• Question: How do tablets like paracetamol work?

    Asked by peter296 on 28 Apr 2020.
    • Photo: Louise Mc Grath

      Louise Mc Grath answered on 28 Apr 2020:

      Hi peter296.
      What another great question! Once the paracetamol dissolves in your tummy, it is absorbed into the blood stream, from there it works in 2 ways:
      1. Paracetamol works by blocking chemical messengers in the brain that tell us we have pain. This helps stop us from feeling pain.
      2. If you have a fever, the Paracetamol also affects the chemical messengers in the area of the brain that controls body temperature, and our fever will be stopped.

    • Photo: Roisin Jones

      Roisin Jones answered on 29 Apr 2020:

      Hi Peter, great question! Most drugs work by interacting with places called ‘active sites’ on receptors in our body. For example, most stimulants (things that give you more energy) work by interacting with active sites in neurons in our brain and making them produce more of the neurotransmitters (chemicals which carry messages in your brain) that make us alert (dopamine, adrenaline and serotonin). The other way stimulants can work is by blocking our brain from using neurotransmitters that tell it we’re sleepy: this is how caffeine in coffee and tea works! One of the fascinating things about paracetamol is that, even though it’s a drug that people use really often, we’re not 100% sure how it works in our bodies. At the moment, the best theory is that is works by stopping a chemical in our brains that helps us recognise pain, but research is still going on.

Comments