The Lego® Model of Pharmacology

In understanding drugs and how they work, it can be helpful to think of the body and its atoms as a giant set of Lego® bricks[1]. A child can use Lego® bricks to make buildings, space ships, cars, etc; and the body can use its atoms to build muscles, bones, signaling molecules, etc. Moreover, just as the child can disassemble her building and then use the bricks to make a car, the body can disassemble its muscle and build bone. Of course, the car requires special bricks (e.g. wheels) which aren’t needed to make a building, and bone needs special atoms (e.g. calcium) which aren’t needed to make a muscle: the number of cars the child can make is limited by the number of wheels she has, and the amount of bone the body can make is limited by the amount of calcium available.

This last point is important. It means that if we want to regulate the number of cars that the child makes, we only need to regulate the number of wheels we allow her to use. We might do this because we have too many cars, and don’t want any more, or we might do so because we don’t have enough buildings (or space ships, or bridges) and want to conserve our bricks to make those instead of cars.

In the body, if we want to regulate the amount of bone we make, we can regulate the amount of calcium there is to make it with. We might do this because we have too much bone, and don’t want any more, or we might do so because we don’t have enough of something else, and want to conserve building materials to make, say, muscle.

Pharmacology (the science of drugs) manipulates the body by interfering with the way it uses its atoms. Continuing with the Lego analogy, drugs are the equivalent of another person adding or removing bricks to the buildings, cars, space ships, etc as they’re being built or after they’re finished; or adding or removing bricks from the box of unused bricks.

[1] Lego® is a registered trademark of the LEGO® Group of companies, which does not sponsor, authorise, or endorse this site