Deciding which type of water or fluid to use in swallowing a pill can be a challenge for many, swallowing itself isn’t as simple as it looks. Nerves help your mouth, throat, and esophagus work together to move food, liquids, and pills into your digestive tract.
Most of the time, when you swallow you don’t have to think about the reflexes at work. But when it comes to swallowing pills, you become suddenly all too aware of everything that goes into swallowing. The more you think about it, the more difficult it becomes.
Why you should use water
Some medicines are hard on the stomach, taking your drug with water helps push the medicine down all the way to the stomach more quickly. Swallowing pills without water can mean it takes longer for them to work. It also increases your chances for the pill getting stuck in your esophagus. Some medications can irritate the lining of your esophagus if they become lodged there or take too long on the trip down to your stomach.
How Cold Water Affects Your Medication
When you take your medicines with cold water, the body tends to spend more energy on warming up the cold water that’s hit the stomach instead of concentrating on processing the medication you have just consumed. The same happens when you take cold water with food – instead of concentrating on getting the best nutrients out of the food consumed, the body first has to spend its energies on warming up the cold water to body temperatures instead.
For absorption of your medication to be optimal, the internal environment has to be just right and this includes the temperature within the lumen of the stomach and intestines. While it’s well known that cold water slows down the dissolving capacity of medications, it also creates sub-optimal temperatures for absorption of these medicines into the system. According to the Indian traditions of Ayurvedic medicine, cold water can cause an imbalance to the body and slow down the digestive process.
However, in Western medicine, there is little scientific evidence to suggest that cold water is bad for the body or digestion. Drinking plenty of water can help the body flush out toxins, aid digestion, and prevent constipation.
What is the best type of water to use in swallowing medication?
Generally, it is a well-known fact that solubility increases in warmer temperatures and since most medicines contain salts as fillers, it stands to reason that they will dissolve faster and become effective sooner when taken with warmer or normal temperature water.
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 drink. This can help your body to absorb the medication faster and you will feel better in less time.
A small study from 2013 which investigated the effects of drinking water at different temperatures in six people who were dehydrated, following mild exercise, in a hot and humid chamber. Reported that changing the water temperature affected the sweating response of the participants and how much water they drank. The optimal water temperature in the study was 16°C (60.8°F), which is the temperature of cool tap water because the participants drank more water and sweated less. You Can Find Additional Information On: Can You Take Your Medication With Distilled Water?
