Questions tagged [pharmacology]
Pharmacology is the study of the interactions that occur between a living organism and chemicals that affect normal or abnormal biochemical function.
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Why Does Salt Water Help Sore Throats?
I am having some trouble understanding how salt water, a simple solution, could so effectively remove the pains of a sore throat.
I do believe that the answer is closely related to hypo/hyper-tonic ...
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Why would diffusion be faster across a non-specialised tissue?
The standard protocol for a person experiencing chest pains is to chew a 300mg aspirin tablet, the argument being that chewing rather than swallowing the tablet results in the aspirin entering the ...
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Why are there so many medicinal plants?
Question
Quite a few plant species can be used for medicinal purposes wiki. As an example, Filipendula ulmaria is rich in acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).
An allele that produces a substance which is ...
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Elevated position effect on recovery times from upper respiratory infections at rest?
In nursing school, they advice for people with upper respiratory infections to be in a slightly elevated position at the head region when sleeping.
My intuition of the reason is that the lymphatic ...
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Why does Penicillin only affect bacterial cell walls
I was quite fascinated by the feature Should Science Pull the Trigger on Antiviral Drugs—That Can Blast the Common Cold? in this month's Wired magazine.
They explain that Penicillin is effective at ...
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Does homeopathic or herbal treatment of cancer have any scientific recognition?
Even though we have a very high tech society, cancer is still a serious issue. We humans still are not entirely capable of fighting cancer.
Radiation and chemotherapy are still considered the best ...
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Circulation through the liver in light of drug metabolism
I have a lingering question which stems from an answer that I gave to What hydrolyses aspirin within the digestive tract and blood stream?
When a drug or any other substance is absorbed into the ...
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Why is ACE2 not used as drug against covid? [closed]
Can ACE2 be produced and used as drug against covid? I read it is the receptor molecule. If it is in the organism the virus should bind to it and could not attack cells anymore? Is that right?
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What is the benefit of fever during infections?
When people get sick, they often develop a fever. What is the effect of an increased body temperature on viruses and bacteria in the body? Is it beneficial to the infected body? Importantly, often ...
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How does laughing gas (N₂O) work?
Laughing gas (N2O), well, makes people laugh.
How does just a gas make us do that, there has to be some hormones at work...
So, I wanted to know how this works? What is the mechanism?
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How does aspirin “thin” blood?
As we all know, aspirin doesn't actually thin the blood, as it has been explained to me, it makes it "slippery". Slippery blood doesn't stick to itself hence this helps prevent internal blood clots (...
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Is cancer caused by vitamin B17 deficiency?
I have read in an article on the internet that cancer is caused due to deficiency of vitamin B17 which has been removed from our diets long ago in the western food. But some people say that vitamin ...
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How do the pharmacodynamics of the NSAIDs differ and are there “resistant” COX phenotypes?
I know that the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (e.g., aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen) affect the enzymes cyclooxygenase (types I and II).
Is there any difference in the degree to which these ...
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How does paracetamol interfere with immune system?
Paracetamol is used to reduce body temperature when it is to high. The high body temperature (fever) is known to be an indication that immune system fights against an infection.
In this context I ...
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What hydrolyses aspirin within the digestive tract and blood stream?
I have had some further thoughts after my previous question regarding the buccal delivery of medication. The active compound in aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid or systematically 2-Acetoxybenzoic acid) ...
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Are there dangers to Teflon and aluminium cookware?
I've been reading some articles on the internet about dangers of Teflon and aluminium to the body.
My family say I'm just exaggerating the situation, and maybe I am, though I'm not sure because not ...
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If D1 receptors stimulate adenylate cyclase (through GPCRs) and D2 receptors inhibit it, then why do mutations in both have similar effects?
D1 and D2 both refer to specific types of dopamine receptors.
I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that the D1 receptors are in regions different from D2 receptors.
I know that adenylate ...
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How does Serotonergic (5-HT2A mediated) Psychedelia work?
How does serotonergic (5-HT2A specific) psychedelia work? I've read that there are some theories that it might involve the induction of a glutamate release in certain regions of the brain involved in ...
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How long does it take for a blocked dopamine receptor to be broken down by the body?
Do the blocked dopamine receptors get broken down by the body and if so how often ?
In other words how long does it take for the dopamine receptors blocked by irreversible dopamine antagonists to ...
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How to relate human metabolic model reactions and cancer drug targets / reactome items?
Trying to find a way to take a cancer drug (from CancerDR, for instance) and infer the metabolic reactions that are affected by it in the Human Metabolic Model.
Essentially, I would like to know ...
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How did the “serendipitous rediscovery” of Sulfasalazine as an antirheumatic agent after 30 years happen?
This excellent answer describes the history of the ~50 year old drug Sulfasalazine, and it's worthwhile to take a moment and read through the answer now.
Roughly speaking the drug is an antibiotic ...
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Derivation for drug half life
The formula in textbooks for $t_{\frac{1}{2}}$ of a drug following first order elimination is generally given as $$t_{\frac{1}{2}}= \frac {\ln(2).V_d}{Cl}$$where $V_d$ is the volume of distribution ...
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Is half-a-tablet of X a substitute for a tablet of X/2?
This may be anecdotal.
At the pharmacy earlier, the prescription called for a drug with X mg of the target chemical. The pharmacy however only had stock of a higher potency of the same brand.
E.g. ...
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Why do the calicheamicins bind to DNA at the minor, rather than the major, groove?
I am trying to understand why some drugs bind only to the minor groove and not to the major groove. More specifically, I am interested in calicheamicins.
They target DNA and cause strand scission. ...
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How did sulfasalazine become a disease-modifying treatment for rheumatoid arthritis?
Sulfasalazine has been around for about fifty years, starting as an antibiotic. More recently it is used as a disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD, see also arthritis.org). While biologics (...
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Do serotonergic (5-HT2A-mediated) psychedelics elicit stimulant effects?
I know that 5-HT2A partial agonism is the key mechanism of action of serotonergic psychedelics but I also know that some research (e.g. the selective (no activity on any other known receptor sites) 5-...
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Why does azithromycin not affect human mitochondria?
Drugs like tetracyclines, macrolides and aminoglycosides bind to prokaryotic ribosomes. It is interesting that our body too having mitochondria, which have prokaryotic ribosomes, there is little(?) ...
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How did Shulgin take cognizance of the dosage of a new substance?
We know that Alexander Shulgin synthesized MDMA, 2C compounds and several other tryptamine derivatives and phenethylamines. But how did he find out that the average dosage of an unknown compound is X ...
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Confusion related to a term probe-by-background interaction
I was reading a paper related to bioinformatics where it uses the drug response on the cancer cells and the gene expression of the individual cells are studied to find any useful insights. Specially, ...
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How can ionized amino acid form be important for the catalytic activity?
I can imagine that protonated amino acid form, particularly at the active site, is important for the catalytic activity so hydrogen bonds can be created between the substrate and the enzyme. However, ...
