Healthy living
Body matters
Chew your way to recovery
Chewing gum could be beneficial after bowel operations, study finds
Chewing gum after bowel surgery could cut the time people need to stay in hospital, say scientists at St Mary’s Hospital in London. The researchers suggest that the chewing action stimulates nerves in the gut, speeding up the return to normal bowel function.
The research, published in the journal Archives of Surgery, looked at the results of five different trials involving 158 patients. In each trial, volunteers chewed sugarless gum three times a day following surgery. The research looked at the results of five. These patients were then compared to those who did not chew gum.
The results showed that those patients who were given the gum took less time to pass wind and have a bowel movement – a sign that the function of the bowel was returning to normal. In four of the trials patients who used gum also reduced their time in hospital after the operation by more than one day.
One of the main problems associated with bowel surgery is a condition called ileus where bowel function is hindered or stops entirely – a condition that can have serious complications.
The St Mary's team stated: "Postoperative ileus is regarded as an inevitable response to the trauma of abdominal surgery and is a major contributing factor to postoperative pain and discomfort associated with abdominal distension, nausea, vomiting and cramping pain."
The London scientists suggest that chewing gum acts as a kind of 'sham feeding', stimulating nerves in the gut which kick-starts the digestive system, This is turn triggers the release of gastric juices, increasing the production of saliva and secretions from the pancreas.
"In conclusion, we feel that the current evidence suggests that gum chewing following abdominal surgery offers significant benefits in reducing the time to resolution of ileus," say the study authors.
Now, they say that more studies are needed to make sure that gum chewing doesn't just work because of the placebo effect.
Ian Beaumont at Bowel Cancer UK is keen to caution against jumping to any conclusions before all the evidence is in.
"As this report shows, there is some evidence that chewing gum may help speed up the return of normal bowel function after bowel surgery, though not, to date, enough evidence to mean that bowel cancer surgery patients are being routinely advised to chew gum. We await with interest the results of trials into the potential positive impact of chewing gum on recovery times."
Website - Bowel Cancer UK: www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk
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