Swallowed Gum Stays in Your Stomach for Seven Years
"The warning that swallowed chewing gum takes seven years to pass through your digestive system."
No medical literature supports the specific figure of seven years; it reads as a parental deterrent passed down by word of mouth rather than any published study. In reality, swallowed gum typically exits the body within two to five days, much like most other things you eat. The myth likely grew from a real fact, gum base genuinely resists the stomach's chemical digestion, wrongly stretched into the assumption that it must therefore get stuck rather than simply pass through by ordinary muscular movement.
Myth vs. FactGum base really does resist digestion chemically, but it still moves through your system on the normal schedule. It doesn't sit there for years.
Sources: Multiple medical sources including Scientific American and Mayo Clinic; no documented origin found for the specific 'seven years' figure.