Medicine Newbie: Epinephrine (Adrenaline)

Saturday, 6 July 2013

Epinephrine (Adrenaline)

Lipid mobilization.
Glycogenolysis is stimulated by epinephrine and/or norepinephrine.
Epinephrine (or adrenaline or adrenalin) is a hormone and a neurotransmitter.
Epinephrine has many functions in the body: regulating heart rate, blood vessel and air passage diameters, and metabolic shifts.
Epinephrine release is a crucial component of the fight-or-flight response of the sympathetic nervous system.
Epinephrine is one of a group of monoamines called the catecholamines.
Adrenaline is used to treat a number of conditions including: cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis, and superficial bleeding.
It has been used historically for bronchospasm and hypoglycemia.
Newer treatments for bronchospasm and hypoglycaemia, such as salbutamol, a synthetic epinephrine derivative, and dextrose, respectively, are currently preferred.
Adrenaline is also used as a bronchodilator for asthma if specific β2 agonists are unavailable or ineffective.
Adrenaline is used as a drug to treat cardiac arrest and other cardiac dysrhythmias resulting in diminished or absent cardiac output. Its actions are to increase peripheral resistance via α1receptor-dependent vasoconstriction and to increase cardiac output via its binding to β1 receptors.
Due to its vasoconstrictive effects, adrenaline is the drug of choice for treating anaphylaxis. Allergy patients undergoing immunotherapy may receive an adrenaline rinse before the allergen extract is administered, thus reducing the immune response to the administered allergen.
Adrenaline is added to injectable forms of a number of local anesthetics, such as bupivacaine and lidocaine, as a vasoconstrictor to slow the absorption and, therefore, prolong the action of the anesthetic agent. Due to epinephrine's vasoconstricting abilities, the use of epinephrine in localized anesthetics also helps to diminish the total blood loss the patient sustains during minor surgical procedures.