Aprepitant (Emend) - Because puking sucks

• given to people after an operation or when they going through chemo to decrease their chances of puking their guts out or feeling like they are going to
• people vomit in these situations because the drugs that have been given are detected in the blood by an area of the brain called the chemoreceptor trigger zone, which perceives them as being toxic substances and signals the appropriate parts of your body to cause you to upchuck
• stops the barfing by antagonizing effects mediated by substance P
• substance P is a peptide that whoever discovered it apparently couldn't bother to give it an actual name
• honestly, even a boring name like, oh, I dunno, aprepitant would have been fine
• substance P likes to bind to a type of receptor called neurokinin 1 in the brain and make you hurl
• generally used in conjunction with serotonin receptor antagonists, which are better at arresting the anti-digesting
  

Herrstedt J, Dombernowsky P. Anti-emetic therapy in cancer chemotherapy: current status. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2007 Sep;101(3):143-50. Review.