B2 - Treating Disease Flashcards
What effect do painkillers have?
They prevent pain, but don’t kill pathogens
What effect to cold remedies have?
Reduce how severe the symptoms are but doesn’t cure the disease
Give two examples of drugs that relieve symptoms.
Painkillers
Cold remedies
Why might it be necessary to use medicine that target the underlying cause of a disease?
The body might not be able to fight of the disease on it’s own
Give two examples of drugs that target the underlying causes of the disease
Antibiotics
Antivirals
How do medicines target the underlying causes of the disease?
The drugs kill or disable pathogens to treat or control the disease.
What are antibiotics?
Chemical that kill bacteria without killing body cells
How are many antibiotics produced?
Produced naturally by fungi and other microorganisms.
Pharmaceutical companies grow them on a large scale in a lab and extract the antibiotics.
Why might antibiotics be given to someone who doesn’t have a disease?
Some times used to prevent bacteria infections from happening.
Give an example of when a healthy person would be given antibiotics.
People in close contact with a person with bacterial meningitis may be given the antibiotic rifampin because it can prevent the spread of the disease from the infected person to them
What is the antibiotic rifampin used to prevent?
Bacterial meningitis.
Why is it difficult to produces antivirals?
Viruses use the host cells to replicate and it is hard to target the virus without damaging the cell
How are antivirals used in the treatment of disease?
They stop the virus from reproducing but don’t kill it.
What do doctors need to weigh up when deciding on what medicine to prescribe?
Potential benefits of medical against the risk and costs associated with them
What are the risk associated with prescribing medicine?
Medicines can cause adverse reactions in the body
Can all bacteria be killed with antibiotics?
So,e bacteria are naturally resistant to some antibiotics.
What is the result of the misuse of antibiotics?
Bacteria can increase the rate of development of resistant strains.
Give an example of the effects of not finishing a course of antibiotics.
If a full course of antibiotics is not completed resistant bacteria can become more common.
This is because the bacteria with the most resistance may survive the antibiotic treatment.
The resistant strains will have less competition and will be able to grow and reproduce.
Give an example of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Why does it exisit?
Overuse of antibiotics creates resistant strains of bacteria MRSA.
What do doctors have to balance when supplying antibiotics?
The welfare of the person and the welfare of other people e.g. are antibiotics necessary for a minor infection?
Explain why many antibiotics are becoming less effective as treatments for infections. (3 marks)
Many antibiotics are being misused (1 mark)
Which has cause antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria to become more common (1 mark)
This means that antibodies are less effective at killing the bacteria that causes bacteria infections (1 mark)
