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Consumer
Chemistry
Quarter 4 – Module 1: Properties
of Medicine and Its Major
Classification

WEEK 1
 What I Need to Know

This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you
master the nature of Chemistry. The scope of this module permits it to be used in
many different learning situations. The language used recognizes the diverse
vocabulary level of students. The lessons are arranged to follow the standard
sequence of the course. But the order in which you read them can be changed to
correspond with the textbook you are now using.

The module contains:

● Lesson 1 – Properties of Medicine and Its Major Classification
This learning module is aligned on the learning competency:
- Describe the properties of medicine and its major classification.

After going through this module, you are expected to:

1. differentiate the properties of medicine
2. classify medicine based on their characteristics
3. enumerate the advantages and disadvantages of medicine
 What I Know

Directions: Read each question carefully. Choose the letter of the correct answer.

1. Which of the following refers to the principle of curing a disease by

administering substances that produce the opposite effect of the disease when
given to a healthy human?
a. Allopathic drugs c. Over-the-counter drugs
b. Antiseptics d. Topical antibiotics
2. Which of the following is NOT an anti-inflammatory agent?
a. Acetaminophen c. Celecoxib
b. Aspirin d. Ibuprofen
3. Which of the following cures the common cold?
a. Antibiotics c. Vitamin C
b. Antihistamines d. There is no cure
4. What will happen to the person with stomach virus taking an antibiotic?
a. His illness will be cured.
b. The symptoms of his illness will be lessened.
c. The duration of his illness will be shortened.
d. He will develop some drug-resistant bacteria.
5. What do you call the use of antibiotics to treat cold?
a. Appropriate therapy c. Drug misuse
b. Drug abuse d. Placebo effect
6. Which of the following is the best treatment for viral diseases such as
diphtheria, mumps and smallpox?
a. Antibacterial drugs c. Tetracyclines
b. Antiviral drugs d. Vaccinations
7. Which of the following base units of measurement is NOT used in medication?
a. g c. l b. kl d. m
8. Which of the following is NOT a common use of an OTC medicine?
a. Anxiety c. Fever
b. Constipation d. Inflammation

9. What is the substance that acts as an activator?

a. Agonist c. Receptor
b. Antagonist d. Toxins

10. Which of the following represents the appropriate way to use a prescription
drug? (short to long)
a. Taking it without a prescription
b. Snorting it to get relief faster
c. Taking the proper dosage as intended
d. Taking it to get high

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 What’s In

In Grade 8, you learned about the different digestive systems and disorders.
You explored how the body obtains the nutrients and learned how to treat some
disorders. Digestive disorders encompass a variety of diseases ranging from mild to
severe. Common digestive disorders include gastroesophageal reflux disease, cancer,
irritable bowel syndrome, lactose intolerance and hiatal hernia. The most common
symptoms of digestive disorders include bleeding, bloating, constipation, diarrhea,
heartburn, pain, nausea and vomiting. Accurately diagnosing digestive disorders
involves collecting a thorough medical history and conducting a physical
examination. Some patients with digestive disorders may need more extensive
diagnostic evaluations, including endoscopic procedures, lab tests and imaging.

Photo Source: https://www.niddk.nih.gov

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Direction: Choose the letter of the correct answer.

1. Which is known as the inflammation of the appendix?

a. Appendectomy (itis) Gastroenteritis c. Colitis
b. Appendicitis d. Pancreatitis
2. Which of the following is NOT a digestive disorder?
a. Constipation b. Diarrhea c. Goiter d. Hepatitis
3. What is the best way to treat constipation?
a. Take antibiotics.
b. Eat more bananas.
c. Do not eat anything.
d. Increase intake on the amount of fiber and water.
4. Which of the following symptoms is NOT associated with dyspepsia?
a. Black tarry stools
b. Mild to severe epigastric pain
c. Epigastric burning sensations
d. Feeling overly full after a normal meal
5. Peptic ulcers may be caused by all of the following except:
a. Emotional stress and eating spicy foods
b. Bacterial infection with Helicobacter pylori
c. Malignant tumors in the stomach or pancreas
d. Long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDS)

What’s New

Pharmacy shelves are filled with medicines that come directly or indirectly
from nature, but nearly all need some processing to yield safe and effective drugs.
Doctors prescribe medicine to people to help them feel better or to make illnesses go
away. Grown-ups can buy some medicines in a store without a doctor’s permission.
These kinds of medicines usually make people feel better when they are sick or hurt.
Another word for medicine is “drug.” When taken the right way, these kinds of drugs
help people. But some drugs are illegal. This means that it's against the law to use
them because they're very bad for your mind and body.

Activity 1.

Direction: List down five types of medicines found in your medicine cabinet and give
their functions.
Medicine Function/Uses

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 What is It

We can define a drug as any

chemical that brings about a change in
biologic function through its chemical
actions.
Any substance or drug can act
either as an agonist or
an antagonist. An agonist is a substance
that acts as an activator, or promotes
activity of a specific regulatory system or
body process. An antagonist is a
substance that acts as an inhibitor,
having the opposite effect to the agonist.
But wait, what do these drugs act on? Drugs act on a regulator molecule,
known as a receptor, which literally receives the agonist or antagonist molecule, and
sends the signal to the body system it regulates, changing it to the liking of the
agonist (activate) or antagonist (inhibit).
A drug must have certain characteristics that make it appropriate for
interacting with a receptor, and each receptor is very specific, only responding to a
very specific drug. Furthermore, in pharmacology, a drug must also be easily
delivered to a patient.
Thus, drugs that are artificially delivered to patients must have the following
characteristics in order to be an effective pharmacological drug:
1. The drug must have a very specific size, shape, atomic configuration and
electrical charge to be able to interact with the receptor.
2. A drug must have the necessary properties to travel to its site of action or
receptor from its site of administration.
3. It must be easily inactivated or excreted from the body once it has been used
for its purpose.

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 These drugs can either be synthesized
within the body, in which case they are
called hormones, or chemically
synthesized outside the body.
Of these drugs, poisons are drugs with
harmful effects; HOWEVER, any drug or
hormone in extremely high amounts
can have harmful effects and thus,
function as a poison. Of these poisons,
toxins are poisons that are biologically
synthesized.

Characteristics of Drugs:

Physical and Chemical Nature of Drugs

Any drug given to the body can either be a solid (eg. aspirin), liquid (eg.
ethanol) or gas (nitrous oxide). What is the importance of this physical nature? The
physical nature of the drug determines how the drug is administered to the body.

Drug Size

The drug size must high enough to be unique to a receptor (this determines
the lower limit of drug size, 100 Molecular Weight (MW) – a drug ideally should not
be lower than this), All drugs must be able to carry out diffusion to move to the
compartments in which they are needed. If the drug size is too large, then there is no
way for the drug to diffuse into compartments, and the ability to diffuse decreases.
Small drugs are able to fit through the small pores and into compartments where
they can be used. Larger drugs just can’t fit.
Three base units are commonly used for metric measurement of medications
to indicate weight (or mass), volume, and length: gram (g), liter (L), and meter (m)
Drug Reactivity and Drug Bonds

Drug-receptor bonds are of 3 major types:

▪ Covalent

Covalent bonds, as you know, are very strong bonds that are not readily broken.
An example of a drug that uses a covalent mechanism of action is aspirin, which
forms a covalent bond with its target enzyme, cyclooxygenase.
Aspirin works in two ways: An anti-inflammatory drug for pain relief and anti-
inflammation, by preventing production of the cyclooxygenase produced substance,
prostaglandins.

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 ▪ Electrostatic

▪ This is a much more common type of bond in drug-receptor

interactions, and is weaker than the covalent bonds.
▪ They can either be:

▪ Relatively strong ionic linkages between permanently charged

molecules (eg. electrostatic interaction between Na+ and Cl-).
▪ Weaker hydrogen bonds that occur in highly polar molecules.

▪ Very weak induced dipole interactions such as Van Der Waals

forces.
▪ Hydrophobic

▪ These bonds are quite weak.

▪ Usually found in the interactions between highly lipid-soluble drugs

and lipids in the cell membranes.
The strength of the drug-receptor bond determines the specificity of the drug.
Drugs that bond via weak interactions usually are more specific, simply because only
one particular type of receptor can be able to bind it and thus induce its effect.
Another side effect of using a weakly reactive drug is that the drug cannot remain
bound for very long, and thus has only short acting effects.
Thus, to summarize, if we wish to have a specific, short-acting effect, a drug with
low reactivity is ideal. If we wish to have a broad acting, powerful and long-lasting effect
(think aspirin, as discussed above), we use drugs with higher reactivity.
Classifications of medicines

● Prescription-Only Medicine (POM) - has to be prescribed by a doctor or other

authorized health professional and it has to be dispensed from a pharmacy or
from another specifically licensed place; Examples of prescription-only
medicines include virtually all antibiotics and medicines for treating high
blood pressure.
● Pharmacy (P) - an intermediate level of control, can be bought only from
pharmacies and under a pharmacist’s supervision; examples of pharmacy
medicines include tablets for emergency contraception and medicines
containing codeine for treating pain that is not relieved by aspirin, ibuprofen
or paracetamol alone.
● Over-the-counter medicines

‘Over-the-counter (OTC) medicines’ covers all general sale medicines and

pharmacy medicines. The description conveniently distinguishes medicines
that can be bought from those that must be prescribed. General sale
medicines are taken for common, easily recognized ailments which usually
last around 2–3 days. These medicines cause few troublesome side effects in
normal use. Examples of general sale medicines include small packs of
painkillers and of antihistamines for allergies.

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● Therapeutic classification

This type of classification describes the clinical purpose, or the physiological

change induced by the drug, and does not describe anything about the way
the drug achieves this change. A large percentage of these categories begin
with the prefix “anti”, because anti means “against”, and these categories
describe the condition that the drug is working against. There are
antipsychotics, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antinauseants, and so
forth. Some of their functions are immediately apparent from the name, while
others require a little more background information. Of course there are other
classes that don’t begin with this prefix. Decongestants, hallucinogens,
sedatives, stimulants.
● Pharmacological classification

Describes the specific thing that the drug does on the molecular level in order
to elicit the desired physiological effect. Again focusing on the heart and blood
vessels, calcium channel blockers quite literally block calcium channels in the
heart, which are protein channels in the membranes of cells that regulate the
passage of calcium ions in and out of the cell.
Therapeutic medicines Pharmacological medicines
Bisacodyl Diazepam
Losartan Ondansetron
Celecoxib Rosuvastatin
Ibuprofen Rituximab
Aspirin Benazepril
Naproxen Captopril
Diclofenac Enalapril

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 What’s More

Activity 1

Direction: Match the word with the proper definition.

Pharmacy (P) OTC medicines Toxins Antagonist

Drug Hormones Receptor

Agonist Poison Prescription only medicine

Definitions:

1. chemical that brings about a change in biologic function through its

chemical actions
2. promotes activity of a specific regulatory system or body process.
3. a substance that acts as an inhibitor
4. chemically synthesized outside the body

5. any drug or hormone in extremely high amounts can have harmful effects
6. poisons that are biologically synthesized
7. prescribed by a doctor or other authorized health professional and it has to
be dispensed from a pharmacy or from another specifically licensed place
8. can be bought only from pharmacies and under a pharmacist’s supervision
9. general sale medicines and pharmacy medicines
10.receives the agonist or antagonist molecule, and sends the signal to the body
system it regulates

Assessment 1

Guide Questions:

1. What is the difference between therapeutic and pharmacological

classification of drugs?
2. What are the three characteristics of an effective pharmacological drug?
3. Enumerate at least three examples each classification and give their uses.

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Activity 2

Direction: Read the following items carefully. Determine if the statement is TRUE or
FALSE.

1. The upper limit for drug size is 1000MW.

2. Drugs with high MW need to be administered directly into the
compartment where they will be used.
4. Pharmacokinetics is the study of the effects of the drugs on the body.
5. The strongest type of drug-receptor interaction is the covalent bond.
6. Smaller drugs with lower MWs are worse able to diffuse across to
areas where they are used.
7. Ionic bonds are weaker than hydrophobic bonds.
8. A short acting, specific drug would be a drug with hydrophobic bonds.
9. Aspirin has broadly affecting, long lasting effects that are anti-
inflammatory only.
10. The strength of the drug-receptor bond determines the specificity of
the drug.
11. The drug must have a very specific size, shape, atomic configuration
and electrical charge to be able to interact with the receptor.

Assessment 2

Guide Questions:

1. What are the three (3) major types of drug receptor bonds?
2. How are drugs administered?
3. Differentiate agonist from antagonist drug.

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Activity 3

Direction: Classify the following medicines as Prescription-Only Medicine (POM),

Pharmacy (P) or Over-the-counter medicines.
Generic Name Brand Name

● Ibuprofen (advil)
● Loratadine (claritine, cetirizine)
● Multivitamins (Enervon C)
● Chloramphenicol –eye drops (tobrex)
● Amoxicillin (amoxil)
● Magnesium hydroxide (kremil s)
● Loperamide (imodium)
● Clotrimazole (canesten, candiben)
● Losartan potassium (HBP) (cozaar)
● Ketoconazole (nizoral)
● Paracetamol (biogesic)
● Metformin (diabetes) (glumet)

Prescription-Only Pharmacy medicine Over-the-counter

Medicine (POM) (P) medicines

Find one (1) sample product for POM, one (1) sample product for P and one (1) sample product for
OTC medicine present in your household. Paste the package below.

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 What I Have Learned

List the differences and similarities between prescription and over-the-counter

(OTC) medicines. Next, list what both types of medicines have in common. Below is
a Venn diagram where you can list
VENN DIAGRAM

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 What I Can Do
Select two drugs that you want to learn more about. Then answer the
questions on this worksheet:

Questions Drug 1 Drug 2

1. How is this drug

consumed?

2. What category of
drug is this? How
do you know?

3. What parts of the

body does this drug
affect?

4. How can this drug

affect one's
behavior and long-
term health?

5. What are the short-

termrisks
associated while
taking this drug?
6. What factors could
change the way this
drug interacts with
the body?
7. What is the
addiction risk of the
drug you are
researching (Low,
moderate, high)

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 Additional Activities

Imagine that you are a doctor, physician assistant or nurse practitioner. Your
patient has a condition that requires her to keep constant levels of a medication in
her body, but she is unable to swallow. She needs to take her medication at least
twice a day for the rest of her life. What other method(s) can you use to administer
her medication? To ensure patient compliance and safety, the drug delivery method
must be as simple as possible.

References
Abhinav Karan (2015). Basics of Pharmacology I – Characteristics of Drugs.
Accessed February 1, 2021 The Art of Medicine
https://theartofmed.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/introduction-to-
pharmacology-i-characteristics-of-drugs/

Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS): The Centre for Addiction
and Mental Health regularly release information about student drug use in
Ontario, Accessed February 2, 2021
http://www.camh.ca/en/research/news_and_publications/ontario-student-
drug-use-and-health-survey/Pages/default.aspx

John W. Hill, Doris K. Kolb, Terry W. McCreary “Chemistry for Changing Times.
Accessed February 3, 2021

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