Losartan Pharmacology

Real Life Pharmacology - Pharmacology Education for Health Care Professionals

Eric Christianson, PharmD; Pharmacology Expert and Clinical Pharmacist

Education, Health & Fitness, Medicine

5 • 716 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2022

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode, I discuss losartan pharmacology, adverse effects, drug interactions, and appropriate monitoring.

Losartan is an ARB and can increase potassium levels. Keep an eye out for medications like spironolactone and trimethoprim which can increase this risk further.

Losartan has been shown to lower uric acid levels which could potentially be helpful in patients with gout.

Monitoring renal function is very important with losartan. The risk of ARF goes significantly higher when used with NSAIDs or diuretics.

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,
0:05.6	and I thank you so much for listening today. Go check out Real Life Pharmacology.com.
0:11.6	Grab your free 31-page PDF on the top 200 drugs. A great resource. If you're out in practice,
0:17.9	just a quick refresher, or if you're going through pharmacy, school, nursing school, med school, or some other school that you have to take pharmacology, it's a great resource for you as well.
0:29.9	So again, real lifefarmacology.com, your free 31 page PDF on the top 200 drugs.
0:35.7	All it takes is an email to sign up and get that absolutely for free.
0:40.9	All right. So let's get into the drug of the day today and that is Lossarton. We have covered
0:47.4	ARBs in the past, but I wanted to talk about a few specifics because I have had a couple of people
0:53.0	reach out over time and ask specifically about
0:56.5	LOSARTN. So let's get into that. Brand name is COSAR and it is, I would say, probably the most
1:05.4	common ARB you're going to see. So what's an ARB? An ARB is an angiotensin receptor blocker.
1:13.2	So essentially what this drug does is it blocks the action of angiotensin 2.
1:20.6	And if you remember, angiotensin 2 is a potent vasoconstrictor.
1:26.8	So by blocking that or preventing it from binding to its receptors,
1:32.1	it's going to cause vasodilation.
1:36.3	And with vasodilation, you get a drop in blood pressure.
1:41.0	So its major and most common use is going to be the management of hypertension.
1:48.6	Now, with that said, it does have a significant number of other uses. So post-M.I. Acute Coronary
1:59.0	Syndrome, you will definitely see an ACE inhibitor or an ARB like
2:03.2	LOSARTA used in that situation.
2:06.3	Heart failure, chronic reduced ejection fraction heart failure, definitely going to see an ACE
2:14.7	or an ARB utilized there.
	...

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