drugs

• some drugs relieve symptoms others cure the problem
• painkillers are drugs that relieve pain yet they dont tackle the cause of disease or kill pathogens - just reduce symptoms
• antibotics kill or prevent growth of the bacteria causing the infection without killing your own body cells - different antibiotic kill different bacteria
• antibiotics wont kill viruses as viruses reproduce using your own body cells so its difficult to develop a drug that will only destroy the virus and not the cell its in
• bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics by mutating and they can be become resistant
• if you have a infection some of the bacteria may be resistant to antibiotics meaning when you treat the infection only the non-resistant strains will be killed
• many drugs originally come from plants
• plants produce a variety of chemicals to defend themselves against pests and pathogens - some of these chemicals can be used to treat diseases or symptoms in humans. now drugs are mainly created in pharmaceutical industry
• a new drug is tested on animals first then healthy volunteers, if it works well enough it goes into clinical trials with patients who have the disease being treated
• clinical trial involves testing the drug on people with the condition to see how effective it is at treating them
• the drug is given to more and more people until there is evidence that it does work but also has minimal side effects
• clinical trial involves testing the drug on people with the disease to see how effective it is at treating them without causing side effects
• the drug is approved for use once all tests show it is safe and effective
• the drug must go through many tests to make sure that it is safe and effective