When we need to give some type of pill to children, usually the difficulty is to give the right dose prescribed by the doctor, or to make her ingest the medicine, which can be a nuisance.
But it is not only children who can suffer from this problem.
Due to the size of the drug, the elderly and some adults with swallowing difficulties also find it difficult to swallow the medication, which can gradually interfere with the person’s treatment.
Based on this, new research published in the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences revealed that a group of researchers at the University of Surrey, in England, created a new method that can make it easier to receive the drug.
It is a new formulation of medicines, with a reduced size, based on a type of organic solvent, which basically has greater solubility in the body, in addition to helping in the pharmaceutical composition.
Solubility and effectiveness
When we speak the word solubility, we mean how much a substance dissolves in a liquid.
For example, the water present in our body, is a type of liquid in which the medicine needs to dissolve in order for the particles of the medicine to move through the body, fulfilling its function.
But, according to the study, current drugs have a difficult shape when swallowing, and a low solubility in water.
This makes it difficult when taking the medicine in a tablet, and when it takes effect, because it takes a large amount of water to dilute it in the body.
How can the new formula be useful?
According to the scientists, in addition to making the drugs easier to ingest, the new formula developed may help in the effects of the substance in the body.
This is because, due to the size of the medicine being reduced, dissolution happens more quickly and efficiently, resulting in multiparticles that move through the patient’s body more easily.
Some types of medication do not have the specific dosage for children, which requires adaptations.
Therefore, discoveries like this are important to improve drug treatments and their effectiveness.
