How Medicine Works In Our Body

A closer look at how the body works with drugs

Drugs work in a variety of forms inside the body. They can interact with microorganisms (germs) that infect your body, kill cancer-causing abnormal cells, remove damaged substances (like hormones or vitamins) or change the way cells function in your body.

Within the body, medicines experience several stages: absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion. It is absorbed into the body after a medication is administered. The circulatory system then allocates the drug all over the body. The body brings it into metabolism. The medication is then excreted, and its metabolites.

Journey throughout the body of medicine: 4 Phases

Step 1: Adsorption 

Absorption relates to the passage of a medication from the place of delivery to the bloodstream. This arises when a medication is administered as there are many various ways by which someone may consume or abuse a product that can influence how it is absorbed.

Medicines are consumed as they pass into the bloodstream of the body from the place of administration. Some of the most prevalent medication administration strategies are oral, intramuscular, subcutaneous, intravenous or transdermal.

Medicines ingested by mouth are shuttled from the digestive system to the liver by a specific blood vessel, where a significant portion of the drug is broken down. Several drug delivery pathways bypass the liver, directly reaching the bloodstream, or via the skin or lungs. 

Step 2: Distribution
After the medication has been absorbed it is transferred via the blood. This passes to the tissues and intracellular fluids from the bloodstream, and attaches to receptors. Distribution is reversible: Receptor molecules may move back to the bloodstream.

The bloodstream is most frequently the medium for carrying medicinal products in the body. Side effects may arise during this stage when a drug has an impact at a site apart from its target. For pain relief, painful muscles in the leg might be the target organ; stomach pain may be a side effect.

Drugs designed for the nervous system face an almost impenetrable barricade named the blood-brain barrier which defends the brain against potentially harmful substances like poisons or viruses. Fortunately, pharmacologists have figured out various strategies to get certain medications through the blood-brain wall. Other factors that may affect delivery involve proteins and fat molecules in the blood that, by latching on them, may put drug molecules out of commission.

Step 3: Metabolism 

The medication is broken down, or metabolized, after a medicine has been spread across the body and has completed its work. Everything that reaches the bloodstream — whether absorbed, injected, inhaled, or consumed by the skin — is transferred to the chemical processing plant of the body, the liver.

There, chemically pummeled molecules are twisted, broken apart, stuck together and converted by proteins called enzymes. Some of the enzymatic breakdown products, or metabolites, are less chemically effective than the molecule.

Genetic variations can affect the workings of some enzymes, altering their ability to metabolize drugs. The tendency of the body to metabolize certain medicines may be interacted with by natural products and diets, which involve multiple active components. The enzymatic breakdown cycle will promote the excretion of the medication and is the final step.

Step 4: Excretion

The final step of a medication is excretion inside the body. The now-inactive medication is moving to the last stage of its body-time, excretion. This extraction occurs by the urine or by feces.

Clinical pharmacologists can determine how a person absorbs a medication by analyzing the concentrations of a drug in the urine (and also in the blood), potentially resulting in a modification to the prescription dosage or even the medication. When the drug is removed relatively easily, for example, a higher dosage might be required.