Top 200 Drugs – Medications 156-160

Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist

Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine

5 • 716 Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast! We are on the home stretch of the top 200 medications. This is meant to be a quicker refresher of some of the most important drugs you'll come across in practice. Please be sure to go search the archives at RealLifePharmacology.com if you are looking for more information on one specific medication. We have over 300 individual episodes on specific drugs!

On this episode of the Top 200 medications, we've covered the medications below.

Niaspan (niacin) is vitamin B3 and may be used in patients who fail other therapies for triglyceride management.

Uroxatral (alfuzosin) is a selective alpha-blocker that can be helpful in relieving urinary retention symptoms in BPH.

Biaxin (clarithromycin) is a macrolide antibiotic that is notorious for many drug interactions because it inhibits CYP3A4.

Zomig (zolmitriptan) is a "triptan" medication that can be used for the acute relief of migraine headaches.

Invokana (canagliflozin) was one of the first SGLT2 inhibitors invented that can be used to lower blood sugar in type 2 diabetes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. I'm your host, pharmacist, Eric Christensen.
0:05.3	Thank you so much for listening today. Continuing on, we are on drugs 156 through 160.
0:13.8	I also want to remind you guys, top 200 drugs. It's a great study guide, absolutely free PDF, 31 pages at real life pharmacology.com. Simply an email,
0:23.8	we'll get you access to that. I've highlighted a few of the most important things that you're
0:28.8	likely to see in practice, as well as on board exams, pharmacology exams, and things like that.
0:34.9	So go check that out, free resource for you. Simply an email
0:38.7	will get you access. All right. Getting into the drugs of the day today, 156, we've got
0:44.7	niacin. Brand name is Nyaspan. This drug's fallen out of favor a little bit over time here.
0:53.2	It's also known as vitamin B3, and mechanistically,
0:59.0	where this is used for therapeutic purposes other than potentially nutritional deficiency,
1:06.5	it can help lower cholesterol, and it does this by inhibiting triglyceride formation.
1:13.5	It's not totally understood how that works.
1:17.2	But if you've got a patient that's kind of resistant to other therapies,
1:21.6	or it's not working or it's not tolerable, let's say like a phenofibrate, for example,
1:26.4	is a commonly used medication for very high triglycerides.
1:29.8	If that's not working,
1:31.3	niacin may be a potential option.
1:33.3	And the dosage form, Niaspan,
1:37.2	is an extended release dosage form
1:40.4	that may be a little bit better tolerated.
1:44.8	In addition to those effects on triglycerides, it may help increase HDL.
1:51.3	That's considered the good cholesterol, where LDL is the bad cholesterol.
	...

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