polymerized ORT

ORT is Oral rehydration therapy, a blend of sugar with NaCl was found to cause ion channels to transport water much more rapidly, rehydrating a person 7 to 20 times faster than regular water.

ORT saved vast numbers of childrens lives during the 20th century as a result of keeping diarrhea from killing them.

I think that adding a polymer to ORT like polymethylmethacrylate or a protein polymer like jello would create the right concentration of ions to accelerate rehydration throughout the GI tract, because when you think about it, a person drinking ORT has possibly 100 pt effectiveness for the first tenth or twentieth of the GI tract, then it is diluted or possibly concentrated as the fluid travels. Jello or PMMA gradually releasing the right concentration might make ORT even more lifesaving, more effective, possibly with fewer doses.

Also ORT is cheap, yet I think making ORT jello or PMMA then powdering it could cost 1 or 2 cents more per serving. Still cheap. Thus this improves the medicine that cures the worlds second leadingcauise of death during the 20th century.

Notably though if polymerized ORT was an entire dime more to make, then the utility could shift. At the developed world making ORT a dime more would lack effect on the number of packets distributed. A while ago online I found out that you could give $ to unicef where 10c would provide a person with an ORT packet, so if polymer ORT were 20c that might actually reach fewer people, so its important to get the cheapness part right as well as the chemistry.

polymer ORT may be cheaper than normal ORT as it works better, thus 1/3 the ingredients could be used, then every plastic packet auto produced as 3 packets.

Creating the 3c ORT packet. optimizing the chemistry might actually be less than 1/100 of a cent. One one hundreth of a cent is very cheap. Polyacrilamide gel is 75c to 1 usd per KG at alibaba.com (vegetable gelatin is similar at 1 - 2.2 usd per Kg) thus 1/10c/gram or 1/100 of a cent per tenth of a gram. So optimizing the chemistry might actually be less than 1/100 of a cent.

Noting that if ORT was the size of a powder drink packet during the 20th century, the same film packaging machines could make three times as many items at about the same surface area with more efficient ingredients.

That would benefit people as even though ORT is an effective cure for the worlds second leading cause of death among children during the 20th century it still had only partial distribution, so even cheaper is more effective.