Total shock! There is a correct posture for drinking medicine and it is

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Total shock! There is a correct posture for drinking medicine and it is
Total shock! There is a correct posture for drinking medicine and it is
Anonim

When you have a headache and reach for a pain reliever, you probably don't think about your body position when taking the medicine

But a new study from Johns Hopkins University reveals that posture can significantly affect the rate at which our body absorbs medicine, and incorrect posture can delay the breakdown and absorption of medicine by up to an hour.

Researchers at this university studied the mechanics of drug absorption and the natural anatomy of the stomach and found that taking the pill while lying on your right side shortened the time it took to absorb the drug.

More specifically, if we drink a tablet lying on our right side, it reaches the deepest part of the stomach the fastest, and its breakdown is up to 2, 3 times faster than in people who it is taken standing or lying on the back.

Natural asymmetry

Most tablets don't actually start working until the stomach has expelled its contents into the intestines. So, the closer the pill is to the lower part of the stomach, the faster it starts to "melt" and the faster it reaches the small intestine. If you aim the pill at this part of the stomach, the position is key to both gravity and the natural asymmetry of the stomach.

“We were very surprised that posture had such a large effect on the dissolution rate of the pill. I never thought about whether I was doing it right or wrong, but now I definitely think about it every time I take a pill, said study author Rajat Mittal, from Johns Hopkins and an expert in fluid dynamics.

Tested four positions

A team of scientists tested four positions. Taking pills while lying on your right side was definitely the best, sending the pills to the deepest part of the stomach to achieve a dissolution rate 2.3 times faster than sitting upright.

The worst is lying on the left side. The team was very surprised to find that if a tablet takes 10 minutes to dissolve on your right side, it can take 23 minutes to dissolve standing up and more than 100 minutes if you lie on your left side. your country.

The way most of us are used to taking pills - standing upright can be another option when taking medication and has the same effect as lying on your back, but definitely avoid lying on your left side country when you take the medicine.

The people on the bed

“For elderly people who are sitting or bedridden, whether they are turning left or right, this finding could have a huge impact,” Mittal said.

The research is based on a model that authentically represents the real functioning of the human stomach, that is, you can see what happens inside the stomach when they change the food or in this case the medicine. In recent years, other models have been created that authentically represent the functioning of several major organs, especially the heart.

Stomach problems

The research team also found that the pills were less effective in people whose stomachs were not he althy.

“Even a small change can lead to significant differences in the outcome of taking an oral drug,” said lead study author Jae Ho “Mike” Lee, a former postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University.

The effect of stomach conditions, such as gastroparesis caused by diabetes or Parkinson's disease, on the "digestion" of drugs is similar to the effect of posture, which highlights how important posture is when taking pills.

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