2. How drugs work

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Les Iversen
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Drug Use ◽  
Drug Interactions ◽  
Metabolic Rates ◽  
Substance Addiction ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Molecular Action ◽  
Specific Proteins ◽  
Effective Doses ◽  
In Cells

‘How drugs work’ outlines the basic mechanisms of pharmacology. Drugs are chemicals that can be naturally occurring or man-made, and which can be administered in a variety of ways. They can act on receptors—often highly specific proteins in cells which can up-regulate or down-regulate processes—or on other targets, such as DNA or enzymes. The molecular action of drugs can be investigated in a lab, but the effects on the whole organism are more important. Effective doses need to be determined, taking into account metabolic rates, drug interactions, and side effects. Prolonged drug use can cause tolerance and substance addiction.

scholarly journals Exploring the use of cannabis as a substitute for prescription drugs in a convenience sample

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sinikka L. Kvamme ◽  
Michael M. Pedersen ◽  
Kristine Rømer Thomsen ◽  
Birgitte Thylstrup
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Drug Use ◽  
Prescription Drug ◽  
Prescription Drugs ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Patient Organizations ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Prescription Drug Use ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background The use of cannabis as medicine (CaM) both prescribed and non-prescribed has increased markedly in the last decade, mirrored in a global shift in cannabis policy towards a more permissive stance. There is some evidence that cannabis functions as a substitute for prescription drugs, particularly opioids; however, more knowledge is needed on the motives of substitution users, their patterns of use, and perceived effects of substitution use. Aims To explore who substitutes prescription drugs with cannabis, the type of prescription drugs substituted and the type of cannabis used, and the impact that substitution with cannabis has on prescription drug use as well as the motives for substitution in terms of experienced effects and side effects. Methods A self-selected convenience sample was recruited through social media, public media, and patient organizations to take part in an anonymous online survey. Inclusion criteria were 18 years or older and use of cannabis (prescribed or non-prescribed) with a medical purpose. Results The final sample included 2.841 respondents of which the majority (91%) used non-prescribed cannabis, and more than half (54.6%) had used CaM with the purpose of replacing a prescribed drug. Compared to non-substitution users, substitution users were more likely to be women and to use CaM in the treatment of chronic pain and other somatic conditions. Pain medication (67.2%), antidepressants (24.5%), and arthritis medication (20.7%) were the most common types of drugs replaced with CaM. Among substitution users, 38.1% reported termination of prescription drug use, and 45.9% a substantial decrease in prescription drug use. The most frequent type of cannabis used as a substitute was CBD-oil (65.2%), followed by ‘hash, pot or skunk’ (36.6%). More than half (65.8%) found CaM much more effective compared to prescription drugs, and 85.5% that the side effects associated with prescription drug use were much worse compared to use of CaM. Conclusion CaM is frequently used as a substitute for prescription drugs, particularly opioids. More research is needed on the long-term consequences of use of CaM, including the impact from low and high THC cannabis products on specific somatic and mental health conditions.

Practical prescribing

1987 ◽  
Vol 25 (20) ◽  
pp. 80-80
Author(s):  
Martin J Brodie ◽  
Ian Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Drug Interactions ◽  
Shelf Life ◽  
Text Book ◽  
The Third ◽  
New Drug ◽  
Making Choices ◽  
Treatment Policies ◽  
Accessible Form

This book is a practical manual for the prescriber rather than a text book. The first chapter usefully explains pharmacological terms which are used later in the book. This is followed by three sections concerned with choosing drugs. The first section gives a list of ‘best buys’ for common complaints, the second looks at treatment policies and the third gives basic pharmacological information to help in making choices. Side-effects and drug interactions are presented in the next two chapters in a readily accessible form. The final chapter, called ‘Cautions,’ has some useful information not readily found elsewhere including data on teratogenesis and shelf-life of formulations. It also suggests which drugs we should stop using, and discusses factors to consider before using a new drug.

scholarly journals Update on therapy for superficial mycoses: review article part I

2013 ◽  
Vol 88 (5) ◽  
pp. 764-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Fernanda Reis Gavazzoni Dias ◽  
Maria Victoria Pinto Quaresma-Santos ◽  
Fred Bernardes-Filho ◽  
Adriana Gutstein da Fonseca Amorim ◽  
Regina Casz Schechtman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Drug Interactions ◽  
Fungal Infections ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Practical Approach ◽  
Superficial Mycoses ◽  
World Markets ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right ◽  
Therapeutic Alternatives

Superficial fungal infections of the hair, skin and nails are a major cause of morbidity in the world. Choosing the right treatment is not always simple because of the possibility of drug interactions and side effects. The first part of the article discusses the main treatments for superficial mycoses - keratophytoses, dermatophytosis, candidiasis, with a practical approach to the most commonly-used topical and systemic drugs , referring also to their dosage and duration of use. Promising new, antifungal therapeutic alternatives are also highlighted, as well as available options on the Brazilian and world markets.

scholarly journals The importance of psychological messages and the “questionbehavior effect” about remdesivir

2021 ◽  
pp. 124-126
Author(s):  
Aloisio Antonio Gomes de Matos ◽  
Séphora Natércia Albuquerque Oliveira ◽  
Modesto Leite Rolim Neto
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Side Effects ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Drug Interactions ◽  
Healthcare Providers ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Scientific Basis ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
The World

Background: The FDA has been requiring that information about using remdesivir to treat COVID-19 be made available to healthcare providers and patients, including dosing instructions, potential side effects, and drug interactions. It is important to observe the initial indicators of anxiety, fear, and euphoria for families during emergencies, including information on the possible side effects. This situational context is very important in all the world, because it opens doors for providing the use of updated information about treatment follow-up and for offering improved mental health services. Method: The studies were identified in well-known international journals found in two electronic databases: Scopus and Embase. The data were cross-checked with information from the main international newspapers. Results: The high expectations supported by an immediate discourse culminate in frustration and displeasure, while more consistent empirical results are not generated. These two are predictors of psychic suffering, especially due to the scarcity of information and uncertainties. In parallel, recent studies indicate that spreading information without scientific basis intensifies damage to the routine and health of people, which are already impacted by the pandemic situation. This misrepresented spread may be a factor for unleashing fear and, as a consequence, social despair. Conclusions: Based on the impulsive scenarios stimulated in the context of hydroxychloroquine and on the high spread of fake or distorted news, the psychiatric impacts of COVID-19 pandemic associated with the use of remdesivir may be worsened and reflected directly on the population’s self-esteem.

scholarly journals Engineering Highly Homogenous Tetravalent IgGs with Enhanced Sperm Agglutination Potency

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhawana Shrestha ◽  
Alison Schaefer ◽  
Elizabeth C. Chavez ◽  
Alexander J. Kopp ◽  
Timothy M. Jacobs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Hormonal Contraception ◽  
Infertile Woman ◽  
Exogenous Hormones ◽  
Infertile Women ◽  
Unintended Pregnancies ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Promising Strategy ◽  
Sperm Antibodies

AbstractMillions of women avoid using available contraceptives and risk unintended pregnancies every year, due to perceived and/or real side-effects associated with the use of exogenous hormones. Naturally occurring anti-sperm antibodies can prevent fertilization in immune infertile women by limiting sperm permeation through mucus, particularly multivalent antibodies such as sIgA that offers robust agglutination potencies. Unfortunately, sIgA remains challenging to produce in large quantities and easily aggregates. Here, we designed two tetravalent anti-sperm IgGs with a Fab domain previously isolated from an immune infertile woman. Both constructs possess at least 4-fold greater agglutination potency and induced much more rapid sperm agglutination than the parent IgG while exhibiting comparable production yields and identical thermostability as the parent IgG. These tetravalent IgGs offer promise for non-hormonal contraception and underscore the multimerization of IgG as a promising strategy to improve existing mAb therapeutics.

scholarly journals Modeling Polypharmacy Side Effects with Graph Convolutional Networks

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marinka Zitnik ◽  
Monica Agrawal ◽  
Jure Leskovec
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Drug Interactions ◽  
Protein Interactions ◽  
Side Effect ◽  
Population Data ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Mortality And Morbidity ◽  
Convolutional Networks ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
Complex Relationships

AbstractMotivation: The use of drug combinations, termed polypharmacy, is common to treat patients with complex diseases or co-existing conditions. However, a major consequence of polypharmacy is a much higher risk of adverse side effects for the patient. Polypharmacy side effects emerge because of drug-drug interactions, in which activity of one drug may change, favorably or unfavorably, if taken with another drug. The knowledge of drug interactions is often limited because these complex relationships are rare, and are usually not observed in relatively small clinical testing. Discovering polypharmacy side effects thus remains an important challenge with significant implications for patient mortality and morbidity.Results: Here, we present Decagon, an approach for modeling polypharmacy side effects. The approach constructs a multimodal graph of protein-protein interactions, drug-protein target interactions, and the polypharmacy side effects, which are represented as drug-drug interactions, where each side effect is an edge of a different type. Decagon is developed specifically to handle such multimodal graphs with a large number of edge types. Our approach develops a new graph convolutional neural network for multirelational link prediction in multimodal networks. Unlike approaches limited to predicting simple drug-drug interaction values, Decagon can predict the exact side effect, if any, through which a given drug combination manifests clinically. Decagon accurately predicts polypharmacy side effects, outperforming baselines by up to 69%. We find that it automatically learns representations of side effects indicative of co-occurrence of polypharmacy in patients. Furthermore, Decagon models particularly well polypharmacy side effects that have a strong molecular basis, while on predominantly non-molecular side effects, it achieves good performance because of effective sharing of model parameters across edge types. Decagon opens up opportunities to use large pharmacogenomic and patient population data to flag and prioritize polypharmacy side effects for follow-up analysis via formal pharmacological studies.Availability: Source code and preprocessed datasets are at: http://snap.stanford.edu/decagon.Contact:[email protected]

scholarly journals Statement of the Committee of Human Nutrition Science of the Polish Academy of Sciences on the use of dietary supplements containing vitamins and minerals by adults

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agata Wawrzyniak ◽  
Katarzyna Przybyłowicz ◽  
Lidia Wądołowska ◽  
Jadwiga Charzewska ◽  
Danuta Górecka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
General Population ◽  
Dietary Supplements ◽  
Dietary Supplementation ◽  
Dietary Recommendations ◽  
Nutrition Science ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Usual Diet

The use of dietary supplements (supplementation) is the individual enrichment of the diet with ingredients naturally occurring in food. As a rule, dietary supplements should be used periodically. In nutritional practice, there are many indications for dietary supplementation, but the decision to take dietary supplements should be made by consumers wisely and only in justified situations, when there is a risk that the usual diet does not provide vitamins and minerals in an amount adequate to meet dietary recommendations. However, we should remember about the real dangers of taking too large doses of vitamins and minerals. Many people using dietary supplements, especially several types at the same time, may experience undesirable side effects and deterioration of health, and in addition, people taking medicines may seriously disrupt or weaken the effect of the drug, or even lack the therapeutic effect of the drug. The document presents 10 steps and rules for the use of dietary supplements available on the market, which are addressed to the general population.

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