Drug action

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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. As a result, they cause the human body to react in a specific way.

Based on drug action on receptors, there are 2 different types of drugs:

• Agonists – they stimulate and activate the receptors
• Antagonists – they disable the agonists from stimulating the receptors

Once the receptors are activated, they either trigger a particular response directly on the body, or they trigger the release of hormones and/or other endogenous drugs in the body to stimulate a particular response.