You're Probably Taking Your Pills Wrong, New Study Finds - ScienceAlert

But its absorption might be hindered – so much so that it could take an hour longer for the stomach to dissolve oral medications – depending on your posture.

Called StomachSim, the model simulated the fluid and biomechanics of a pill moving through the digestive tract and how fast it would be ejected from the stomach into the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine where absorption of nutrients begins.

Previous studies have similarly found lying on the right side quickens the rate at which the stomach empties food into the intestine, and that sitting, standing or reclining to the right also accelerates the absorption of oral drugs.

They found that even a small reduction in the simulated digestion power of the stomach led to noticeable differences in how fast it digested and ejected a pill into the duodenum – similar to changes in posture.

"Posture itself has such a huge impact on it, it's equivalent to somebody's stomach having a very significant dysfunction as far as pill dissolution is concerned," Mittal says.