How does your body process medicine? - Céline Valéry

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-does-your-body-process-medicine-celine-valery Have you ever wondered what happens to a painkiller, like ibuprofen, after you swallow it? Medicine...

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Have you ever wondered what happens to a painkiller, like ibuprofen,after you swallow it?Medicine that slides down your throat can help treat a headache,a sore back,or a throbbing sprained ankle.But how does it get where it needs to go in the first place?The answer is that it hitches a ride in your circulatory blood stream,cycling through your body in a race to do its jobbefore it's snared by organs and molecules designed to neutralizeand expel foreign substances.This process starts in your digestive system.Say you swallow an ibuprofen tablet for a sore ankle.Within minutes, the tablet starts disintegrating in the acidic fluidsof your stomach.The dissolved ibuprofen travels into the small intestineand then across the intestinal wall into a network of blood ...