Expert explains if chewing gum really does stay in your body for 7 years

Bad things generally come in threes, but when it comes to smashing mirrors and swallowing chewing gum, the sentence supposedly sits at seven years.

Swallowing chewing gum is typically not the way to go, and as a child you were likely told as much by well-meaning parents and care-givers who warned you that it would stick around in your body for long enough to see you through high school.

If it’s been seven years since you last swallowed some – and let’s face it, a fair share of us have done it – you may well have been counting down the days until your gum-free liberation.

Chewing gum is best spat out when you're done with it (Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

However, you needn’t have waited so long.

Simon Travis, professor of clinical gastroenterology at the University of Oxford, told CNN that he has "no idea where the myth came from".

“I can only imagine that it was suggested because someone wanted to stop their children from chewing gum,” he said.

Travis then explained that chewing gum can’t be digested, but that doesn’t mean it gets lodged somewhere with a seven-year timer. In most cases, it will pass straight through along with the rest of the stuff you swallow. In all likelihood it’ll come out as it went in.

“If you swallow chewing gum, it’ll go through the stomach, and go through into the intestine, and pass out unchanged at the other end,” he said.

“There are cases of chewing gum lodging in the intestines of infants and even children if they’ve swallowed a lot, and then it causes an obstruction. But in over 30 years of specialist gastro practice, I’ve never seen a case.”

That’s a pretty good innings without coming across such a thing, especially for a gastroenterologist. If the urban legend were true, it’s fair to say Travis would likely have seen it by now.

It might just pass through your system, but you probably shouldn't swallow anything you don't want to digest (Malte Mueller/Getty Images)

Swallowing it likely won’t do you much harm, but it’s nevertheless recommended that you spit it out when you’re done with it.

As for smashing mirrors, unfortunately we can’t confirm or deny whether it’ll give you bad luck. It’s best to err on the side of caution, especially as cleaning up the shards from a broken mirror is very much easier said that done.

There’s a chance you’ll still be finding shards of it buried in your carpet seven years after the fact, anyway.