Dissolving your medicine in hot water helps in faster action, claims study | The Times of India (2024)

Nobody wants to fall sick. That's the reason when we are down with fever or cold, we want the medication to work as fast as possible so we can get back on our feet and carry on with our daily activities. Isn't this true? Thankfully, scientists have come up with a method that can speed up the rate at which the medications starts to work faster.

According to research published in the Journal Pharmaceutical Research, to make your cold and fever medication more effective, you should take it as a hot beverage. This can help your body to absorb the medication faster and you will feel better in less time.

A study carried out by a team of researchers specifically to understand how paracetamol is absorbed in different formats found that drinking the medication in the form of a hot beverage rather than swallowing the tablet can ensure its quick absorption by the body. By doing this our body absorbs the medication faster and acts faster in the first one hour after taking the dose.

For the study, the researchers collected the data from 25 healthy male volunteers. The participants were first asked to take the medication in the form of a tablet and then in the form of a beverage. Using both scintigraphic imaging and blood tests methods, they concluded that the body absorbed the same 1,000 mg dosage of medicine better in hot drink sachets versus in the form of tablets.

According to the expert, the hot beverage allows rapid gastric emptying, in which the food, especially sugar, moves from your stomach into your small bowel quickly. This reduces the time taken between drug ingestion and the onset of symptom control. In simpler words, hot beverages help to move the drug faster into the small intestines as a result it enters the bloodstream faster and starts to ease your discomfort.

The team of researchers explained that paracetamol is more soluble in hot water as compared to cold water. The temperature of the beverage can help to break the medication faster and help it enter the bloodstream in less amount of time.

For the best result, dissolve your paracetamol in a glass of warm water. Water is neutral and does not change the composition of the medication. Taking your medication with milk, caffeine or fruit juice can have some negative side-effects. Even swallowing your meds without fluid can increase the risk of choking and may cause irritation and inflammation in the oesophagus. It can further lead to several health issues like heartburn, chest pain and at times it can even lead to bleeding and holes.