system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why do some medicine need to be taken on a full stomach/with food where as for others it doesn't make a difference??
gpt
There's generally two reasons why a drug might be recommended to be taken with food. One is just that taking with food can help lessen nausea, which is a side effect of many drugs. The other is that some drugs/formulations are dissolved or absorbed more readily during active digestion. Digestion delays stomach emptying, which can give a drug preparation more time to be fully dissolved before being passed to the intestines. Digestion also stimulates the release of stomach acids, bile, and enzymes, any of which may help with dissolving certain drug formulations. Note that many drugs are specifically recommended to be taken on an empty stomach as well because any of these effects could be negative as well as positive, depending on the exact chemical nature of the drug. In a lot of cases there's actually competing effects, so the best practices have to be established by extensive study and may ultimately recommend, for example, taking a drug with a low-fat meal, etc.