Hey all, welcome back to the Real Life Pharmacology podcast. I'm your host, pharmacist, Eric Christensen.

Thank you so much for listening today. Go check out Real Life Pharmacology.com.

I've got a great resource on there, absolutely free. Top 200 drugs. A little study guide.

It's a 31-page PDF. Simply an email, subscribing to the podcast email list.

We also get you updates on when we've got new podcasts available and other content.

And with that email, you can get access at no cost to you to that top 200 study guide.

So no-brainer, definitely to have that, whether you're out in practice

or preparing to become a health care professional. The drug of the day today is Valcertain.

Brand name of this medication is Diavan. And in clinical practice, I will say I see this drug

quite a bit still. It is an ARB, so that's an angiotensin receptor

blocker. So think of ARBs and ACE inhibitors like Lysenopro, very similar. Major difference

being mechanism of action and adverse effects are the big differences there.

And we'll obviously get into that a little bit.

So mechanistically, being an angiotensin receptor blocker, what's the big deal with that?

Well, angiotensin 2 actually binds to angiotensin receptors.

And when that happens, you get vasoconstriction.

So vessels tighten up, which causes an elevation in blood pressure.

Okay.

It also causes aldosterone secretion as well when angiotensin 2 as part of angiotensin 2's activity.

Also, one other thing I wanted to mention, ARBs have less Brady-Kinen effects compared to

ACE inhibitors.

So that's where we get less of the risk of cough adverse effects.

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