High Metabolism and effects on drugs

[skids]

I wonder if someone can help me to answer a question I have on the effcts a high metabolism has on drugs.

Would having a higher metabolism actually effect the speed at which drugs work to a great extent. I.E. would having a high metabolism mean taking something like an anadin would see it effect much quicker than a normal person and the effects be over quicker.

I was under the impression that pharmaceutical products were designed to resist such issues and were metabolised in a different way.....

[admin]

Originally Posted by skids

I wonder if someone can help me to answer a question I have on the effcts a high metabolism has on drugs.

Would having a higher metabolism actually effect the speed at which drugs work to a great extent. I.E. would having a high metabolism mean taking something like an anadin would see it effect much quicker than a normal person and the effects be over quicker.

I was under the impression that pharmaceutical products were designed to resist such issues and were metabolised in a different way.....

I don't think it would make much difference. The drug has to be absorbed through the stomach/intestines to start working, and will be eliminated usually via the liver or kidneys (or both). Unless you were taking drugs that increase your liver's ability to excrete drugs (I can expand on this if you need me to) they should work roughly the same.

Drugs are metabolised in a different way to glucose, which is the fuel for the body.

[skids]

thanks for the response,

I am having a bit of a debate with another person on this one, its a bit like talking to a brick wall sadly. I did some research on it and I was fairly sure that a high metabolism as he was suggesting it would have no real effect.

So far as I understood the drugs will go through something called 1st pass metabolism and that the drugs themselves are metabolised in the liver.

I think the confusion is coming from the word metabolism, in that drug metabolism and general metabolism as joe public thinks of it are two distinclty different things....

edit: for instance would this statement he made hold truein relation to pharmaceuticals? " the breakdown and carrying of ANY compound and its time cycle in the body is determined directly by the metabolic rate"

[silnarnin]

... metabolic rate of the drug! Not of the body of the individual in question. The amount of time that a drug lasts in the system of each person depends on how the drug is degraded by the body, and not if the body consumes less or more glucose (energy).

[admin]

Originally Posted by skids

So far as I understood the drugs will go through something called 1st pass metabolism and that the drugs themselves are metabolised in the liver.

I think the confusion is coming from the word metabolism, in that drug metabolism and general metabolism as joe public thinks of it are two distinclty different things....

For instance would this statement he made hold true in relation to pharmaceuticals? " the breakdown and carrying of ANY compound and its time cycle in the body is determined directly by the metabolic rate"

Drugs do undergo first pass metabolism, but that is a phenomenon of drug metabolism. After a drug is swallowed, it is absorbed by the digestive system and enters the hepatic portal system. The absorbed drug is carried through the portal vein into the liver.

The liver is responsible for metabolising many drugs. Some drugs are so extensively metabolized by the liver that only a small amount of unchanged drug may enter the systemic circulation, so the bioavailability of the drug is reduced. Alternative routes of administration (e.g., intravenous, intramuscular, sublingual) avoid the first-pass effect.

This is obviously quite different from what most people call metabolism - they are talking about the breakdown of glucose in the body. Thus a person's "metabolic rate" or their metabolism is not related to how drugs are broken down in the body, but glucose.

Our metabolism is the rate at which the body uses energy to support all basic functions essential to sustain life, plus all energy requirements for additional activity and digestive processes.

Hope this helps

[skids]

a perfect answer, thank you so much for taking the time to answer this

[admin]

Originally Posted by skids

a perfect answer, thank you so much for taking the time to answer this

No problem matey, I just hope it helped you a bit.

[Pharmanaut]

Originally Posted by admin

No problem matey, I just hope it helped you a bit.

The body is structured so that first pass metabolism takes place so that processing of nutrients is not delayed. Its hard therapeutic luck that a percentage of most drugs taken orally is denatured in this way.