Why do pills taste bad

The good thing is that this approach applies to any phobia you may have about swallowing pills. Go ahead. Give it a try. You may need a little practice. The good news is that once you get it, you are set for life. Be sure to share this with your family and friends who dislike swallowing pills for one reason or another.

Better yet, post it on your Facebook page. You must be logged in to post a comment. Add the medication to a small quantity of food such as yogurt or stewed fruit , but check with your pharmacist first; some medications should not be taken with other foods such as dairy or grapefruit.

Also, do not mix your medication with a large quantity of food or liquid; you'll simply make the bad taste last longer. With children, avoid putting the medication in healthy or vital food sources as your child could associate the food with the medication and develop an aversion to the food in question.

Use a syringe to take your medication, placing it at the side of your mouth, about half way down your tongue. If the medication comes in tablet form: Place the pill s in a bit of bread or dip it in maple syrup or jam. Crush the pill s and add it to a small quantity of food such as yogurt or jam. Check with your pharmacist first: Some tablets are coated to protect your taste buds and some medications should not be taken with certain foods such as dairy or grapefruit.

Place the pill s on the back of your tongue and swallow whole with water. But this is good solid science. Linguagen was founded by Robert Margolskee of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who discovered the particular cascade of reactions that leads to bitterness perception. When taste receptor cells in the mouth detect bitter compounds such as naringin, found in grapefruit, caffeine and the painkiller ibuprofen, they release a protein called gustducin see graphic.

Researchers at Linguagen tested a huge range of compounds from chemical libraries to see if any could block gustducin release. In test tubes they mixed the compounds one by one with a dye and the relevant components found in the mouth.

When the dye turned blue, it signalled that gustducin had been produced. If it did not turn blue, the researchers assumed that the compound was blocking gustducin production. The team confirmed that the potential blockers really did prevent bitterness being perceived when lab mice could not distinguish a bitter solution doped with the blocker from plain water.

Then the researchers tried the best ones themselves, sipping coffee and grapefruit juice containing the compounds. Usefully, all the compounds that blocked bitterness are nucleotides, the family of molecules that includes the building blocks for DNA and RNA. All of them are naturally occurring and already found in various foods.