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The action of drugs on the human body (or any other organism's body) is called pharmacodynamics, and the body's response to drugs is called pharmacokinetics. The drugs that enter an individual tend to stimulate certain receptors , ion channels , act on enzymes or transport proteins .
Drugs are often bound to proteins in the blood to be carried into the bloodstream; however, a drug may also be considered free or unbound. Only a free drug can act at its target site of action, such as receptors, or cross into other fluid compartments within the body (Grogan & Preuss, 2022).
‘How drugs work’ outlines the basic mechanisms of pharmacology. Drugs are chemicals that can be naturally occurring or man-made, and which can be administered in a variety of ways. They can act on receptors—often highly specific proteins in cells which can up-regulate or down-regulate processes—or on other targets, such as DNA or enzymes.
Drug metabolism is the metabolic breakdown of drugs by living organisms, usually through specialized enzymatic systems.
Drug pharmacokinetics determines the onset, duration, and intensity of a drug’s effect. Formulas relating these processes summarize the pharmacokinetic behavior of most drugs (see table Formulas Defining Basic Pharmacokinetic Parameters).
29 sty 2023 · Pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics are the two branches of pharmacology, with pharmacodynamics studying the action of the drug on the organism and pharmacokinetics studying the effect the organism has on the drug. Pharmacodynamic actions include: Stimulating activity by directly inhibiting a receptor and its downstream effects.
Pharmacodynamics is the study of how drugs have effects on the body. The most common mechanism is by the interaction of the drug with tissue receptors located either in cell membranes or in the intracellular fluid.
