Topic 3 Drugs + Flashcards
What do pain killers do
Relieve pain but don’t tackle the cause of the disease or kill pathogens
What do antibiotics do
Kill /prevent the growth of bacteria causing the problem without killing your own body cells
Different antibiotics kill different types of bacteria
Can antibiotics destroy viruses
No because viruses reproduce using body cells which makes it very difficult to develop drugs that destroy just the virus without killing body cells
How does bacteria become resistant
Bacteria can mutate and cause them to become resistant to an antibiotic
Why might bacteria become resistant
Don’t finish whole drug trail
Take drugs for the wrong thing
What happens when you treat an infection
Only non-resistant strains of bacteria will be killed
What happened to the individual resistant bacteria that survive
Will reproduce and the population of the resistant strain will increase this is an example of natural selection
What could the resistant strain cause
A serious infection that can’t be treated by antibiotics e.g. MRSA causes serious wound infections and is resistant to the powerful antibiotic meticillin
What do doctors do to slow down the rate of the development of resistant strains
Avoid over prescribing antibiotics
Where do many drugs originally come from
Plants
What do plants produce a variety of
Chemicals to defend themselves against pests and pathogens
What can some chemicals from plants be used for
As drugs to treat human diseases or relieve symptoms a lot of current medicines were discovered by studying plants used in traditional cures
What chemical is found in the Willow tree
Aspirin which is used as a painkiller and lower fever
What chemical is found in foxgloves
Digitalis is used to treat heart conditions
Some drugs are extracted from microorganisms e.g.
Penicillin which was found by Alexander Fleming who noticed somebody kills bacteria in a Petri dish
