The researchers found that eating pills with the side that is right the most effective, permitting pills to pass through the most apex of the stomach and disintegrate 2.3 times faster than standing up straight.
According to an upcoming Johns Hopkins study, how you consume pills may affect the speed at which your body absorbs the drug.
Most people don’t take into account the posture of your body when taking medication when you’re suffering from headache. But, recent research by Johns Hopkins University discovered that your posture could have a major impact on the rate at which your body’s body absorbs the medication. It could take as at least an hour.
The conclusion is built on what is believed as the very first study to recreate the way in which drugs dissolve inside the stomach of a human.
“We were amazed that the way we positioned ourselves had the biggest impact on the dissolution rate the pill,” said senior author Rajat Mittal, a Johns Hopkins engineer and expert on fluid dynamics. “I didn’t think of whether I had done it correctly or wrong , but now I’ll be sure to consider it every when I take a pill.”
The results were published recently in the Journal Physics of Fluids.
In recent times models that accurately portray the functions of many important organs, notably the heart, were created. The model of the team, StomachSim, appears to be the first to create accurate simulations that simulate the stomach of a human. StomachSim simulates the process that occurs inside the stomach as it breaks down food , or in this case medicine, by combining biomechanics and physics with fluid mechanics.
Your posture when taking a pill makes a big difference in how fast your body absorbs the medicine. Credit: Khamar Hopkins/Johns Hopkins University
Most pills do not begin to work until the stomach releases its contents to the intestinal tract. This means that when a tablet is close to the antrum the quicker it starts in breaking down, and empty it’s contents in the duodenum. the first section in the small intestine. If you’re targeting at this area of the stomach, then your posture is essential in order to make use of gravity, as well as the inherent symmetry that the stomach has.
Four different postures were evaluated by the group. The position of taking tablets while lying in the left side position was the most effective. It sent tablets to the deepest region of the stomach. It also achieved the dissolution rate of 2.3 times faster than standing straight. The most detrimental result was when lying to the side. The team was amazed to learn that if the tablet dissolves within about 10 minutes when placed on the left side could require up to mins in an upright position, and up to 100 minutes when lying on the left.
“For older, sedentary or bedridden individuals the decision of turning left or right can have a massive influence,” Mittal said.
The upright position is a great alternative, and is connected to effectiveness by the straight position of your back.
The study also examined stomachs that don’t function fully due to gastroparesis that is caused by conditions such as Diabetes as well as Parkinson’s Syndrome meant for pill dissolution. Any slight change in the health of the stomach may result in significant variations in the results of an oral medication the lead author of the study Jae Ho “Mike” Lee, a former postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins.
The effect of stomach diseases on drug dissolution was comparable to that of posture. This demonstrates the importance of the difference in posture.
“Posture is an enormous impact on your body is equivalent to someone’s stomach being in a major problem in the sense that the pill’s dissolution is concerned,” Mittal said.
The future research will try to determine how changes in the biomechanics and biochemistry of the stomach influence how the body absorbs medications and the way food is processed within the stomach, as well as the effects on posture as well as gastroparesis food digestion.
Referred to as “Computational simulation of the dissolution process in human stomachs: effects of gastroparesis and posture on bioavailability of the drug” from J. H. Lee, S. Kuhar, J.-H. Seo, P. J. Pasricha and R. Mittal, 9 August 2022. Physical Physics of Fluids.
DOI: 10.1063/5.0096877
The study was supported through the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
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