Have you ever wondered about what happens to the medicine once they are in our body? What are the functions carried out by them? Where do they go and how? Millions and millions of pills or another form of medications are ingested to the people on a daily basis. So, it is important for us to know its functionalities once we consume it.
What do they do for us?
There is a unique cause behind every medicine we take. The causes can be
- Pain relief
- To fight disease
- To fight infection
- To supplement a deficiency
- To decrease an overabundance of a body substance
- To assist a body mechanism to correct itself
- To balance systems and organs in the body
The form of Medications:
- Oral – tablet, capsule, syrup, drops etc.
- Drops – ear/eye/nose.
- Skin preparation – cream, ointments, gel, patches and so on.
- Sub-lingual, (under the tongue) – tablet, drops.
- Injection – by hypodermic needle
- Into the bowel – suppository/enema
- IV – Intravenous – needle into a vein
- Inhalation – steam inhalation, crystals, and inhaler
What is medication absorption?
It is the movement of a medicine into our bloodstream after we consume it. Your body absorbs a medication; it affects bioavailability based on how quickly and how much of a medicine reaches its intended target of the action. We listed a few factors that affect absorption such as
- The way a drug product is designed and manufactured
- How the drug is stored
- Its physical and chemical properties
- The physiologic characteristics of the person taking the drug
- Other ingredients it contains
For instance, in order to make tablets, the active or inactive ingredient mixture may be made into small grains and compressed into tablet form. The amount and type of additives, as well as the degree of compression, affect how quickly the tablet fragments and how quickly the medicine is absorbed. Drug manufacturers will adjust these variables to an optimize absorption.
How does medicine process?
Processing a medicine is an intricate process by the body. We rather simplify this in 4 main areas:
- Administration: we intake the medicine.
- Delivery: once the medicine is inside our body they move into the bloodstream and then to the organs and tissues.
- Performance: This medicine will induce or produce effects.
- Elimination: Our body will wash out the waste products associated with the medicines.
Despite having similar active ingredients, a medicine may vary in the level of absorption. Therefore, the effect of the medicine varies even though the given dosage is same. The
bioequivalence in the medicine ensures the therapeutic equivalence.
Controlled-release formulations
Some drug products are particularly formulated to release their active ingredients in repeated small amounts or slowly over time.
This will happen for a period of 12 hours or more usually. This form of dosage is called as modified-release, sustained-release, controlled-release, or extended-release.
Capsules
Capsules consist of drugs as well as additives within a gelatin shell. This shell swells and releases the content when it becomes wet and this occurs quickly.
The size of the properties as well as the drug particles of the additives affect how quickly and efficiently the drug dissolves and being absorbed.
Medicines tend to absorb more quickly from capsules which are filled with liquid rather than the solid particles.
Tablets
If a tablet releases the drug way too quickly, then the blood level of the drug may become too high resulting in an excessive response.
But if the tablet does not release the drug quick enough, then a good amount of the drug might be eliminated in the feces without even being absorbed, and blood levels will be too low.
So, drug manufacturers will always formulate the tablet in order to release the drug at the desired speed.
Causes of Low Bioavailability
There are a number of factors may affect the absorption as well as the bioavailability of a drug taken by a person. Physiologic characteristics include
- What the acidity (pH) of the stomach is
- How long the stomach takes to empty
- How quickly the drug is moved through the digestive tract
The other factors include a person’s sex, age, level of physical activity, as well as the level of his/her stress.
Where and how long a drug product is stored can affect the medicine’s bioavailability. Some of the medications deteriorate and become harmful or ineffective if stored improperly or kept too long. Likewise, some products must be stored in the refrigerator or else in a dry, cool, and dark place. The storage directions, as well as the expiration date, should have strictly adhered all times. Try to gain some knowledge about your medicines before you consume it in order to benefit from them.
