Why drugs are administered

Abstract

We are alive due to the many physiological processes in the body that sustain life in an integrated and controlled manner. When these processes are not working adequately, care providers resort to the use of drugs to try to improve them. At other times, these physiological processes need to be reversed to reduce damage to the functions of cells, tissues, organs or systems in the body. Drugs may also be used for diagnostic reasons to determine the presence of a disease condition in a patient. Increasingly, drugs are used for non-clinical reasons to enhance a physiological process, usually in sports, to provide a competitive edge to the user. The variability in drug requirements may stem from pharmaceutical, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic differences, and all these must be taken into consideration in meeting the needs of individual patients. A database of use of drugs in a country indirectly reflects the health status and disease patterns of that country.