This time-lapse video of pills dissolving in water will both awe and horrify

By Anthony Thurston July 29, 2016

Pills Dissolve in macro

Most of us have at least one type of pill that we take on occasion, be it for pain, fever, or just to supplement our nutrition. But what actually happens to these pills when they are in our systems, how do they dissolve and spread throughout the body?

Ben Ouaniche, a 27-year-old Tel-Aviv-based photographer specializing in macro photography, who is the video producer over on the YouTube channel The Macro Room, wanted to find out. So he took various pills and placed them in water, and captured their dissipation through the beautiful — yet somewhat horrifying timelapse that you see above.

Advil, for example, which is one of the most commonly used pills worldwide, is featured, and you see the pill start to lose its composure moments after entering the water. Soon the Advil branding dissolves and the contents of the liquid-gel tablet starts to flow into the water. It is a beautiful thing to see, but imagining this occurring in your stomach, mixing with your taco from lunch and that afternoon coffee kick may make you a little squeamish.

Some of the other beautifully dissolving pills were actually of the solid variety, and they tended to bubble and shuffle and break apart as they sat in their bath. Some of their contents turned into a cloudy-looking substance and others seeming to retain their particle rigidity. Accompanied by a lovely musical score, some of the frames of this time-lapse could easily be mistaken for some form of abstract art.

The grand finale of the video, featuring an assortment of 13 individual pills, is visually stunning as the gels and cloud particles meet and mix. Giving you a firsthand look at the sort of interactions that may occur in your stomach when you take a number of pills at the same time. Our poor, poor stomachs — is anyone else considering a strict broth diet and no pills from now on?

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Anthony Thurston

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Anthony is an internationally published photographer based in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Specializing primarily in…

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