Feb. 21, 2006 — Chewing gum may abbreviate clinic remains after colon surgery, modern investigate appears.
The findings, published in the Archives of Surgery, come from Victimize Schuster, MD, and colleagues. The specialists work within the surgery division of California’s Santa Barbara House Clinic.
The ponder included 34 people who had portion of their colon expelled due to cancer or recurrent diverticulitis, in which pockets frame in the colon divider and become inflamed or infected. After such surgery, it takes time for the guts to begin working normally.
Prolonged delay in bowel work (ileus) may lead to longer healing center remains, infections, or other complications, the researchers write, adding that other stomach surgeries can moreover lead to development of ileus. Common side effects of ileus incorporate torment, heaving, and stomach swelling.
Prescription: Chew Gum
Half of the patients chewed sugarless gum three times every day — for an hour each time — until leaving the hospital. They chewed gum in the morning, afternoon, and evening.
For comparison, the other 17 patients didn’t chew gum amid their hospital stay.
The gum chewers were speedier to feel hungry, pass gas, have their first postoperative bowel development, and take off hospital, the ponder shows.
The details:Days in hospital: 4 for gum chewers; nearly 7 days for comparison bunch. Hours from surgery to feeling hungry: 64 for gum chewers; 73 for comparison group. Hours from surgery to passing gas: 65 for gum chewers; 80 for comparison group. Hours from surgery to bowel movement: 63 for gum chewers; 89 for comparison bunch.
How It Works
Gum chewing may invigorate the stomach related framework, impelling it back into action after surgery, the analysts note.
Eating nourishment and drinking water might do the same thing. But patients regularly can’t endure eating and drinking soon after colon surgery, Schuster’s group notes.
The patients they examined had no issue chewing gum as directed.
“It is additionally possible that options to chewing sugarless gum can be more successful,” the researchers type in. “For illustration, might gum containing sugar, different flavors, or distinctive surfaces be even more efficacious?”
In the mean time, Schuster and colleagues call gum chewing an “inexpensive and helpful” expansion to postoperative care for such patients.