Chewing gum helps patients restore the normal bowel function and shorten the hospital stays after open sigmoid colectomy or colon surgery, finds a small study appearing in the February issue of the Archives of Surgery.

Patients who were assigned to chew gum three times a day after colon resection left hospitals two days earlier than the controls, the report says.

Any type of abdominal surgery including Sigmoid colectomy can cause a condition, known as ileus, a marked decrease or stoppage of intestinal function. After the surgery, eating or drinking can lead to bloating, abdominal pain, and vomiting.

Ileus also can lead to longer hospital stays, increasing risk of infection and problems breathing, the researchers say. Postoperative ileus is estimated to cost $750 million each year in the US.

Previous studies have found early feeding after colon resection can stimulate bowel motility and help restore bowel function and hasten hospital discharge.

“However, many patients fed early after colectomies do not tolerate this," the authors write. "In a study where patients were given water four hours postoperatively, 20 percent of these patients did not tolerate the intervention." Because of this, doctors are seeking ways to stimulate bowel mobility while not upsetting the stomach.

Rob Schuster, M.D., and colleagues at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, California believed that chewing gum may stimulate the same nerves in the body as eating, promoting the release of hormones that activate the gastrointestinal tract.

In their study, 17 patients after colon resection were given sugarless gum to chew three times a day starting the morning after the colon surgery and lasting until the first bowel movement when the patients were released. 17 other patients as controls were not chewing gum.

All 34 patients underwent sigmoid colon resection, in which surgeons remove a portion of the large intestine, for cancer or recurrent diverticular diseases. The patients did not differ in age, gender, reason for surgery or number of previous surgeries, served as controls.

The gum-chewing group left the hospital after an average of 4.3 days, compared with 6.8 days for the control group. Patients who chewed gum also passed gas sooner (65.4 hours vs. 80.2 hours post-surgery) and had their first bowel movement earlier (after 63.2 hours compared with 89.4 hours) than those who did not.

There were no major complications in either group and the gum-chewers had no problems tolerating the gum.

The researchers suggest the gum with sugar with or without flavor may work even better than the sugarless gum.

Gum chewing probably stimulates bowel motility through direct effects on the cephalic-vagal system, according to the research. Further studies on gut hormones in patients who chew gum after surgery are needed to confirm the theory.

In conclusion, the authors say that gum-chewing may serve as a feasible alternative, an "inexpensive and helpful adjunct to postoperative care after colectomy."

An early study of 102 patients undergoing both traditional open colectomy and laparoscopic colectomy suggests chewing gum four times a day, those receiving laparoscopic surgery had their bowel function returned about one day earlier than those controls who did not chew any gum.

However, researchers found chewing gum did not result in any significant effect in the patients who had open colectomy.

The study was conducted by Harry Papaconstantinou, MD and colleagues at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas and other organizations. And the results were presented at the American College of Surgeons 2005 Clinical Congress in San Francisco.

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