Chemistry in Everyday Life

16.11

Either of the following forces can be involved in holding the drugs to the active sites of enzymes: -

(i) Ionic bonding

(ii) Hydrogen bonding

(iii) Dipole? dipole interaction

(iv) Van there Waals force

16.10 

The use of chemicals for therapeutic effect is called chemotherapy.

For example: the use of chemicals in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases like cancer etc.

16.10 

A medicine has the tendency to bind to more than one receptor site. Thus, a medicine may be toxic for some receptor sites. Further, in most cases, medicines cause harmful effects when taken in higher doses than recommended. As a result, medicines may be poisonous in such cases. Hence, medicines should not be taken without consulting doctors.

16.9

The macromolecules that are chosen as drug targets are carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids.

16.8 

In medicinal chemistry, drug targets refer to the specific key molecules involved in certain metabolic pathways that result in specific diseases. Carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids are examples of drug targets.

Drugs are chemical agents designed to inhibit these target molecules by binding with the active sites of the key molecules.

The functional group present in the molecule is:

1. Ether

2. Primary Alcoholic group

Alcohol group can recognize by the presence of –OH group present in the given organic compound and on the other hand, the ether group can be identified by the presence of R-O-R bonds where R represents the alkyl group present in the compound.

16.4 

Soaps are metallic salts of higher fatty acids such as palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid etc. The process of saponification involves the hydrolysis of an oil or fat with an alkali (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide). Oils and fats are glyceryl esters of fatty acids and may be regarded as mixed glycerides. Sodium soaps are prepared by heating the fats by sodium hydroxide.

(i) (C₁₅H₃₁COO)₃C₃H₅ – Glyceryl palmitate

(ii) (C₁₇H₃₂COO)₃C₃H₅ – Glyceryl oleate

16.2

Basically drugs can be classified in a number of ways. For example classification on basis of their chemical structure, classification on the basis of their action etc.

In the above statement, the classification is based on the pharmacological effect of drugs on the human body.

Antacids refer to those class of drugs which relieve the acidity by either reacting with the excess acid in the stomach [eg – magnesium hydroxide] or by preventing the secretion of an excess of acids by the stomach cells [eg – ranitidine].