Fun_People Archive
22 Oct
The underlying chemistry of Big Pills

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 98 16:26:29 -0700
To: Fun_People
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Subject: The underlying chemistry of Big Pills

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649
[This goes in the Unclear-On-Several-Concepts-At-Once file...  -psl]

From: Scott_Wyant@antiochla.edu (Scott Wyant)

Yesterday I went to a local health food store, looking for a particularly
hard-to-find brand of tooth paste. [Oh sure! -psl]  There I overheard the
following exchange which, as far as I could tell, was in earnest on both
parties' parts:

Customer (She):  These multi-vitamin pills have gotten so large,  I can't
    swallow them anymore.
Owner (He):  That's because they've added more calcium to the formula.
    Calcium is a very large molecule, so the tablets are larger.
She:  Why can't they just make smaller pills, and then I'll just take two
    or three of them, instead of the one large one?
He:  In order for the calcium to be absorbed properly, you have to take
    it all at once.
She:  OK.  I guess I'll just break them into quarters and take them that
    way.
He:  That should work.

© 1998 Peter Langston