Fighting disease - Drugs

Question 1

What are the 2 ways that drugs can deal with disease

Answer 1

1) They can heal the disease

2) They can relieve the symptoms of the disease

Question 2

What do painkillers do

Answer 2

Relieve of a disease however they don’t actually tackle the cause of the disease or kill pathogens, They just help relieve the symptoms

Question 3

Give 2 examples of painkillers

Answer 3

• Aspirin

- Cold remedies

Question 4

What do antibiotics do

Answer 4

They kill or prevent the growth of the bacteria causing the problem.

Question 5

Do all antibiotics do the same thing

Answer 5

No, different antibiotics kill different types of bacteria so it’s important to be treated with the right one

Question 6

Give one example of an antibiotic

Answer 6

Penicillin

Question 7

What is one of the hardest pathogen to destroy

Answer 7

A virus

Question 8

Why is a virus so hard to kill

Answer 8

Viruses reproduce using your body’s cells which make it very hard to kill the virus without killing your bodies cells as well

Question 9

What has the use of antibiotics greatly reduced

Answer 9

The amount of deaths from communicable disease

Question 10

What do bacteria do that makes them insusceptible to antibiotics

Answer 10

They can mutate and the mutations sometimes cause them to become insusceptible to antibiotics

Question 11

How does a strain of bacteria with only a few bacteria who are resistant to are resistant to antibiotics become a strain of bacteria where every single bacteria is resistant

Answer 11

If somebody is infected with a strain of bacteria where only a few bacteria are resistant and the rest are not and the person takes antibiotics, the antibiotics will kill the unresistant bacteria leaving only the resistant bacteria. The resistant bacteria would reproduce and eventually a new bacteria strain would be formed only containing resistant bacteria

Question 12

Give an example of a resistant strain of bacteria that cannot be treated by antibiotics

Answer 12

MRSA that causes serious wound infections and is resistant to the most powerful antibiotic - meticillin

Question 13

What can doctors do to slow down the rate of development of resistant strains of bacteria

Answer 13

The doctors must avoid over prescribing antibiotics

Question 14

What can patients do to slow down the rate of development of resistant stains of bacteria

Answer 14

Finnish the whole prescribed curse of antibiotics and not just stop when they feel better

Question 15

What do many drug come from

Answer 15

plants

Question 16

Why do plants produce drugs

Answer 16

They produce a variety of chemicals to defend themselves against pests and pathogens and some of these chemicals can be used in drugs

Question 17

What is aspirin

Answer 17

A painkiller used to lower fever

Question 18

What plant does aspirin come from

Answer 18

A willow

Question 19

What is digitalis

Answer 19

A drug used to treat heart conditions

Question 20

What plant does digitalis come from

Answer 20

Foxglove

Question 21

Who discovered antibiotics

Answer 21

Sir Alexander Fleming

Question 22

How did Sir Alexander Fleming discover antibiotics

Answer 22

He was cleaning out Perti dishes containing bacteria when he noticed that one of the dishes also had mould on it and the area around the mould was free of bacteria.

Question 23

What did Sir Alexander Fleming seeing that the area around the mould was free of bacteria help him to discover

Answer 23

That bacteria mould was producing a substance that kills bacteria. This substance was called bacteria

Question 24

How are drugs made these days

Answer 24

They are made on a large scale in the pharmaceutical industry and they are synthesised by chemists in labs. But processes might still start with a chemical extracted from a plant