Fighting Disease-Drugs

Question 1

What do drugs do?

Answer 1

Some drugs just relieve symptoms of the disease, while others cure the problem.

Question 2

Examples of drugs used and how they function:

Answer 2

PAINKILLERS - help to relieve pain but they don’t actually tackle the cause of the disease or kill pathogens. ANTIBIOTICS - antibiotics actually kill the bacteria causing the problem without killing your own body cells. Different antibiotics kill different types of bacteria. Antibiotics don’t destroy VIRUSES.

Question 3

Cons of antibiotics:

Answer 3

-Bacteria can mutate - sometimes the mutations cause them to be resistant to (not killed by) an antibiotic.
-When you treat the infection, only the non-resistant strains of bacteria will be killed.
-The individual resistant bacteria will survive and reproduce, and the population of the resistant strain will increase. This is an example of natural selection.
-Resistant strains can cause a serious infection that can’t be treated by antibiotics.

Question 4

Where did drugs originally come from?

Answer 4

Many drugs originally came from plants