Taking Medication: What's the Best Way to Make Sure Medication Works?

Name: Take your medicine.

Age: The use of medicinal herbs dates back to the Paleolithic Age.

< p class="dcr-xry7m2">Appearance: Lying down.

I don't take my meds lying down. Well, you should, apparently.

Who said? A new study titled Computer Modeling of Drug Dissolution in the Human Stomach: Effects of Posture and Gastroparesis on Drug Bioavailability.

You lost me at the IT level. Published in Physics of Fluids, the study suggests that when taking a tablet, it's best to lie sideways on your right side.

Why would that matter? Basically, gravity - when you lie on your left side, the exit from the stomach into the duodenum is at its highest point. In this position, the rate at which a drug leaves your stomach and enters your bloodstream is greatly reduced.

What about standing? Surely it's gravitationally advantageous? It's definitely better than lying on your left. Standing up and leaning back a bit is even better. But they tested a variety of postures on the StomachSim, and lying on the right side came out on top.

The StomachSim? A computer simulation of a human stomach based on MRI imaging. In this case, they used stomach modeling data from a 34-year-old male known as "Duke".

Can your posture really make such a difference? ? In some cases, lying on the right side resulted in a doubling of the concentration of active ingredient released.

Is this true for all different types of pills people might take? Asking a Friend It's complicated. Some pills are designed to release their active ingredient slowly, some quickly, so speeding up dissolution isn't always a good thing.

I think my friend was hoping for a less complicated answer. Many other factors are also involved, including stomach contents, stomach motility, and gastric fluid dynamics. “In particular,” the study states, “stomach contractions induce pressure and shear forces that generate complex pill trajectories.”

That How about a spoonful of sugar? Doesn't that help the medicine go down? They haven't tested this on the StomachSim, but some research suggests that giving babies sucrose lessens the discomfort of injections by reducing their response to pain.

In this case, I think I could eat a lot of sugar while lying down. I don't know how it would help the dynamic physiological environment of your stomach.

Who cares? I'm just planning the rest of my summer. OK, have fun then.

Say, "Oral administration remains a safe, economical, and easy way to administer medication, and lying on your right side may greatly aid absorption.”

Don't say, "I don't think I could dance like that."