OK, so it’s not really medicine, it’s a dietary supplement. According to the directions on the bottle you are supposed to put a teaspoon of the powder in your mouth then wash it down with 200ml of water. What is the benefit of taking it this way rather than mixing the powder in the water and drinking it?
You get to enjoy the vile taste more?
(just guessing from my experience with doctors)
The purpose of the water may be to wash all the powder down the esophagus. If it’s mixed some will remain in the mouth and esophagus.
So? Have directions to take the dose and follow with 8 oz water. Even if you fill your mouth with powder then drink the 8 oz water I would be willing to bet you would still have residual powder stuck somewhere.
It would appear to me that it needs to get to your stomach in powder form, possibly as some function of timing the dispersal. If it’s already dissolved, it might not do what it’s supposed to do.
But, this sounds like typical health food mumbo jumbo to make it seem special.
“Nobody would injest something this shitty tasting unless it really works!”
IMO, this.
Absorbtion in the stomach is slow enough that mixing with water before or after it arrives in the stomach wouldn’t/couldn’t matter.
maybe it doesn’t dissolve well in water.
maybe it tastes bad and you would taste it less that way.
How 'bout the OP tell us what supplement we are talking about here!
That’s the first thing that came to my mind.
My guess is that some will remain stuck to the inside of the water bottle or glass that you mixed it in.
I had one med (antibiotic capsule, too big for me to swallow) that you were supposed to mix with a few specific beverages. I tried mixing it with one of the non listed beverages and it didn’t mix. At first I figured, big deal, it’ll be chalky and gross, but it’ll go down. Nope, caked up on the inside of the glass and the dishwasher couldn’t even get it off. Bleh.
I’d be really surprised if a dietary supplement manufacturer actually went through the trouble of finding out the dissolution, absorption and bioavailability of their product, given the cost involved in doing it right (e.g. FDA regulated drugs). It’s unlikely that it “needs” to reach the stomach in powder form, given as you’re adding water to it immediately anyways, and there’s lots of water in gastric acid.
Odds are the stuff becomes gooey and hard to dissolve directly in water for whatever reason (it would help to know what the supplement is, but the OP can easily test this) and so someone came up with this way of taking the stuff. Putting it into a capsule (or 2, for a teaspoon dose!) seems like it would be less trouble for the person taking it, but that adds a cost on the manufacturer’s end!
Basically, it’s a cheap way of selling the supplement.
I’m guessing the OP has not mentioned the supplement because it is creatine. Might have been afraid of the stigma and/or concerned the thread would have gone off-topic.
Some creatine powders are notorious for being difficult to mix, and people have resorted to mixing with hot water, boiling tea, etc. Ultimately, many put the powder in their mouth and wash it down the hatch with water.
That’s my answer: It’s creatine. It absolutely can drive you nuts if you want an easy, fast way to add it to liquid. Some forms can be mixed with some mixing techniques, but this (OP question) is generally an issue with creatine supplements.
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I have no problem with naming the supplement, I didn’t name it in the OP because I didn’t want the thread to turn into a debate over whether it was any use or just snake oil. I was more interested in why it would need to be taken that way rather than the efficacy of the product.
The product in question is L-Carnitine. I just tried putting a teaspoon into a glass of water and mixing and it works just fine, no clumping or weird effects going on. There were a few crystals left on the bottom of the glass but 99% of the powder mixed and went down with the water.