It turned out that the ``posture after taking medicine'' greatly affects the dissolution speed of tablets and capsules, and what is the ideal posture for absorbing the drug at the fastest speed?



New research results have been published on tablets and capsules that are easier to take and carry, unlike powdered medicines. According to this study, there are cases where the absorption of the tablet is hindered by the patient's posture, and it seems that there may be a difference of more than an hour in the dissolution of the tablet depending on the posture.

Computational modeling of drug dissolution in the human stomach: Effects of posture and gastroparesis on drug bioavailability: Physics of Fluids: Vol 34, No 8

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0096877

You're Probably Taking Your Pills Wrong, New Study Finds : Science Alert
https://www.sciencealert.com/youre-probably-taking-your-pills-wrong-new-study-finds

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University conducted a study to simulate how tablets and capsules dissolve in the human body and are absorbed in the intestine. According to this study, the ideal posture for the fastest absorption of the pill is to lean to the right rather than sitting upright.

'I never thought about whether I was taking my medicine right or wrong,' said Rajat Mittal, a computer scientist who studies fluid dynamics at Johns Hopkins University and was involved in the study. Now, every time I take a pill, I think about the correct posture.'



Oral drugs such as tablets and capsules, which are much more useful than injections because they are less immediate but non-invasive, are designed to dissolve in the stomach and be absorbed into the body in the intestine. People may not care about the absorption speed of vitamins, etc., but the absorption speed of oral medicines such as tablets and capsules depends on the time it takes for analgesic effects to appear and the time it takes for blood pressure to stabilize. ” is also very important.

Mittal and his team created a computer model of the human stomach based on high-resolution body scan images of a 34-year-old man. The computer model created by Mittal and his team is called StomachSim, and uses fluid mechanics and biomechanics to help tablets travel through the digestive tract and reach the duodenum, the tip of the small intestine where nutrient absorption begins. Simulates up to In the simulation using StomachSim, `` until the drug reaches the duodenum and is absorbed '' is verified in four different postures.

The postures that have been verified are ``sit or stand with your back straight'', ``sit with your body tilted to the right or lie down with your body tilted to the right'', and ``sit with your body tilted to the left or tilt your body to the left and lie down''. Become' and 'Sit or lie down with your body back'. As a result of the simulation, in the posture of 'sitting with the body tilted to the right or lying down with the body tilted to the right', the drug slipped into the deepest part of the stomach, compared to the posture of 'sitting or standing with the back straight'. , the drug has been found to dissolve twice as fast. On the other hand, in the posture of 'sitting with the body tilted to the left or lying down with the body tilted to the left', compared to the posture of 'sitting or standing with the back straight', the drug is dissolved and absorbed in the duodenum. It was found that it takes up to five times as long to

“For older people, sedentary people, and bedridden people, whether they lean or recline to take medicine can have a big impact,” says Mittal. I am referring to In addition,

past research has also revealed that 'tilting the body to the right increases the speed at which food is discharged into the intestine'.



In addition, the researchers simulated what would happen to the absorption of the pills if one had a condition called gastroparesis , a condition in which the stomach does not move. As a result, it turned out that even a slight decrease in gastric digestive power produces a significant difference in the rate at which tablets and capsules dissolve and are discharged into the duodenum, as does a change in posture.

ScienceAlert, a scientific media, said, ``Of course, many things happen before drugs and food enter the stomach, intestines, and bloodstream.And although computer simulations are useful, they can be very difficult to understand complex processes. Please also keep in mind that this is a simplification.” In fact, liquids, gases, and food in the stomach can also affect digestion, but the research team didn't build StomachSim with these in mind.

in Science, Posted by logu_ii