Chewing gum may help people to recover more quickly from bowel surgery, a US study suggests.

Researchers from Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, California, found chewing gum helped to speed up the return of normal bowel function and shorten patients' hospital stays.

They believe chewing gum may stimulate the same nerves in the body as eating, promoting the release of hormones that activate the gastrointestinal tract.

Any type of abdominal surgery can cause ileus, a marked decrease or stoppage of intestinal function.

Ileus causes pain, vomiting, abdominal distension, breathing problems and an increased risk of infection.

The research team studied 34 patients who had undergone a lower colon operation.

Half of the patients chewed sugarless gum three times a day following their surgery. The other 17 patients matched for age, sex and surgery indications were given no gum.

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, and had their first bowel movement earlier than those who did not.

There were no major complications in either group and the gum-chewers had no problems tolerating the gum. All of them continued to chew gum until their bowels began to function again.

Bowel or colon cancer is the second most frequent cancer in men, after lung cancer, and in women, after breast cancer. More than one million cases of bowel cancer were diagnosed around the world in 2002, and over half a million people died from this disease.

The study findings are published in the journal Archives of Surgery.