Can you die from chewing your hair?

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asked Dec 17, 2019 in Hair by gr9087sthegreat (290 points)
Can you die from chewing your hair?

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answered Dec 17, 2019 by acidicwithpanic (1,060 points)
You're not gonna die simply from chewing on your hair and if you do get some hair into your mouth and swallow it the hair will just go down your throat, into your stomach and then eventually be passed through your intestines and colon.

The hair will eventually come out in your poop.

Now if you happened to eat more than just a little bit of hair then it could become a problem and cause a blockage of your intestines and a blockage of your bowels which could cause death.

So you shouldn't eat hair to begin with but if you swallow a little bit of hair the hair will just come out of your body through your poop.

Oddly enough hair cannot be dissolved in stomach acid because of the way hair is made.

Stomach acid can dissolve metal but any plastic or hair will just come out in your poop if you eat the hair.

Stomach acid only has a PH of about 2, which means that it is roughly as acidic as lemon juice.

Most of the stomach's digestive ability comes from the physical process of churning up the food and breaking it apart.

Hair is flexible and strong enough that the acid and the churning have little to no effect on it.

So the end result is that if you eat hair the hair eventually goes through your stomach and into your intestines and then mixes with your poop.

Then whether you notice it or not the hair comes out in your poop.

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