For many years, medicines and drugs have been developed to treat many different illnesses. Vaccinations have been made to treat wide epidemics, like small pox, and most recently the H1N1 virus. Over-the-counter drugs have been produced to help reduce acid reflux and swelling. Even with these discoveries, there is still more drugs that have yet to be made to treat diseases like cancer and AID’s. When pharmacists study medicine and drugs, it’s important for the scientists to understand how drugs are used to help with the functioning of the body.
Microorganisms attack billions of humans and animals bodies everyday. These microorganisms are known as invaders. These invaders cause the body to respond as different lines of defense. Examples of non-specific defense mechanisms are the skin, mucus, white blood cells, and blood clotting which defend invaders. Examples of specific defense mechanisms are antibodies and memory cells.
Another phrase for medicine and drugs is pharmaceutical products. These products include different types of medicines and drugs. A drug is “a chemical that affects how the body works” (Brown). A drug will change the body if negative or positive ways. Drugs like heroin and cocaine could essentially harm the body. A medicine is “a substance that improves health” (Brown). Medicines usually have a therapeutic effect to the body because they are beneficial drugs. In general, “medicine or drug is any chemical that alters the physiological state, including consciousness, activity level or coordination, incoming sensory sensations, or moods and emotions” (“Option”). The placebo effect is a controversial topic that has been used as a therapeutic drug that isn’t really drug. The patient believes they are taking a usef...
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This paper discusses pharmacology and terminology related to “Pharmacology” which is the branch of medicine concerned with the uses, effects, and modes of action of drugs“ pharmacology. 2015. In Merriam-Webster.com. The study of different classes of drugs, routes of absorption, and drugs have effects on those consuming them. There are drugs that are necessary for illnesses and healing but, there are medicines that cause concern regarding interaction and harming the body.
Aspirin has grown so much in popularity that about 35,000 metric tons of it is produced and consumed each year to meet the consumer’s demand. 35,000 metric tons is equivalent to 100 billion standard aspirin tablets (10). That many tablets means that the market for aspirin is very good. Today, Aspirin is known as the leading non-prescription medicine of all time. It is the most common pill taken for pain, inflammation and fever. It has grown all over the world, being made available in eighty countries (9). It would not be surprising if one day, all the countries would have aspirin available to them.
Typically, almost everyone in the world has taken drugs at some point in their life. Whether it be over the counter medication or prescription drugs. People get sick, they have illness, allegories, sexually transmitted diseases or other aches and pains. As you may already know, there is medication for each aforementioned problem. This is called drug use, which is using drugs for its intended purpose. However, the real dilemma happens when people began to misuse and abuse drugs.
What if you found out the medicine your doctor has been giving you wasn’t proven to make you feel any better but you did get better. This is the placebo effect.
A placebo is a medicine or other kind of treatment that seems therapeutic, but in reality is inert and pharmacological inactive (2). The placebo effect is "a change in a patient's illness attributable to the symbolic import of a treatment rather than a specific pharmacologic or physiologic property" (3). Note that a placebo is not even necessary to result in a placebo effect.
If the placebo effect is used on common conditions that are associated with the over the counter drugs, people will most likely stop damaging their livers just because they have a headache, fever, feeling sore, and even as pain relievers. There has been a study on cough medicines being related to the placebo effect. “The major benefit of cough medicines for treatment of cough associated with common cold is related to the placebo effect rather than the pharmacological effect of an active ingredient” (Freeman). The researches have finally concluded that, “the idea is developed that a sweet taste may modulate cough at the level of the nucleus tractus solitaries, possibly by influencing the production of endogenous opioids.” In this study it is shown that the medicines effectiveness for the cough was around the same effectiveness as the ones with the placebo effect. Some key factors that help the results of the placebo effect become effective in this study are “the healer-patient interaction, cultural beliefs about traditional treatments, the environment in which the medicine is administered, the properties of the medicine such as taste, color and smell, advertising and claims made about the efficacy of the medicine, the brand name of the medicine,
Cancer in one way or another touches all of us, whether as a patient or through the diagnosis of the people you love around you. Millions of patients who are faced with cancer are depending on oncologists everywhere to cure cancer so others will not suffer like they had to. Optimistically, sooner rather than later this international problem will come to an end. There are a number of drug companies that have been coming out with cancer treatment drugs. “Oncology has been one of the hottest and most active therapeutic areas for drug development, drug makers may want to take note of a finding that new cancer drugs have proven far more difficult to gain approval than medicines for infectious and autoimmune diseases.” (nature.com) Unfortunately, these drugs cannot cure the cancer but it sure makes it a load easier o...
Within the in the bodies immune system there are two lines of defense. The first line of defenser being is the non-specific innate immunity. Non-specific immunity repels all microorganisms equally (John H. Humphrey, 2014). The second line of defense is the immune response. The immune response goes after specific invaders. Each line of defense works differently but together they work to keep the body health, and clear of pathogens that are harmfull. The body takes chronological steps to maintain its defenses. The first step being the first line defense. These can include the mucus membranes and the skin. Next is the second line of defense, these come from the non-specific defense sytem. Once pathogens pass through the first line of defense the second line of defense responds in turn through processes of inflammatory response and fever. If both the first and second defenses are incapable of containing the pathogen then a third line of defense is activated. The third line of defense being a specific immune response. Specific pathogens are attacked through the specific immune response by the process of B-cell production of antibodies, which attack the virus or bacteria in extra-cellular fluid (Martini & Nath, 2009). Lastly T-cells proceed to kill the infected cells. The T-cell as well as the B-cell can both be located in the lymph nodes of the
Medicine plays an eminent role in healing and treating illnesses and dates back to ancient times where people would use herbs, oils, massage, and other natural means to heal their sicknesses. Medicine has evolved and pills, vaccines, and conventional forms of cancer treatment, are common within the medical industry. Now, the medical industry relies heavily on pharmaceutical drugs to treat their patients’ illnesses and diseases, but many of the drugs cause a great number of side effects and can even do more harm than good. This has sparked my interest in finding ways to cure illnesses with an alternative to conventional medicine without the harmful side effects. Realizing I am in my late teens, and I am free to change my mind, the professional
30). These inactive substances are administered by a health care professional as if it were any other active medication. The purpose of a placebo fluctuates depending on the situation given. However, for the most part, placebos are given in order to achieve a desired treatment in which a pharmacological agent could have reached the same outcome. This is done, usually, without the patient knowing that the ‘medication’ has no actual pharmacological properties. Asai and Kadooka (2012), further break down the definition of a placebo into two categories. There is a pure placebo and an impure placebo. A pure placebo is made of substances with no known clinical use. An impure placebo is composed of substances that are not made to treat that patient’s condition, but another condition. Barnhill (2012), adds one more type of placebo to the list. Joining sugar pills and active drugs that are effective for a different disease, are active drugs that are administered at too low of a dose to be effective. All of these can be considered placebos and are occasionally given without the patient’s
Prescription drugs become America's new legal drug abuse problem. 1.) The U.S. Makes up 5% if the world's population, yet consumes more than 75% of the own world's prescription drugs, and more people thought that since it is pre-scripted by doctors, it won't be as harmful to take as much as they want a day. 2.) 50 Million people in the U.S. age of 12 and over, have used prescription drugs non-medically in their lifetime. 3.) According to pharmaceutical industries, it rakes about billions of dollars per year producing drugs to treat symptoms, like how the pharmacy, Big Pharma, raked $711 billion. This article is important because it talks about different people's experience with prescription drugs and how pharmacies are getting paid chunks
There is not one concrete definition of a placebo. Placebos are fake medical treatments disguised as, for example, as a pill, a shot, ointments, or even fake surgery that is inactive and truly does nothing at all (Moerman). In the past, placebos such as sugar pills or vitamins were prescribed to please a patient requesting medication if the physician did not believe any real treatment was necessary. People in the medical community began to realize that patient’s symptoms were getting significantly better even when there was no chemical, biomedical or time-related reason. This changed physician’s belief that the improvement supposedly caused by a placebo pill was all in their patient’s head to believing that the patients min...
Drugs are chemical that change the way a person body work. There is various form of drugs, such as tablet, capsules, ointment, implant device, transdermal system, and many more. Drug are classified in two ways Preparation and Therapeutic action. Therapeutic action involves in treating, relieving, or obtaining results through the action of the medication.
Over the centuries, several treatment methods have been utilized by humans for remedy diseases when they caught. Two of them are modern medicine and traditional medicine. Traditional medicine, which is also called alternative treatment, is older than modern medicine. This effective treatment had been used for many centuries before modern medicine was found. On the contrary, modern medicine has been used since the 1900’s (Lyons). In this system, drugs’ tests are carefully done in the safe laboratories, and their side effects are identified before they are given to the patient. Moreover, the effects of the pills are written on the leaflets which are found in the drug packages to warn the patients for these effects. However, sometimes the side effects are not blocked, so people have to take another pill to get better. It makes people take more chemicals into their bodies. Even traditional medicine, give its place to the modern medicine when its beginning times, it is used efficaciously like modern medicine at the present time. In course of time, people will gain reliance on traditional medicine again, since alternative medicine is more efficient and powerful in order to get better and soothe the diseases than modern medicine. In fact, in traditional medicine, there are fewer drugs, side effects, holistic therapy that people can be availed.
Drugs are chemicals that change the way a person's body or mind works. Drugs are not good for health as they have many side effects and damage our brain, heart and other important organs. Drug is a depressant that slows down the functions of the central nervous system and makes us less aware of the events around us. I...