, ‘Chewing doesn’t crush and destroy gum, so it’ll go down and one.

Your body doesn’t have an enzyme for the rubber polymers - and your gastric acid doesn’t either.

‘But you eat plenty of things your body can only partly digest - so your body has no problem moving that piece of gum out of the other end.’