If someone feels motion sickness coming on, they don’t want to wait any longer than necessary for pills or capsules to take effect. With that in mind, scientists have created a chewing gum that they claim alleviates motion sickness faster than swallowed medications.
The gum was developed by researcher Mohsen Sadatrezaei of Iranian pharmaceutical company RoshaDarou, working with a team from Tehran’s Islamic Azad University School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Its active ingredient is a drug known as dimenhydrinate, which is already an accepted anti-motion sickness medication. As the gum is being chewed, the dimenhydrinate is able to be absorbed into the user’s system through their buccal cavity, which is the space between the inside of the cheek and the teeth and gums – in this way, it reportedly takes effect more quickly than if it were swallowed.
Dimenhydrinate ordinarily has a bitter taste, although Sadatrezaei and his team were apparently able to address that problem when developing the gum. They are now looking into using gum for the fast delivery of other types of medication.
Source: American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists