• Question: how tablets work

    Asked by lego2 to Alex on 26 Jun 2014.
    • Photo: Alex Lyness

      Alex Lyness answered on 26 Jun 2014:


      Hey lego2,

      Tablets are a great way for getting a medicine from outside your body > into your body! They work like a little delivery van to carry a drug into your body, in fact sometimes we do call them ‘vehicles’!

      To find out what’s in tablets and how they are made check out this answer: /healthj14-zone/2014/06/how-many-things-are-in-one-antibiotic-tablet

      They are often made from compacted powder and the more compacted they are the harder they are to dissolve in the stomach, meaning that this can delay how quickly the drug dose takes to come out. Other chemicals can speed/slow this process too.

      If you want to treat a headache you want the tablet to dissolve quickly so the pain goes away! If you want to treat a persistent problem (like a stomach ulcer) you want this to be sloooooooow release so it can work for hours!

      Hope that answers your question 🙂

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