Week 1: Basic Principles of Pharmacology Drug Herb Interaction Flashcards
Define pharmacology.
Pharmacology is the scientific study of how drugs work in the body to treat disease.
Pharmacokinetics refers to?
The journey of the drug through the body
The study of what the body does to a drug after you take it and how drugs are absorbed, distributed, metabolized, and excreted in the body.
Define pharmacodynamics.
What the drug does to the body. How the drug interacts with your body to cause change through the receptors in the diseased cells’s cellular membrane
What is a fundamental principle of pharmacodynamics?
The drugs will only modify underlying biochemical and physiological processes in the cell. They can’t create new ones.
Define pharmacotherapeutics.
How drugs are used to treat diseases
Define posology.
Study of the amount of drug that is required to produce therapeutic effects (the dose)
Define toxicology.
Study of the harmful effects of drugs on the body.
What is polypharmacy?
Where patients get multiple medications from one or more doctors.
Drugs influence the _____________ of cells
Function
______________ effects are the desired effects of a drug
Therapeutic
Therapeutic use of any drug is referred to as the drug ______________.
Indication
Define contraindication.
Situation or circumstance when a particular drug should not be used
Define ‘Site of action’.
Location in the body where the drug interacts with a target molecule to produce its therapeutic effect.
Define ‘Mechanism of action’.
How the drug works at the molecular level—what it binds to, blocks, activates, or inhibits in order to create a physiological change.
Define ADME (Pharmacokinetic).
Absorption: How the drug enters the bloodstream (e.g., through oral, intravenous, or inhalation routes).
Distribution: How the drug spreads through the body to various tissues and organs.
Metabolism: How the drug is broken down, usually in the liver, into metabolites that the body can use or eliminate.
Excretion: How the drug and its metabolites leave the body (e.g., through urine, feces, or sweat).
Therapeutic index means?
Measurement of how safe the drug is. Larger number is more safe.
It’s a ratio between the toxic dose and the therapeutic dose.
Should a drug be hydrophilic or hydrophobic?
Hydrophobic or lipophilic because it can pass through the phospholipid bilayer to enter the cells by passive diffusion.
Oral drugs primarily need to ________ water and _______ fat.
Hate
Love
Protein binding: what is a class I drug and a class II drug?
Class I drugs are highly protein-bound, meaning a large proportion of the drug molecules bind to plasma proteins like albumin, leaving only a small amount of the drug in its free (active) form.
Class II drugs are extensively protein-bound, but their concentrations in the plasma are high enough that they saturate available protein-binding sites, leaving a significant amount of the drug in its free (active) form.
If a class I drug is administered with a class II drug, free drug levels of the class I drug will be less than or greater than anticipated?
Greater.
The bioavailability of an intravenous drug is ________%.
100%.
To maximize the drug availability, a drug needs to be primarily hydrophilic or hydrophobic?
Hydrophobic, but somewhat soluble in aqueous solutions.
4 factors that can affect bioavailability of a drug?
First-pass hepatic metabolism.
Drug solubility.
Chemical instability.
Chemico-physical properties of drug formulation.
True or false. A drug needs to be a weak acid or a weak base pH-wise to cross the cell membrane.
True!
Drugs enter the cell through three main mechanisms:
Passive diffusion.
Facilitated diffusion.
Active transport.
Oral drugs can be absorbed where? which is the most common site of absorption due to its vast surface area.
Stomach through the duodenum.
What kind of drug administration?
Oral
Sublingual blood
Rectal
Enteral administration.
4 main factors that affect drug distribution?
Blood flow.
Capillary permeability.
Drug structure.
Degree of binding to proteins.
What kind of drug administration?
Intravenous injection.
Subcutaneous injection.
Intramuscular injection.
Intraarterial administration.
Intrathecal injection.
Parenteral administration.
Other routes of administration?
Oral inhalation.
Intranasal.
Topical.
Transdermal.
True or false? Large drugs cannot escape plasma. Small drugs can leave plasma.
True.
What is phase I and phase II of drug metabolism?
Phase I: reactions convert lipophilic drugs into water soluble or polar molecules.
Phase II: conjugation (adding a molecule) of a drug to make drug more hydrophilic to achieve kidney metabolism.
Define therapeutic index:
Measurement of how safe a drug is. Ratio between the toxic dose and the therapeutic dose. Larger number is more safe drug.
Statin drugs are a class of medications primarily used to lower cholesterol levels in the blood. Clients taking statin drugs can’t have?
Grapefruit juice.
The most common route of drug elimination is?
Kidneys.
Steady state has been achieved when?
The drug input rate equals the drug elimination rate.
Is a solid or a liquid drug more easily absorbed?
Liquid is very easy to absorb. A solid drug absorbing will depend on the size of the molecule.
Define loading dose.
Higher dose administered at treatment initiation.
How many half-lives for drugs to reach steady state?
4 to 5 half lives.
Define tachyphilaxis.
Rapid and short-term onset of drug tolerance.
One of the largest contributing factors for drug potency is?
The affinity of the drug for the receptor.
Drug efficacy is dependent on?
The number of drug-receptor complexes formed.
Is highly concentrated drug easy or hard to pass the cell membrane.
Difficult absorption. Highly concentrated drugs are typically advised to be diluted.
To achieve a drug steady state, is a single-fixed dose or repeated-fixed dose more important?
Repeated-fixed dose.
