PROPERTIES OF MEDICINES AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS

• Appendicitis


  Inflammation of the appendix
• Constipation


  Not a digestive disorder
• Dyspepsia


  Symptoms do not include black tarry stools
• Peptic ulcers


  May be caused by all except malignant tumors in the stomach or pancreas
• Treat constipation


  Increase intake on the amount of fiber and water
• A drug is any chemical that brings about a change in biologic function through its chemical actions
• Agonist


  A substance that acts as an activator, or promotes activity of a specific regulatory system or body process
• Antagonist


  A substance that acts as an inhibitor, having the opposite effect to the agonist
• Receptor


  A regulator molecule that literally receives the agonist or antagonist molecule, and sends the signal to the body system it regulates
• Characteristics of a drug

  • The drug must have a very specific size, shape, atomic configuration and electrical charge to be able to interact with the receptor
  • A drug must have the necessary properties to travel to its site of action or receptor from its site of administration
  • It must be easily inactivated or excreted from the body once it has been used for its purpose
• Hormones


  Chemically synthesized within/outside the body.
• Poisons


  Drugs with harmful effects, any drug or hormone in extremely high amount can have harmful effects and can cause immediate death/illness
• Toxicants


  Substances that produce adverse biological effects of any nature, may be chemical or physical in nature, effects may be of various types (acute, chronic, etc)
• Toxins


  Specific proteins produced by living organisms (mushroom toxin or tetanus toxin), most exhibit immediate effects
• Physical and chemical nature of drugs

  • Solid (e.g. aspirin)
  • Liquid (e.g. ethanol)
  • Gas (e.g. nitrous oxide)
• Drug size


  The drug size must high enough to be unique to a receptor (this determines the lower limit of drug size, 100 Molecular Weight (MW) – a drug ideally should not be lower than this)
• Covalent bond


  Very strong bonds that are not readily broken, an example is aspirin which forms a covalent bond with its target enzyme, cyclooxygenase
• Electrostatic bond


  Much more common type of bond in drug-receptor interactions, and is weaker than the covalent bonds. Can be relatively strong ionic linkages between permanently charged molecules or weaker hydrogen bonds that occur in highly polar molecules or very weak induced dipole interactions such as Van Der Waals forces
• Hydrophobic bond


  These bonds are quite weak, usually found in the interactions between highly lipid-soluble drugs and lipids in the cell membranes
• Prescription-only medicine (POM)


  Medicine that has to be prescribed by a doctor or other authorized health professional and dispensed from a pharmacy or from another specifically licensed place
• Pharmacy (P)


  An intermediate level of control, can be bought only from pharmacies and under a pharmacist's supervision
• Over-the-counter medicines (OTC)


  General sale medicines and pharmacy medicines that can be bought without a prescription
• Therapeutic classification


  Describes the clinical purpose, of the physiological change induced by the drug, and does not describe anything about the way the drug achieves this change
• Pharmacological classification


  Describes the specific thing that the drug does on the molecular level in order to elicit the desired physiological effect. Focus only on heart and blood vessels.
• Therapeutic medicines examples:

  • Bisacodyl
  • Lasartan
  • Aspirin
  • Naproxen
  • Diclofenac
• Pharmacological medicines examples:

  • Diazepam
  • Ondansetron
  • Benazepril
  • Captopril
  • Enalapril