The role of mastication is to prepare a bolus for safe swallowing. The Swallow Safe model defines deformability, slippiness, and cohesiveness as key properties that influence whether a bolus is safe to swallow. Defining these properties numerically is difficult and current instruments used for bolus analysis have limitations. The slip extrusion test (SET) was developed to objectively measure the swallowability of the bolus through determination of its resistance to deformation and slip. The test measures the force needed to extrude a bolus through a bag as it is pulled through a pair of rollers, imitating the swallowing action of a bolus. Three food model systems were used to evaluate the SET: (a) viscous solutions with varying viscosity, (b) gels with varying hardness, and (c) particulate systems of varying cohesion. The test was applied to peanut boluses produced in vivo to demonstrate its potential in characterizing boluses. The deformation and slip resistance measurements correlated well with the hardness and viscosity measurements of the gels and viscous solutions respectively (correlation coefficient r = .94 between deformation resistance and hardness; r = .85 for slip resistance and hardness in gels; r = .98 for deformation resistance and viscosity; r = .93 for slip resistance and viscosity in solutions). The advantage of the SET is it can evaluate the swallowability of a wide range of foods of different structure and composition. It could potentially be used to investigate the properties of boluses throughout oral processing and help in establishing the criteria for a safe to swallow bolus in a quantitative way.
Practical applications: The test could be used to measure bolus properties from the initial stages of breakdown to the point of swallow for all types of food. The ability to measure the changes in bolus properties through all stages of breakdown using the same instrument is a significant development. The resistance to deformation and slip are quantitative measurements that could potentially be used to further develop the Swallow Safe model by providing numerical limits to the identified properties. This could be of interest to the development of foods for dysphagia sufferers.
Keywords: bolus properties; deformation resistance; mastication; slip resistance; swallowing.
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