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Chewing away to recovery

Chewing gum after surgery may make hospital stays shorter for patients who have had colon operations. A small study published in the February issue of The Archives of Surgery reports that patients who chewed sugarless gum recovered bowel function faster and spent less time in the hospital than those who did not chew.

Kenneth Waxman, the director of the department of surgical education at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in California and the paper's senior author, said that feeding people as soon as possible after surgery could also make the bowel recover, but that it made about a quarter of the patients vomit. But gum chewing had no side effects.

The researchers tested 17 gum chewers and 17 matched patients who did not chew gum. All had undergone colon surgery. The group that chewed gum recovered bowel function faster by various measures. On average, they passed gas sooner, had their first bowel movement earlier and felt hungry faster than the control group.

The largest difference between the groups was in the time spent in the hospital, perhaps the most important measure of recovery. The average gum chewer left the hospital in 4.3 days. Those who did not chew stayed for an average of 6.8 days.

Would gum with sugar in it have had the same effect as the sugarless gum? ``I don't think it would make much difference,'' Waxman said. ``But it hasn't been tested. We used sugarless gum because that's what was available in the hospital gift shop.''

(NYT)

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