Expert: Florence M Rollwagen - 4/28/2008

Question
Is it true that if you take dissolvable parecetamol/asprin with warm water it gets into your bloodstream quicker speeding up the effects of the drug?

Answer
Hi Ian, thanks for your question.

When various substances dissolve, they do it via the surface area to volume ratio.  That is, a 100 mg tablet will take longer to dissolve than 10 X 10 mg tablets, because the total surface area of the smaller tablets is greater than the surface area of the large one.  Think of when you eat a hard candy, doesn’t it dissolve much faster in your mouth if you chew it into smaller pieces?

So in answer to your question, pre-dissolving the tablet will allow it to get into your bloodstream faster.  The warm water vs cold water just makes it dissolve faster.  You might get equivalent results if you chew the tablet.  Most people don’t do this because aspirin tastes really bad!

I should caution however, NOT to chew or pre-dissolve capsule medications.  Often they are enclosed so that they do NOT dissolve until they reach the small intestine.  The low pH of the stomach will denature the drug, so it must not dissolve until it reaches the neutral pH of the small intestine.  

I hope this answer has helped you.  Please write back if you have more questions.

FM Rollwagen, PhD