  The recent discovery of two Earth-mass planets in close orbits around an
evolved star has raised questions as to whether substellar companions can
survive encounters with their host stars. We consider whether these companions
could have been stripped of significant amounts of mass during the phase when
they orbited through the dense inner envelopes of the giant. We apply the
criterion derived by Murray et al. for disruption of gravitationally bound
objects by ram pressure, to determine whether mass loss may have played a role
in the histories of these and other recently discovered low-mass companions to
evolved stars. We find that the brown dwarf and Jovian mass objects circling WD
0137-349, SDSS J08205+0008, and HIP 13044 are most unlikely to have lost
significant mass during the common envelope phase. However, the Earth-mass
planets found around KIC 05807616 could well be the remnant of one or two
Jovian mass planets that lost extensive mass during the common envelope phase.
