Isocaloric liquid and solid meals induce comparable postprandial gastric motility: Implications for oral drug delivery assessed by real-time MRI

Postprandial gastric motility critically influences the intragastric behavior of oral dosage forms and subsequent drug absorption. Combining real-time MRI with already established MR imaging, we compared an isocaloric liquid (Fresubin Energy) and a solid meal (egg-white sandwich) in twelve healthy volunteers, assessing gastric emptying, antral contraction frequency, propagation velocity, luminal occlusion, and the intragastric behavior of a non-disintegrating capsule. The water that was ingested together with the capsule, emptied rapidly along the Magenstrasse (stomach road), while no meaningful differences in motility parameters were observed between the solid and liquid meals. In this study the capsule remained in the fundus throughout the imaging period, likely due to the combination of fed-state physiology and the supine positioning of the participants. Mean caloric emptying rates were comparable for both meals. These findings suggest that caloric load, rather than physical texture, predominantly governs measurable postprandial motility.