Medicine and Drugs Flashcards
What is a drug?
A chemical that affects the way the body works in some way, or the body’s chemistry.
Briefly outline the four main stages carried out by scientists when a new drug is devised, to make sure they are safe for humans to use.
1) Laboratory trials, using cells, tissues
2) If the drug seems to work it is then tested on live animals.
3) Clinical trials, first only involving healthy volunteers that could recover from possible side effects, to see if the drug is safe
4) Then finally the drug is tested on patients
What three things are new drugs tested for?
Toxicity (whether or not they are harmful to humans)
Effectiveness,( how well/quickly they work)
Dose (what amount/concentration is safest/works best)
Briefly outline the three main stages in the process of a clinical trial.
1) Very low doses are given to healthy people to see if the drug is safe.
2) Then the drug is tested on patients, some are given a placebo.
3) If found to be safe, further trials conclude what dose is best.
In some trials with patients placebos are used, what is a placebo?
What is the “placebo effect”?
A pill that appears to contain a certain drug, but actually just contains sugar.
When somebody takes a placebo, thinking it is a drug, and begins to feel better due to their belief in the treatment.
How and why are placebos used in clinical trials?
What is a double blind trial?
Placebos are given to some patients without them knowing because it provides a control variable, i.e. whether the effects produced by the real drugs are actually a result of the placebo effect or not.
A double-blind trial is when neither the doctors nor the patients know who receives what until the end of the trial
What are statins used for?
What have trials found about the incidence of heart disease and strokes?
Lowering the risk of heart and circulatory diseases by lowering the amount of bad cholesterol in the blood.
Have gone down by over 40%.
What is thalidomide?
What happened to many mothers who used thalidomide to relieve their morning sickness?
Why could this have happened?
What two things have happened after thalidomide was found to have such adverse side-effects?
What has thalidomide recently been used to treat?
A drug, originally developed as a sleeping pill that was found to relieve morning sickness in pregnant women.
Their babies were born with severe limb abnormalities.
The drug was not tested for use in pregnant women.
It was banned
Drug testing has become more rigorous
Recently used to treat leprosy and other diseases
What is a recreational drug?
Name two legal recreational drugs.
Recreational drugs are drugs used by people for pleasure.
Alcohol and nicotine
Name two illegal drugs that are very addictive and explain what a user will suffer from if they try to stop taking these drugs.
Heroin and Cocaine
They will suffer withdrawal symptoms, because they become dependent on the drugs.
Why is cannabis thought to be dangerous enough to be illegal (in some countries)?
Why do some people argue cannabis is a gateway drug?
What is the relationship between cannabis and heroin users?
It contains chemicals which may possibly cause mental illness in some people.
Some argue that it is a gateway drug, and that using it can lead to the use of ‘harder’ drugs, because people have to buy cannabis illegally which forces them to get into contact with dealers. Dealers often introduce people to new, ‘harder’ drugs.
Not all cannabis users go on to use hard drugs, however nearly all heroin users previously smoked cannabis.
What are the differences between illegal drugs and legal drugs on society?
Legal drugs have a much greater impact because many more people use them, and they often have medical benefits.
However illegal drugs are often a lot more dangerous to use.
How does addiction/dependence come about in the body?
Give three examples of very addictive drugs.
Addiction comes about in the body when a drug changes the body’s chemical processes, so that someone taking the drug may suffer withdrawal symptoms if they do not use it regulalry
Heroin, nicotine and cocaine
What drugs might athletes use drugs to enhance their performance? What do these drugs do?
How are they stopped from using them?
Stimulants to boost bodily functions such as heart rate.
Anabolic steroids to stimulate muscle growth
Many are illegal (such as anabolic steroids), some are legally available only by prescription, and all of them are totally banned by sporting regulations because it is unfair
St John’s wort is what type of substance and what is it used to treat?
What is St John’s wort used instead of?
St John’s wort is a herb sometimes taken to treat depression.
It is used instead of anti-depressants such as prozac.
