Pharmacology:
Definition of drug and dietary supplement, regulatory differences.
Principles of pharmacokinetics: drug absorption, bioavailability, distribution, biotransformation, induction and enzymatic inhibition, excretion.
Principles of pharmacodynamics: receptors, dose-response relationship, agonists, partial agonists, antagonists.
Factors that modify the action of drugs: age; tolerance; placebo and nocebo effects.
General concepts on interactions between drugs.
Side effects, toxicity from overdose, idiosyncratic and allergic reactions.
Teratogenesis and fetal toxicity.
Drugs used in the treatment of anorexia and bulimia.
Drugs active on gastrointestinal system (essential lines on the most
commonly used drugs such as antiulcer, antiemetics, prokinetics, laxatives).
Antidiabetic drugs.
Drug-food interactiond.
Influence of drugs on nutritional status and availability of nutrients.
Pharmaceutical botany:
The plant kingdom as a natural source of substances that can be used in different fields, among which, the dietary and therapeutic ones.
Plants currently of greatest interest in the field of nutrition and diet, with particular attention to the habitat, the geographical spread and the part of the plant used.
Particular attention will be paid to: a) plants with polysaccharides of dietary interest, for example: aloe, mallow and altea, psyllium, flax (seminal integuments), prickly pear, tamarind, carob, cassia, guar gum, calendula, polysaccharides from red algae (agar agar and carrageenan), from brown algae (alginates), the polysaccharides of the sheath of blue algae, (the most known food plants are not taken into consideration); b) spontaneous and cultivated medicinal plants; c) aspects of the cultivation of the main medicinal plants