**1. Introduction**

The living animals and human organisms, organs, and cells are in a good equilibrium under the normal conditions. This excellent equilibrium can be kept with a lot of regulatory mechanisms at the level of whole organisms, different organs, and different cells, which together can organize the different regulatory steps and pathways under normal conditions for the living organisms. These regulatory mechanism systems represent a wonderful world. That is the very simple explanation for that why many people do research works in these fields and they wanted to know more and more details about this wonderful world. The researchers are working in very different fields; however, all of us want to know more and more the essential and general laws of the different regulatory mechanism systems in hoping that these new observations will help us in keeping further this wonderful world in the forthcoming future.

The researcher people are biologists, bacteriologists, animal researchers, veterinary physicians, human physicians (and related specialists, like anatomists, physiologists, biochemists, pathologists, pharmacologists, basic researchers, clinicians, etc.), agricultural researchers, etc.

Basically we want to know more and more on the functions of living organisms; however, the possible approaching pathways are very different in the science; furthermore the "science" is a permanently changed process. Firstly, we try to register the reactions (answers) of the whole organism, including physical, physiological, and psychological aspects. In other words, we will see the whole organisms at the first time; however, later we want to know more on their mechanisms involved in the different "whole" reactions. Consequently, the main research tendency turned

into the microworlds from the whole organisms (e.g., biochemistry, pharmacology, etc.), and now we are at the levels just at the level a small particles of cells (like different enzymes, biochemical reactions, membrane functions, nucleic acids, and very special particles).

This book contains four (five) different excellent chapters, three of them on theories of health and diseases and one more chapter dealing with human clinical problems, which together give a nice overview on the theories of human medical practical problem.

## **2. First and second messenger systems**

The centrally and peripherally originated neural influences (mediators), different hormones, and—during the medical treatments—different drugs reach in the serum the plasma cell membranes.

The terminology of cell membrane represents a very complicated system by using this terminology. A lot of different enzymes and receptors are located in the membranes with significantly different mechanisms (functions).

The different first messengers (hormones, mediators, drugs)—if they will not be inactivated in the serum—will meet first with the cell membrane, and they will modify the regulatory mechanisms in different extents.

The so-called sodium pump has been studied widely in the physiology. This "sodium pump" system was responsible for the keeping of equilibrium between the significant concentration gradients of sodium and potassium in the serum versus intracellularly.

There was no question that this process is an energy-dependent process; however, the details were not known.

The sodium-potassium pump was discovered by Skou (in Denmark) in the 1950s, and it was proved that this sodium-potassium pump is responsible for the so-called sodium pump (1965). The sodium-potassium pump can be worked by a membrane enzyme. This enzyme is located in the membrane, splitted the mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and presence of Mg2+, Na+ and K+ , and this process can be inhibited by application of g strophantin (ouabain). Skou (Aarhus, Denmark) was awarded the Nobel Prize of Chemistry in 1997.

Later Sutherland (who received the Nobel Prize of Physiology or Medicine in 2001) discovered the existence of adenylate cyclase enzyme. This enzyme is also located in the cell membrane, and the same electrolytes are necessary for the function as in the case of membrane ATPase.

Consequently, it became clear that the mitochondrial adenosine triphosphate is a common substrate for both membrane ATPase and adenylate cyclase.

The breakdown of mitochondrial ATP by membrane ATPase is adenosine diphosphate, while adenylate cyclase is cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP). During these processes, energy will be liberated in the cells; however their extents are different from each other, namely, its value is about two times higher in the case of adenylate cyclase than in the case of membrane ATPase. The adenosine monophosphate is a common split intracellular compound after the breakdown of ADP and cAMP.

Atkinson (1968) created a formula to express the values of the actual tissue circumstances of phosphorylation/dephosphorylation by the following method: [(ATP + O.5 ADP)/(ATP + ADP + AMP)]. This value is equal to l, when all adenosine compounds are in the phosphorylate form, and this value is zero, when all adenosine compounds are in the dephosphorylated form. The application of this formula is very useful in different observation circumstances.

**3**

*Introductory Chapter: From Adenosine Triphosphate to Basic and Clinical Research in Light…*

From these very short informations, our attention has been focused in our peptic

The second messenger systems are very complicated in our days, which are out

The editor of this book is a physician (internist, gastroenterologist, clinical pharmacologist). However, before the editor would turn in the clinical works, he worked a cup of years in physiological and pharmacological (molecular and biochemical pharmacological) departments. When I met—as a physician—with the patients, I registered many difficulties in their everyday medical duties, namely, the

**3. Molecular biochemical observations in human peptic ulcer diseases**

My clinical work started in a medical department at Second Department of Medicine, University of Debrecen, Hungary (1960). I met with a lot of gastroenterological patients, who originally suffered from "classic or genuine" peptic ulcer disease (PUD) (with and without gastrointestinal (GI) bleedings). We had very limited possibilities to take diagnosis (PUD) and treatments of patients with PUD in the 1960s; however, in the forthcoming 10 years, the fiberoscopes appeared, beside the X-ray examinations. The etiological role of tissue hypoxia was suggested in the development of gastroduodenal mucosal damage in association with the increased tone (activity) of the vagus nerve. In the different European countries, the patients received atropine treatment (three times/day in doses of 0.3–0.9 orally or 0.5–1.0 mg intramuscularly for 3–4 weeks). The scopolamine was used in the USA beside the atropine. Following the medical treatment, we believed that the patients healed, or we (internists) offered further the patient to surgeons for taking

The increased gastric secretory acid secretion was believed to be in the background of PUD; however no objective method(s) was (were) in the hand of clinicians to measure the quantities of gastric acid secretion at that time. In the 1960s—near their end—different methods were established to measure gastric acid secretion (including the gastric basal acid outputs, BAO, and maximal acid output, MAO) using nasogastric tubes, and patients were given different doses of histamine or pentagastrin. Independently from the presence of these methods, practically

Many things (methods of clinical observations, modern endoscopic instruments) changed in the forthcoming time, and the basic pharmacological research produced a lot of tertiary and quaternary ammonium components (as antisecretory agents). The effects of these compounds were tested practically in animal observations, and these results were accepted by the clinicians and introduced into the medical treatment. The results differed in patients from those obtained in animal experiments, and in some cases no beneficial effect of used drug is obtained in patients. Between the years 1960 and 1970, a modern methodology was elaborated by us to objectively measure drug absorption, metabolism, excretion, serum levels of applied drugs, gastric acid secretory responses (BAO, MAO), parotid secretory responses, gastric motility, and gastric emptying. These results obtained in oral or parenteral application of different drugs offered a possibility to establish a complex clinical pharmacological methodology for parasympatholytics and for other drugs. The human clinical pharmacology developed further as produced the necessary the controlled clinical pharmacological trials of different drugs. The first step was to prove that really the different drugs have any beneficial effect of the target organ. The identification and determination of drug action ("without giving any active

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84990*

patient's treatments, and before taking of good diagnoses.

gastric surgery (partial gastrectomy or partly surgical vagotomy).

these were not used generally in the everyday medical practice.

ulcer research.

of our present work.

*Introductory Chapter: From Adenosine Triphosphate to Basic and Clinical Research in Light… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84990*

From these very short informations, our attention has been focused in our peptic ulcer research.

The second messenger systems are very complicated in our days, which are out of our present work.

The editor of this book is a physician (internist, gastroenterologist, clinical pharmacologist). However, before the editor would turn in the clinical works, he worked a cup of years in physiological and pharmacological (molecular and biochemical pharmacological) departments. When I met—as a physician—with the patients, I registered many difficulties in their everyday medical duties, namely, the patient's treatments, and before taking of good diagnoses.
