Читать книгу Fundamentals of Pharmacology for Paramedics - Группа авторов - Страница 27

Physiological systems make use of hundreds of specific signalling chemicals to carry out their own signalling function and this provides an opportunity to use drugs to mimic or block the effects that those endogenous signalling chemicals would produce. By employing drugs with chemical structures similar to those of endogenous chemicals, we gain an opportunity to ‘operate the levers’ of the human machine. Not surprisingly, therefore, the vast majority of the drugs used act by altering the function of one of these key pieces of signalling and transport machinery:

 Receptors

 Enzymes

 Ion channels

 Transport molecules

Drugs used as therapeutic agents act by manipulating physiological mechanisms, which reinforces the importance of having an understanding of human physiological responses as the basis for understanding pharmacology. Without a sound knowledge and understanding of how physiological systems respond, it is impossible to make sense of how drugs will interact with those systems.