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It does put some abbreviated information in table form, but it's overly complicated and doesn't streamline the information any better than a typical, bloviating text book does. While technically correct, the pharmacokinetics appear to be nonlinear resulting in a longer half life with more than one dose, which is how a patient is going to take it. If a person who has tolerance to the drug is moved to unfamiliar surroundings, all tolerance to the substance is gone. For instance, it states that D1 and D2 receptors are both inhibitory. This is CRITICAL to know in order to understand movement disorders such as Parkinsonism so you can know how the drugs work. Not interesting. It actually gets quite a few things wrong. This is not correct.
Maybe because of brevity with the subject. Another example, it indicates that the half life for fluoxetine is 48 - 72 hours. Further, its first metabolite is norfluoxetine, which is similarly as potent as fluoxetine, but has a longer half life. While cytochrome P450 is the most important factor in the liver's metabolizing of many substances, tolerance is actually a purely psychological factor. Studies have shown that tolerance occurs when drug use occurs in the same surroundings repeatedly. They don't present this critical information in this book.
Just the same information presented in a slightly different way. With abuse, and increasing use of a substance, of course cytochrome P450 will build up to handle the increased load, but simply having an understanding of Michaelis-Menten kinetics shows that there is a maximum rate that will be achieved, and the deactivation rate of compounds will not proceed any further based on just increasing the enzyme to match the substrate concentration increases. It even places emphasis on this in the text with Italics. It reads like an abbreviated text. Few helpful pointers.
In fact, D1 receptors are excitatory, but D2 receptors are inhibitory. They get just as intoxicated, they just don't overdose as easily. Therefore, although the person can consume more of the substance, this doesn't mean that they have a tolerance. I'm not sure how this book ended up in the Ridiculously Simple series. Well, almost the same.
Another incorrect statement: They claim that drug tolerance to psychoactive substances such as alcohol is due to cytochrome P450 inactivation.
I could have gotten that from the PDR or the Merck Manual. It was more on clinical practice than how clinical pharmacology is used to study new compounds or drug interactions, etc. I was disappointed in the book I hoped to learned about the fundamentals of clincal pharmacology, but all I got was page after page of tables of drugs, mechanism of action, undesirable effects, etc. I learned more of what I was after just by reading wikipedia (unfortunately, after I bought the book).
There are practically NO memory aids like in the microbiology series which had pictures and mnemonics etc. The book list drugs in tabels with the occasional paragraph above it trying to explain something. this book it tiny, over priced and a lot of medical school professors have warned against this book
It does list some medications with some brand names. I am really embarrassed about the amount of money I spent having this book expressed to me. I ordered this book with hopes that it would help me with my pharmacology class. It does not address any information about the math, or dosing involved in pharmacology that a nurse or surgical technologist might have to work out during surgery or otherwise.
But found the book tough to learn from. Now that I'm out practicing, I like the book alot as a quick reference/refresher. While in school, I enjoyed the pictures and such. Maybe I don't handle gigantic lists that well.
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