Drugs & Medicine

• Digitalis

  • treats heart problems
  • from foxgloves
• Aspirin

  • a painkiller
  • from Willow trees
• Penicillin

  • an antibiotic
  • from mould (penicillium mould)
• Ways of preventing development of resistant strains:

  1. Finishing full course of antibiotics to kill all bacteria
  2. Stop overusing antibiotics (it unnecessarily exposes bacteria to antibiotics)
• Drug testing

  Preclinical testing,

  1. Testing on cells and tissue
  2. Testing on live animals

  Clinical testing,

  1. A small number of healthy volunteers, with a low dosage to see if there are any harmful side effects and the toxicity
  2. A small number of patients to find optimum dose
  3. A large number of patients to see any other side effects and to test the efficacy
  4. Results need to be peer reviewed by other scientists
• Double-blind testing - when neither the patient or doctor knows who is receiving the real drug and who is receiving a placebo
• Single-blind testing - when only the doctor knows whether the patient is receiving the placebo or the real drug
• Why double-blind testing is used more often?

  Reduces bias form doctor
• Placebo - a substance that is like the drug but has no actual effect of the patient, and used to control the experiment
• Drugs are tested for:

  • toxicity
  • efficacy
  • dosage
• Dosage - how much needs to be given to have an effective result
• Efficacy - how well it works
• Toxicity - how much of the drug can be taken without causing harm
• Why do results need to be peer reviewed?

  To check if the research and results are valid and how reliable they are.