What Is Clinical Pharmacology & Medications?

The scientific field of clinical pharmacology concentrates on the characteristics and therapeutic values of medications. This includes properties, reactions, toxicity, pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenetics and pharmacokinetics.

Drug Development

• Early drug development involves giving potential drugs to animals to study the effects. Safe and effective compounds may continue to human drug trials, which have three phases that begin at safety determinations and end at the marketing of the produced medication.

Drug Interactions

• A drug's effects may change due to an interaction caused by a simultaneous usage of another drug or ingestion of certain foods. Pharmacokinetic drug interactions can affect the absorption, metabolism or excretion of either drug. Pharmacodynamic drug interactions involve the drug effecting the tissue reactions of another drug by blocking or providing the same effect.

Pharmacokinetics

• Pharmacokinetics deals with the movement of drugs in and out of the body. Experiments determine the data by dosing volunteers with the drug and then testing blood and urine for an excretion pattern. The pharmacokinetic processes of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion work on every drug that enters the body.

Pharmacodynamics

• Pharmacodynamics studies what a drug does to the body. This includes studying receptor binding and the interactions of chemicals. The pharmacodynamics of a drug may be affected by genetic disorders, aging or the presence of other drugs.

Pharmacogenetics

• Pharmacogenetics focuses on variations of drug effects caused by genetics. Metabolism in particular has a high degree of variability among people. Individuals who metabolize drugs more quickly than others may require higher dosages to achieve the desired effects.