All right, first back story-TMI, I’ve been suffering a few bouts of sudden diarrhea in the past week or so. I tried eating bland foods, tried Pepto, etc, it still kept coming back. And then for a day or so I’d be fine-then it would creep up again.
Well, doing some online research at WebMd, I noticed that it was mentioned that the sugar alcohol sorbitol, found in sugarless gum, can often cause diarrhea. Well, duh! I chew sugarless gum regularly, and rather than spit it out, I usually just swallow it, figuring, no harm, it’ll just pass. And then I looked at the ingredients-number one is, you guessed it, sorbitol.
Could that be causing my diarrhea?
Note-I’m not asking for medical advice, mind you-if it keeps up, I will go to the doctor. I just wondered if this might be a possible cause, and if I might just need to switch to mints or something.
IANAD, but last year, I had a cough that would NOT go away. I consumed more cough drops during that six-month period than I have in my entire life. I learned how to sleep with a cough drop in my mouth. I consumed at least four or five a night.
I figured that sleeping with a glob of sugar tucked, snuff-like, between cheek and gum, was probably not the best thing for my teeth, so I switched to sugar-free (sorbitol) cough drops.
The consequence? Diarrhea.
But I chew a lot of sugarless gum and have no problem. I suspect your problem may be that you swallow rather than spit.
I have swallowed mountains of sugared and sugarfree gum over the last 40+ years with no ill effects. However, most artificial sweeteners give me diarrhea at best.
If you’ve been chewing sugarless gum “regularly” but the diarrhea is something new, then the odds are extremely high that there is no linkage between the two. If you’ve stopped chewing and/or swallowing the gum and the diarrhea hasn’t gone away, then the odds are even longer.
There are about a million possible causes of diarrhea. If it keeps recurring then you do need to investigate all the foods you are eating along with the possibility of a disease. If it’s food-related, the diarrhea should stop when you stop eating the food.
One exception: people with sensitive colons, which is often true for people who have, knowingly or unknowingly, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, can continue to spasm just from the irritation produced by the diarrhea. (For the nitpickers: explanation somewhat simplified.) Normally an OTC antidiarrheal will stop the spasming and the diarrhea by giving your innards a chance to heal. Obviously, this is true only if you’ve identified the food trigger and stopped eating that as well.
Guin, I’ve been there. I used to eat out with my dad once a week, various restaurants. I’d always suffer gastric distress when I got home. I eventually realised the common denominator between the various restaurants was the iced tea, to which I’d add artificial sweeteners.
Since I had that epiphany, and now use sugar or order a margarita, no more tummy trouble. I’m still not sure whether it was the artificial sweetener in the blue packet or the pink packet, but I’m happy with the sugar, and even happier with a 'rita.
The effect seems to be dependent on the person. Many folks have no effect, some get cramps, and some get…uh…your symptoms.
I got terrible cramps a couple times after eating an older formulation of ColdStone’s “Sinless” Ice Cream – a problem that went away after they lowered the sugar alchohol content. My dedication to the scientific method wasn’t sufficient to eat the old formulation more than a couple times, so this is merely anecdotal.
Sugar alcohols are different than other artificial sweetners. They are actually a caloric food, but you can’t digest them the way you digest sugars. That causes problems further down your digestive tract.
Now, they do seem to be perfectly safe in low doses, but you learn quickly that eating half a bag of sugar free chocolate is going to ruin your night.
I think Exapno is right though, if this is a sudden onset problem, and you’ve been chewing the same gum in the same amounts all along, it’s probably not the gum.
Lactulose is a well known laxative, and it’s basically an altered sugar that the body can’t digest, but which sucks water into the gut by osmosis, hence diarrhoea. Most sugar-like substances are osmotically active, even if they’re low-calorie.
Guin- if your diet hasn’t radically altered it’s not likely to be a purely dietary cause.
Think infections (feeling flu-ish/ drunk any weird tap water or eaten unwashed fruit lately?), medication reactions, stress or something else.
More than 10 days of diarhoea, or diarrhoea which doesn’t respond to OTC remedies like Immodium is an indication to see a doctor.
Typically I don’t have trouble with artificial sweeteners.
However, I got some sugar-free gummi bears a couple times from the bulk bin at Central market, and got violent diarrhea. The first time, I figured it was just the usual diarrhea bug, and didn’t think much of it.
The next week, I noticed the same damn problem, with only the gummi bears as the common thing. I made a little experiment a couple of days later, and sure enough, a few hours after eating them… ZOOM! Out they came.
People react differently to different sugar alcohols, too. I’m fine with moderate amounts of Maltitol, for example, but I’m lactose intolerant and Lactitol will give me pretty bad trouble for hours.
Splenda doesn’t cause me trouble. Stevia doesn’t cause me trouble (and I can grow it as an annual and put it in my tea), but some people don’t like the taste. My bio family all like Splenda and Stevia well enough, but find the sugar alcohol in Diabetasweet (Isomalt??) disgusting and bitter; my in-law family, however, love Diabetasweet and think Splenda is putrid.
