After a ten-year study on the science of pills, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are still at a loss for how exactly a tiny pill can do so much to a way bigger body.
People have been taking pills and tablets for centuries, but how do they work exactly? No one knows, but scientists are still working hard to find out.
According to the study, even though a pill can be super tiny, it can also do a lot to the rest of the body once it’s digested in the human stomach.
“We’ve run tests of everything — antidepressants, ecstasy, vitamins, you name it,” said head researcher Dr. Henry Bradley. “But we still can’t seem to figure out how a pill that’s only a few centimeters long could have such profound effects on the human body.”
“Maybe this shows the hubris of the human psyche,” Dr. Bradley went on. “We think that nothing so small could affect us so deeply, and yet, Benadryl makes us all really tired.”
Wow, that’s deep. But the team at Carnegie Mellon is still left scratching their heads about how tiny itty-bitty pills can be so powerful.
“Pills like Advil make you feel better, but only for the parts of your body that feel bad,” Dr. Bradley continued. “We still don’t get how that works at all.”
While the study is now at the end of its allotted time, the researchers at CMU are desperate for more funding.
“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Dr. Bradley says. “After ten years we still don’t know how tiny pills can affect a body so much, but we’re confident we can get figure it out in another ten or fifteen.”
In the meantime, we’ll just have to accept the fact that pills are stronger than they should be without knowing why, which is fine according to the scientists at the head of this study.
“Everyone should still keep taking pills though,” said Dr. Bradley. “We may not know how they work, but they do work pretty well!”
