Whether popping an aspirin for a headache or taking birth control or swallowing a daily statin tablet to keep a cardiac condition in control, we take the idea of ingesting a pill for granted. But different pills have different purposes and the key to their efficacy is how they are absorbed into the body. The process of the chemicals packed into a pill entering the bloodstream is called bioabsorption and this can affect the speed of the quantity of the drug made available at the site of action.
Some conditions require the drug to be released quickly and others to be released slowly over time. All these considerations go into the design of a tablet or capsule and other mechanisms of delivering medicines into the body like liquid formulations, injections or transdermal patches.
The science behind the design of a drug can be seen in how a pill breaks down in water, a process that mimics how the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream. As this video from the YouTube channel Macro Room shows us, the process is also incredibly artistic.
An earlier video by YouTube channel The Time Lapse Guys also shows the mesmerising process by which some pills crumble, some slowly erode and others implode releasing their chemicals into water.