J Korean Diet Assoc.  2020 Feb;26(1):30-41. 10.14373/JKDA.2020.26.1.30.

Study on Needs for Functional Candy (lozenges) Development for Oral Dryness

• Joo KM
• Jung E
• Joo N

• KMID: 2500691
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.14373/JKDA.2020.26.1.30

Abstract

As the morbidity of chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure has increased, the frequency of oral dryness upon taking drugs for a long time or several drugs at the same time has greatly increased. This study was conducted to investigate the status of oral dryness and utilize the data to develop treatment products. Surveys were assembled from October to December 2018, and a statistical analysis of the 144 responses was conducted. The surveyed consisted of 60 males and 84 females, with 31.3% of those in their 70s and older. Among them, 100 people took drugs for chronic diseases, while 27 people took drugs for more than 10 years and less than 20 years. Exactly 23 respondents who took drugs suffered from more than two types of chronic diseases, of which high blood pressure was the most cited, followed by hyperlipidemia and diabetes. Regarding complications, oral dryness (33.8%) was the most frequent, and there were significant differences in the degree of discomfort when taking medicine, especially for oral dryness depending on the age (P＜0.05). Groups that took medicine showed severe symptoms of dry mouth, especially when waking up at night or in the morning (P＜0.001) and eating food (P＜0.01), and had difficulty in swallowing food (P＜0.01) and speaking (P＜0.01). Exactly 89.6% of the respondents didn’t take lozenges (candy) for improvement of oral dryness, and the type of the product that they wanted to purchase the most was candy (45.1%). Respondents worried about rising blood sugar, dental caries, and calories when eating candy for relieving dryness (P＜0.01).

Keyword

oral dryness; elderly; chronic diseases; drug; lozenge; candy