How IQoro works

How does IQoro work?

IQoro is designed to train the muscle chain we use when swallowing. The function along the muscle chain is called the swallowing process and involves muscles from the face, lips and mouth, through the throat and down through the oesophagus to the diaphragm and stomach.

IQoro works by stimulating several important nerves in the oral cavity, which in turn send signals straight into both the brain stem and the cortex. When the brain receives these signals, it sends information out to the muscles in the swallowing process to get them to start working. 

Strengthened muscles reduce symptoms

When we exercise with IQoro regularly over time, both the nerve signals to and from the brain and the muscles in the swallowing process are strengthened.

This in turn reduces the unpleasant symptoms that occur when muscles in the swallowing process are weakened – for example:

• heartburn
• the feeling of a lump in the throat
• snoring
• sleep apnoea
• difficulty in swallowing

Part 1. The interaction between the body and the brain

To understand how IQoro works, we first need to understand how the body and brain work. We cover this in the first part of this article. 

Everything that happens in the body is controlled by the brain, which acts as a command centre. In order for the brain to understand the world around it, we have a nervous system. We have nerves throughout our body that send signals to our brain about everything, from what we see and hear to how things feel or smell. 

The brain receives a lot of information that it then processes and chooses how to react to. Then, the brain sends signals back through the nervous system to tell muscles and organs how to behave. All of this happens at lightning speed. 

Example: If the nerves in your mouth, through touch and taste, as well as smell via the olfactory bulb, tells the brain that you just took a bite of freshly baked bread at the breakfast table, the brain will prepare the body to swallow the bread.

The brain then sends signals through the nervous system to the muscles in the swallowing process. This allows the muscles to coordinate themselves and start working to transport the piece of bread safely and securely through the throat and oesophagus, down to the stomach, where it is broken down by the stomach acid. 

Nerve system parts and functions

The nervous system is the body’s communication system. It transmits information both to and from the brain, for the body to function. 

The nervous system consists of different parts with different functions.

The central nervous system

The central nervous system is the part of the nervous system that is found in the brain. It acts as a command centre that receives and processes the information that the peripheral nervous system sends to the brain.

Once the central nervous system has determined how the body will react to the information, it sends instructions back via the peripheral nervous system to the body parts affected.

Role of the spinal cord

The spinal cord is a bit like the body’s high-speed motorway – a route that the brain uses to quickly send nerve signals to different parts of the body.

This is also why damage to the spinal cord can cause paralysis or loss of sensation in different parts of the body. The signals to and from the brain do not reach where they are going.

The peripheral nervous system

The peripheral nervous system is the part of the nervous system that branches out into all parts of the body.

This nervous system acts as a network of messengers, steadily delivering important information to the brain about what the body is experiencing, and then carrying the brain’s instructions back to the muscles to ensure the body functions as it should. For most of our nerves, this flow of information to and from the brain is routed through the spinal cord.

The important cranial nerves

As stated, we have nerves throughout our body that help us perceive our world and react to it. The vast majority of our nerves lead information from different places in the body into the spinal cord, further up to the brain and then back out into the body the same way. 

But twelve of our nerves carry such important information between the body and the brain that they have been given a fast track directly from the body into the brain – without needing to pass through the spinal cord. These are called cranial nerves.

The cranial nerves send signals that control, among other things, smell, vision, eye movements, sensation in the face and mouth, taste, facial movements, production of saliva and tears, hearing and balance, throat muscles, vocal cords, tongue movements, shoulder and neck muscles.

The fact that the nerves do not have to take the detour via the spinal cord means that the signals reach straight into the parts of the brain that make decisions about how to act. It’s like having a direct line to the big boss.

Seven cranial nerves that affect the swallowing process

Seven of the twelve cranial nerves are important in different ways for our ability to swallow. The table shows which bodily functions the different nerves communicate with. You can also see if voluntary or involuntary musculature is involved in the function.

Mouth, brain and muscle function

What happens in the mouth?

The mouth contains four of the seven important cranial nerves that we need in order to swallow. These nerves have direct contact with the brain stem, which makes the mouth key to direct contact with the brain.

Here you can see where the different nerves are located in your mouth.

What happens in the brainstem?

When the cranial nerves in your mouth send information up to the brain, it is directly led up to both the cerebral cortex and to the brainstem. Processed information from the cerebral cortex is then led down to the brain stem.

The brainstem contains a system called the reticular formation (Formatio Reticularis) that includes several different generators for important bodily functions. These generators are pre-programmed so that from the beginning of life can swallow, breathe, blink and empty the bowel and bladder, among other things.

One of the largest generators, the Central Pattern Generator (CPG), includes the swallowing centre, which controls our ability to swallow. The same generator also regulates the patterns for breathing in and out, speech, chewing, coughing, vomiting, blinking, bowel and bladder emptying, and posture (postural control).

It is this part of the brain that receives the signals directly from our important cranial nerves, interprets the information, makes decisions about how the body should act, and then forwards the instructions to the right places in the body with the help of the nervous system.

What are the voluntary and involuntary muscles?

The body consists of two different types of muscle. 

• Voluntary muscles (cross-striated musculature) controlled by the peripheral somatic nervous system, which you can decide to tense or relax yourself. Lips, tongue and biceps are some examples. 
• Involuntary muscles (smooth muscles) controlled by the peripheral autonomic nervous system, over which you have no conscious control.
  
  You can, for example, never tighten the lower part of your oesophagus, or move the lower oesophageal sphincter consciously. These muscles can only be controlled by signals from the brain.

A complex system to make everything work

Now that you have learned more about the brain, muscles and nervous system, you know that there is a complex system behind it all, that allows you to swallow. 

The nerves need to send signals from the mouth, up to the brainstem, where the swallowing centre interprets the signals and decides whether to swallow or not.

The brainstem then sends information back through the nervous system to the muscles, ensuring they act in the correct way and in the right order, so that the food you swallow reaches the stomach without getting stuck along the way.

All of this happens incredibly quickly, without us needing to, or even being able to, consciously think about it.

Part 2 – The interaction between IQoro, the nervous system and the brain

If we take everything we have now learned about how the body works from the section above, it becomes easier to understand how IQoro can work so effectively and address so many different issues.

Training with IQoro simply uses the nerves in the mouth to reach directly into the brain stem. From there, the muscle chain that we use when swallowing is activated. 

It is the muscles in this muscle chain that become weakened when we suffer from various symptoms of a hiatal hernia or snoring and sleep apnoea. Therefore, the symptoms decrease when, thanks to IQoro, we have a method to activate the muscles, both wilfully and at the command of the brain – neuromuscular strength training.

What happens when IQoro is in your mouth?

When you exercise with IQoro, all four sensory nerves in the oral cavity are stimulated simultaneously and at lightning speed, and signals are sent up to the brain. The brain in turn sends signals down to the muscles. 

When training with IQoro, the same communication pathways as when you normally chew and swallow a piece of food are stimulated via nerve signals. But the design of IQoro, the stretching resistance and how the tongue is affected by the exercise makes the impulses to the brain stronger. It provides maximum effect and a high-intensity workout of the muscles. 

Example: The difference between activating the muscle chain by swallowing a sip of water and activating it by exercising with IQoro can be compared to exercising the arm muscles by lifting a fork from a plate to the mouth or lifting weights at the gym.

The three ways IQoro reaches the brain

IQoro reaches the brain via nerve signals in three different ways. 

1. When you squeeze your lips together around IQoro, you reach the brain via the nerve called Trigeminus. Trigeminus is connected to the swallowing function.
   
   The exercise stimulates the somatic nervous system and powerfully activates voluntary muscles in the swallowing process. Trigeminus receives sensory signals from the face and activates chewing muscles in the oral phase, as well as activates the soft palate.
2. When you pull IQoro outwards, you activate the voluntary part of the muscle chain, from the lips down to the upper two-thirds of the oesophagus. 
3. When you simultaneously squeeze your lips around IQoro and pull IQoro outwards, the back of your tongue stimulates four nerves in the soft palate – Vagus, Glossopharyngeus, Trigeminus and Facialis. This activates both voluntary muscle in the upper two-thirds of the oesophagus, and involuntary muscle in the lower third of the oesophagus, stomach and intestines.
   

A completely new treatment!

When doctor of medicine and hospital dentist Mary Hägg, a specialist in orofacial medicine, developed IQoro, she did so based on established knowledge of how the brain communicates with the body via the nervous system. 

She realised that it should be possible to create a product to stimulate the nerves in the mouth, thereby activating the same area in the brain as when we eat, chew, and swallow – but in a more efficient way. This, in turn, would activate the entire chain of muscles stretching from the mouth to the stomach.

In this way, Mary figured out that she could help patients with several different types of swallowing difficulties with just one medical device.

She realised early on that there were no treatments like the one she imagined. She also did not find any other researchers who had already had similar thoughts. 

The research on how the neurological systems functioned and interconnected already existed. However, the key to utilising these systems to restore vital functions in the body was missing.

Mary Hägg thus came up with a completely new way of triggering the brain to treat the body’s own symptoms via nerve signals. This was the beginning of the story of IQoro.

What has the research shown?

The work to develop IQoro into the product it is today took many years. No less than 17 scientific studies at Swedish universities have investigated the effect of training with IQoro. The studies show that the effect is the one that Mary predicted.

Research has shown that the treatment produces statistically significant results. The muscles in the swallowing process become stronger after regular exercise with IQoro. 

Thus, with the results of the scientific studies, we know that training with IQoro actually reaches the reticular formation in the brain stem. 

If IQoro had not been able to do so, the studies would not have produced the clear results they have. The muscles in the lower part of the oesophagus cannot be activated in any other way than through the brainstem. This confirms both that treatment with IQoro works, and how it achieves the described effect.

Stimulation of other nerves

IQoro can also help people who have suffered neurological damage, for example due to a stroke, that affects posture and other things. 

How does it work?

If you read the section about the brainstem above, you may remember that the swallowing centre generator (CPG) also controls several other important body functions, including posture, breathing, bowel and bladder emptying, inside the system called the reticular formation.

And since it is scientifically proven that training with IQoro sends powerful impulses straight into the reticular formation, the treatment can also affect the other functions of the same generator.

➤ Training can also have an impact on functions for easier movement patterns, which are controlled by several adjacent generators in the reticular formation, commonly referred to as the “Motor Pattern Generator” (MPG).

The brain uses impulses to repair damage.

This works because of the brain’s amazing ability to relearn, reorganise, and adapt. It is called the plasticity of the brain and means that if something happens to the body so that the signals to and from the brain stop working, the brain can repair the damage by redirecting the signals via other functioning nerve pathways. 

So when training with IQoro, impulses are sent straight into the reticular formation. The brain can use these impulses to rebuild contact with several of the adjacent functions, helping people with neurological damage. 

This explains how the swallowing process is tightly linked to other vital functions and is also an explanation of why IQoro has a positive impact on several of the vital functions of the human body.

Hit by a stroke in the prime of life – IQoro turned things around

Helene Andersson was only 39 years old when she had a stroke after an incident on the ski slopes. Thanks to the neuromuscular treatment IQoro Helen got help years after the event.

I was still in my 40s and wondered if the rest of my life would be characterised by slurred speech and acid reflux? Then I stumbled over IQoro. Read Helene’s story

Patented design

In addition to enabling us to utilise the nervous system to access the swallowing centre in the brainstem, IQoro’s patented design is also a key factor in its effectiveness. IQoro can be likened to a key that unlocks the path to the body’s command centre.

Some key elements of the design include:

• The combination of hardness and flexibility in the medical-grade plastic that IQoro is made of, which creates the right resistance for the lips and the muscle chain down to the diaphragm.
• The shape and size allow IQoro to reach a large surface area on the inside of the lips, which stimulates the nerves in the mouth and contributes to the development of force during stretching.
• The flat handle provides stability during training, ensuring that the training is symmetrical across both sides of the face, which also results in optimal treatment.

Summary

With the established knowledge of the interaction between the body, brain and nerves, Dr. Mary Hägg was able to design a unique product that stimulates the important nerves in the mouth that have direct contact with the brain. 

When we train with IQoro, rapid and powerful nerve signals are sent to the brainstem, which in turn activates both voluntary and involuntary muscles involved in the swallowing process. By regularly using IQoro over time, the muscles are strengthened, effectively treating the symptoms that can occur when the muscle chain is weakened.

Resources

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