Researchers have developed a tissue-on-tissue test that allowed discovery of significantly enhanced lubricant-based relief for "dry mouth" sufferers and plan to further improve a lubricant for the relief of "dry mouth". Improved scientific understanding of the interactions of living tissues in contact has emerged from choice of a tissue-on-tissue frictional test, producing results that significantly differ from all prior tests of bio-lubricity that employed synthetic material counter-faces. Human subject trials, following numerous in vitro tests with cells in culture, have validated these predictions for ophthalmology uses, and substantial promise is now shown for extension to relief of "dry mouth" symptoms of elderly, medicine-influenced, and irradiated cancer sufferers.
Society has come to depend upon numerous therapeutic and prosthetic interventions to extend and improve their quality of life and their ability to engage in productive work. Older citizens have difficulty swallowing their necessary medicines, and negative side effects of "dry mouth" from these medicines (as well as from necessary cancer treatments). Interrupted sleep results from tissue desiccation during these long periods of salivary flow reduction. The proposed formula to be developed through this I-CORPS program has the potential to provide 8-times the lubricious relief to tissues normally bathed in overnight-absent saliva.
