Preview

Drugs Igcse

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1362 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Drugs Igcse
DRUGS

A drug is a chemical substance taken into the body that modifies or affects chemical reactions in the body.

Generally, drugs are developed for medical use.

Without drugs, people would live much shorter lives or suffer greater pain.

All drugs are dangerous when misused.

ANTIBIOTICS

[pic]

What are Antibiotics?

a chemical substance , produced by a microorganism (bacterium or fungus) which will inhibit the growth or replication of other microorganisms.

• Effective antibiotics show selective toxicity – killing or disabling pathogens without harming host cells.

• Wide range to treat fungal and bacterial infections.

• Antibiotics are not effective against viruses.

MECHANISMS OF ANTIBIOTIC ACTION

• interfere with making of bacterial cell walls:

eg., penicillin

Weaken bacterial cell walls. Walls made of

chains of peptidoglycan molecules. Penicillin

prevents linking of peptidoglycan molecules.

Cell wall becomes weak, bacterium bursts

(lysis).

• Do not act on viruses.

No form of cellular structure- no cell walls

or cell organelles.

[pic]

PRESCRIPTION OF AN antibiotic

• Usually a doctor faced with a patient who needs immediate treatment makes an educated guess at what is causing the infection and what antibiotic is needed so that treatment can start right away.

• Necessary to test which antibiotics the microorganism is sensitive to.

• Place discs soaked in different antibiotics onto agar jelly on which the bacterium is growing.

• If a clear area of a certain diameter appears around the disc the antibiotic is effective.

[pic]

[pic]

Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Are:

Bacteria mutate and are able to resist the antibiotics that are meant to kill them.

This is a normal process speeded up by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics.

THE MORE WE USE ANTIBIOTICS THE MORE SELECTION PRESSURE WE PUT ON BACTERIA TO EVOLVE RESISTANCE.

HEROIN

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    BIO 104 Chapter 3

    • 7229 Words
    • 29 Pages

    Today, more than 90% of Staphyloccocus aureus strains are resistant to the antibiotic that once conquered this common microbe. (For more on antibiotic-resistant bacteria, see Chapter 14.) Today, more than 90% of Staphylococcus aureus strains are resistant to the antibiotic that once conquered this common microbe. Because of the alarming growth in antibioticresistant superbugs, drug companies and researchers are trying to develop new antibiotics. One strategy they employ is to tweak the chemical structure of existing antibiotics just enough that a bacterium cannot disable it.…

    • 7229 Words
    • 29 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bio 102: Study Guide

    • 1681 Words
    • 7 Pages

    14) An antibiotic kills 99.9% of a bacterial population. You would expect the next generation of bacteria 14) to be more resilient and adaptive to the antibiotic…

    • 1681 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Antibiotic Sensitivity

    • 255 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Describe three mechanisms by microbes might become resistant to the action of an antimicrobial drug?…

    • 255 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ap Biology Unit 9 Essay

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Antibiotic resistance occurs when an antibiotic can no longer control or stop bacterial growth. The danger this antibiotic resistance poses, is that resistant bacteria can quickly spread between people, causing strains of infectious disease that are very difficult to cure and more expensive to…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nmd-1 Research Paper

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Large doses of antibiotics could have wiped out competitor bacteria, paving the way for a resistant bacteria strain.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why are sexually transmitted diseases more likely to affect females to a greater extent than males?…

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Society is fed the idea that in order to be healthy, one must consume or use these antibacterial or antibiotic products prophylactically. Antibacterial products are ideally used to protect oneself from the so called “harmful bacteria,” when in reality the products “kill susceptible bacteria and promote the growth of resistant strains” (Levy 1998b, 48). Society is producing the opposite of their desired results, and in the long run cause bacteria to become more resistant and abundant due to their lack of competition. What needs to be taking into consideration is the issue that these products are not only killing bacteria they deemed harmful, but also those susceptible bacteria that are helpful and…

    • 1997 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The capacity for quick change among disease-causing microbes is what makes them so dangerous to large numbers of people and so difficult and expensive to treat. They leap from wildlife or domestic animals into humans, adapting to new circumstances as they go. Their inherent variability allows them to find new ways of evading and defeating human immune systems. By natural selection they acquire resistance to drugs that should kill them. They evolve. There's no better or more immediate evidence supporting the Darwinian theory than this process of forced transformation among our inimical germs. Take the common bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, which lurks in hospitals and causes serious infections, especially among surgery patients. Penicillin, becoming available in 1943, proved almost miraculously effective in fighting staphylococcus infections. Its deployment marked a new phase in the old war between humans and disease microbes, a phase in which humans invent new killer drugs and microbes find new ways to be unkillable. The supreme potency of penicillin didn't last long. The first resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus were reported in 1947. A newer staph-killing drug, methicillin, came into use during the 1960s, but methicillin-resistant strains appeared soon, and by the 1980s those strains were widespread. Vancomycin became the next great weapon against staph, and the first vancomycin-resistant strain emerged in 2002. These antibioticresistant strains represent an evolutionary series, not much different in principle from the fossil series tracing horse evolution from Hyracotherium to Equus. They make evolution a very practical problem by adding expense, as well as misery and danger, to the challenge of coping with staph. The…

    • 4616 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Antibiotic resistance is when bacteria become immune to the effects of an antibiotic. This occurs because of two reasons. The first reason is the overuse of antibiotics while the second is due to the fact that “bacteria naturally develop resistance to antimicrobial drugs.” (Clemmitt, 2007) One example of a “super bug” is the ever so popularly known- MRSA. MRSA stands for methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus. (cdc.gov, 2007 as cited by Clemmitt, 2007) MRSA has two different kinds- CA-MRSA is community acquired MRSA and HA-MRSA which is hospital acquired MRSA. (Clemmitt, 2007)…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Antibiotic resistance results from bacteria changing in ways that make those antibiotics no longer useful.…

    • 267 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Most people, especially parents, expect for physicians to administer antibiotics whenever they or their children contract an illness. Antibiotics are thought to be fast acting and a guarantee cure. When an antibiotic does not kill the entire infection it is targeting this would be considered a misuse of the drug.…

    • 306 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The consequences of the antibiotic crisis can be slowed down or even stopped, but only if aggressive steps are taken and are actually followed.…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    An antimicrobial is a substance that kills or inhibits the growth of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, or protozoans (Antimicrobial). Antimicrobial drugs either kill microbes or prevent the growth of microbes. Disinfectants are antimicrobial substances used on non-living objects or outside the body.…

    • 2567 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Overuse and misuse of antibiotics over the years has caused bacteria to grow resistant. Therefore, scientists have to work hard to…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    action research paper

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In pharmacology, a drug is "a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being."[3] Drugs may be prescribed for a limited duration, or on a regular basis for chronic disorders.[4]…

    • 1427 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics