Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

jamesleerpc wrote:wow!!!!i am so sorry i still have not posted the data...my teacher said 20 should be better....so i am still working on it ...and my control is putting all the different types of pills(20 of ea) in disstilled water......But what is amazing is that the pills dont dissolve but actually break out from the inside and get bigger .....ill be probably finishing my experiment by this thursday or next monday....but my controls will not be finished yet...

James! I'm excited your project is going well. The stuff with the expanding pills is really cool- I've seen that happen too when I've dropped a tylenol in the sink by accident. Good luck getting all the trials done- 20 is a lot! Thanks for letting us know how it is going.


Louise

no problem...by the way my teacher said to do my controls in distilled water rather than tap, sink, or bottle water...Do you have an explanation on that?

jamesleerpc wrote:no problem...by the way my teacher said to do my controls in distilled water rather than tap, sink, or bottle water...Do you have an explanation on that?

Well, the acid is made with distilled water. Also, tap water has many chemicals (in small amounts) that could confuse things. Bottled water is often tap water, and it can also be slightly acidic due CO2 that is in it. So distilled water is the most "controlled" control!


Louise

alright...i couldnt do my experiment today so this monday or next thursday is when i might be finished...excluding te controls...

i have all the results but i have a few glitches so ill post it (exclude the controls) oct 30 or 31 Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice !!!!!

also is there like a site in sciuence buddies thathas to do with pills and their dissolving rates because if there is i need it for my sources because sources are sort of hard to find

jamesleerpc wrote:also is there like a site in sciuence buddies thathas to do with pills and their dissolving rates because if there is i need it for my sources because sources are sort of hard to find

I don't believe there is a sciencebuddies site on this project, but I think in the previous thread with the other student, someone provided a link to a study that was done by a canadian research group. You should go back through there and see if you can find it. If you cannot find anything, let us know what you've searched for, where you've searched, and what exactly you are looking for, and we'll try to help you find this info.


Louise

Here is that previous thread:
http://www.sciencebuddies.com/mentoring ... php?t=2065
Here is the Health Canada page with detailed instructions & guidelines:
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/prodphar ... com_e.html

Good luck!

Ok the thread will not work for one of my bibliography ...but i am looking for things that pertain to HCl and dissolving of pain relievers...I also need resources that are books...Also any resources that deal with generic pills and pain relievers

jamesleerpc wrote:Ok the thread will not work for one of my bibliography ...but i am looking for things that pertain to HCl and dissolving of pain relievers...I also need resources that are books...Also any resources that deal with generic pills and pain relievers

You should look at the second link. It is an official document on this topic by the Candanian government.

I thought you did research on these topics before?


Louise

yes i did research but i did not write them down so i couldnt find them again...By the way...the data will be comin in soon i am sorry it has not been here...i thought that the data i would give you would be not good since it does not have the controls so ill get the controls then give you the data

Different types of pain relievers Which pain reliever is best for you? Average
Trials (sec)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Tylenol in HCl 71.38 68.37 90.19 70.44 65.66 74.72 66.28 87.28 61.23 71.32 63.03 70.43 84.91 123.28 73.5 81.37 80.25 74.79 65.88 68.94 75.6625
Aspirin in HCl 30.96 32.18 37.39 38.03 31.75 32.75 34.06 33.5 31 40.69 30.12 34.23 31.81 33.13 32.82 34.18 34.5 48.75 33.91 33.78 34.477
CVS brand in HCl 223.53 270.38 325.71 415.41 238.78 325.5 573.9 585.51 1198.91 263.69 491.91 670.47 203.39 286.6 592.16 282.93 299.91 446.31 292.91 239.94 411.3925
Equate in HCl 199.65 233.84 292.03 391.72 692.21 203.85 497.5 435.25 196.53 322.22 393.63 400.5 348.03 193.5 444.87 249.12 335.59 158.69 318.47 780.21 354.3705
CVS (control) 368.03 505.03 559.5 603.84 380.72 356.59 382.9 768.44 753.09 455.47 356.12 364.44 362.53 785.91 996.47 410.31 370.06 480.62 981.3 798.09 551.973
Equate (control) 568.06 731.62 864.22 1235.72 1254.57 1295.69 867.15 320.78 473.72 969.37 1198.15 484.65 1101.55 900.1 545.84 569 1063.68 1282.31 998.88 1381.6 905.333
Aspirin (control) 57.19 50.28 48.25 56.5 55 40.66 64.91 59.97 52.81 61.28 41.84 49 53.93 50.82 46 49.87 46 41.38 41.03 42.6 50.466
Tylenol (control) 83.94 84.44 93.78 150.03 84.44 110.92 82.47 76.65 110.11 111.37 122.06 96.25 114.69 107.9 114.4 92.6 118.91 117.62 93.96 113 103.977




Sorry i pasted this from excel...but the averages are at the end

jamesleerpc wrote:Different types of pain relievers Which pain reliever is best for you? Average
Trials (sec)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Tylenol in HCl 71.38 68.37 90.19 70.44 65.66 74.72 66.28 87.28 61.23 71.32 63.03 70.43 84.91 123.28 73.5 81.37 80.25 74.79 65.88 68.94 75.6625
Aspirin in HCl 30.96 32.18 37.39 38.03 31.75 32.75 34.06 33.5 31 40.69 30.12 34.23 31.81 33.13 32.82 34.18 34.5 48.75 33.91 33.78 34.477
CVS brand in HCl 223.53 270.38 325.71 415.41 238.78 325.5 573.9 585.51 1198.91 263.69 491.91 670.47 203.39 286.6 592.16 282.93 299.91 446.31 292.91 239.94 411.3925
Equate in HCl 199.65 233.84 292.03 391.72 692.21 203.85 497.5 435.25 196.53 322.22 393.63 400.5 348.03 193.5 444.87 249.12 335.59 158.69 318.47 780.21 354.3705
CVS (control) 368.03 505.03 559.5 603.84 380.72 356.59 382.9 768.44 753.09 455.47 356.12 364.44 362.53 785.91 996.47 410.31 370.06 480.62 981.3 798.09 551.973
Equate (control) 568.06 731.62 864.22 1235.72 1254.57 1295.69 867.15 320.78 473.72 969.37 1198.15 484.65 1101.55 900.1 545.84 569 1063.68 1282.31 998.88 1381.6 905.333
Aspirin (control) 57.19 50.28 48.25 56.5 55 40.66 64.91 59.97 52.81 61.28 41.84 49 53.93 50.82 46 49.87 46 41.38 41.03 42.6 50.466
Tylenol (control) 83.94 84.44 93.78 150.03 84.44 110.92 82.47 76.65 110.11 111.37 122.06 96.25 114.69 107.9 114.4 92.6 118.91 117.62 93.96 113 103.977




Sorry i pasted this from excel...but the averages are at the end

This looks really good! One other calculation you may want to do it the standard deviation. This gives you an idea of the fluctuations in the data. The command in excel is =stdev(cell1:cell10) or whatever.

So, what is your data telling you?
Louise

Ok ill try that next time,

A very important thing it tells me is that every pill in a bottle isn't the same as many companies say it. But these cant be really accurate in how fast it dissolves since many factors contribute in a real life basis...and also Do you think tap water and disstileed water would make a difference for controls?

jamesleerpc wrote:Ok ill try that next time,

A very important thing it tells me is that every pill in a bottle isn't the same as many companies say it. But these cant be really accurate in how fast it dissolves since many factors contribute in a real life basis...and also Do you think tap water and disstileed water would make a difference for controls?

This is an interesting idea. Your data has variation in the results for each run. So, as you say, there are two choices:
1) The pills are different in a bottle
2) Your measurement has variation

This is one of the things that the calculation I mentioned will help you with. The standard deviation is a measure of the variation in the data. You cannot know for sure where the variation is coming from, but if all your data (every pill) has similar variation (say 20%) then you can think maybe that variation comes from your experimental accuracy, and not from the pills being different.

I think either tap or distilled is fine. Distilled is probably a little better for the reasons we discussed earlier in the thread. I would measure the pH of the water though, since that is really the factor you are interested in.

Comparing the control data to the acid data, what do you see?

Louise

i can see that the lower the pH the more faster the pills dissolve.ummmm....One more question. If food and things affect the ph then that means this isnot always the dissolving rates...right?

If food and things affect the ph then that means this isnot always the dissolving rates...right?

Right.

There may also be additional "mechanical" factors as well. If there is a "wad" of food in the stomach resembling something like sticky dough, pills can find their way into these through the mechanical mixing effects of the stomach which will delay their breaking apart because they are mechanically shielded by something and not in direct content with the more liquid contents of the stomach.

There is also the absorption process (medicine finding its way into the circulatory system - blood). When the stomach is full of food, competition for the absorption sites in the stomach and small intestine have competition.

Some prescription medicines come with warning labels to not take with antiacids because their absorption is severely affected by a higher pH. Others come with warnings to not take with food. Still others recommend taking with food.

jamesleerpc wrote:i can see that the lower the pH the more faster the pills dissolve.ummmm....One more question. If food and things affect the ph then that means this isnot always the dissolving rates...right?

Right! That is a great point about food. Basically, many different factors influence how fast a pill dissolves in the stomach- how much food you eat (which might effect the pH as you mention or might change the amount of liquid in the stomach, or the temperature of the stomach acid or change other things you haven't thought of) as well as the variation in the bodies of person to person (volume of stomach, acid level, body temperature)- on average all these things are similar, but every one is slightly different, and some people are very different!

However, your experiment is a good simple model of what happens in the stomach!


As for your conclusions: all pills dissolved faster in acid than the control solution, but your hypothesis was that all pills dissolved the same? Did you see any differences between the different brands of pills? It looks like Tylenol and Aspirin dissolved faster than CVS brand or Equate. Can you think of a reason why?


Louise

Louise, would a reason be because of what Dr. Ben Kim said."Most generic brands are tainted with small particles of metal"?

jamesleerpc wrote:Louise, would a reason be because of what Dr. Ben Kim said."Most generic brands are tainted with small particles of metal"?

I doubt this is true and if it were, I doubt it would have a huge effect. There was a recall of many generic brands of pills due to metal particles a year ago, but that was a mistake and the pills were recalled. This mistake could have happened with brand name pills as well. It was a mistake with the machinary used to make the pills, I believe, and could also happen with name brand pills.

I don't know who Dr. Ben Kim is, but it sounds like he has an "agenda"... that is, he is trying to convince people not to use generics for some pesonal reason not a scientific reason. At least the way you reported his statement, his argument seems non-scientific. If you want to link to a website this guy has, I will take a look, but I don't think this is a good reason.

Even if you used pills that had the metal particles this should not effect the dissolving time. Metal is insoluble, so you would dissolve the pill in the normal time, and then have flakes of metal in solution.

What is required to be the same between generic and brand name drugs? What can be different? Did you observe any physical differences in the pills? For example, advil and the genric I take are similar sizes, but the coating is very different... the brand name is shiny, and the generic is dull. This may influence the dissolving rate. But, the pills don't have to be exactly the same size, perhaps the brand name is smaller, weighs less, or has a different shape?

Louise

You may also want to think about WHY pills dissolve faster in acid. This isn't a coincidence.

There are many factors in a human stomach that influence rates of absorption. Not just the quantity of food, but the composition of it (e.g. fatty foods delay absorption).

But as Louise said, you have developed and used a good basic model of the stomach. Looks like nice work.

hello everyone, I havent been on due to homework and other things. My science fair project has won first place in district. I am very thankful for all of your help. Umm...and My teacher said i should revise it in just a way for generics only. Is there a way to do this with only generics?

jamesleerpc wrote:hello everyone, I havent been on due to homework and other things. My science fair project has won first place in district. I am very thankful for all of your help. Umm...and My teacher said i should revise it in just a way for generics only. Is there a way to do this with only generics?

This is great news! Congrats on the first place win!

Why does your teacher want you to revise it? I'm not sure I really understand what your teacher wants (especially since it is prize winning!). Are you supposed to redo the experiment only with generic drugs or just remove the brand name data? If you can clarify, we'd be glad to help.

Congrats again James, and I hope you are really proud of your impressive accomplishments!

Louise