How Drugs Work

Download or read book How Drugs Work written by Hugh McGavock and published by Radcliffe Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Primary healthcare premises are increasingly becoming more sophisticated offering health promotion minor surgery and specialist services. The acquisition of new premises expansion or investment in traditional surgeries can be the greatest financial commitment and also one of the most daunting. This book is specifically written to enable development with minimal disruption to the daily medical routine. The book contains viewpoints of specialists with many years' experience gained from working in their individual fields. It is essential reading for GPs trainees practice managers and professional advisers to general practice. Specialist architects solicitors financial advisors accountants and health authority managers will also achieve a better understanding of this complex subject.

Download or read book Magic Molecules written by Susan Aldridge and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-09-28 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All of us are drug users, in the broadest sense of the word. Drugs can be medicines, they can be used for pleasure, and they can also be used to protect our long-term health. It is important that we are well informed about the drugs we use - how they work, their benefits and their risks. This book is a unique guide for the general science reader to the drugs of everyday life - from the main types of medicine through to recreational drugs and food supplements. It looks at how drugs interact with their targets in the body, where they come from, how they are developed and what drugs to expect in the future. All the major pharmaceutical medicines are reviewed - painkillers, antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs, anti depressants, heart drugs, tranquillizers and hormones. However this book is much more than a consumer handbook - it also conveys the fascinating science of drug discovery in an easily accessible way.

Download or read book Pills, Potions, and Poisons written by T. W. Stone and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About half of all the medicines prescribed by doctors are not taken by their patients. One of the reasons most commonly given by patients for not taking drugs is that they feel unhappy about taking medicines which they do not understand and of which they are afraid. This book attempts to rectify this problem by showing in clear, non-technical language how medicines and other drugs work in the body to reduce the effects of disease. Most chapters include fascinating background information on how some of our most important drugs were discovered, along with intriguing and often amusing anecdotes about the drugs and the people behind their discovery. Each chapter also includes a summary of the key points together with illustrations, photographs or diagrams to summarise the main groups and how they work in the body. The book covers all the major groups of drugs, with complete listings of all the drugs available in the UK and the USA, so that the reader can locate his or her specific drug and read about the actions of the drugs in that group. The various chapters cover drugs used to treat high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation, ulcers, cancers, infections, impotence, incontinence, arthritis, osteoporosis, as well as hormone replacement therapy, oral contraceptives and drugs used in disorders of the brain such as schizophrenia, depression, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy. There is also a chapter on drugs which are abused such as cannabis, alcohol, nicotine and ecstasy, and a chapter covering some of the poisons we encounter, such as carbon monoxide, arsenic, sheep dip, and the venoms of snakes, spiders, scorpions and marine organisms. Here, then, a fascinating survey of how chemicals have their effects in the body. It shows how drugs work and explains why it is that taking some medicines for many years is far safer than suffering the long-term effects of disease. Pills, Potions and Poisons is an entertaining read that should also help to improve your health and quality of life.

Download or read book Therapeutics and Human Physiology written by Elsie E. Gaskell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-14 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Integrated Foundations of Pharmacy series is for those at the start of their journey to become a pharmacist. It helps students understand how a drug molecule is made and then turned into a medicine; the role they will have when dispensing; and how the medicine works in the body. Most importantly, it shows how all of these aspects come together.

Download or read book Intoxicating Minds written by Ciaran Regan and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001-07-17 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do smokers claim that the first cigarette of the day is the best? What is the biological basis behind some heavy drinkers' belief that the "hair-of-the-dog" method alleviates the effects of a hangover? Why does marijuana seem to affect ones problem-solving capacity? Intoxicating Minds is, in the author's words, "a grand excavation of drug myth." Neither extolling nor condemning drug use, it is a story of scientific and artistic achievement, war and greed, empires and religions, and lessons for the future. Ciaran Regan looks at each class of drugs, describing the historical evolution of their use, explaining how they work within the brain's neurophysiology, and outlining the basic pharmacology of those substances. From a consideration of the effect of stimulants, such as caffeine and nicotine, and the reasons and consequences of their sudden popularity in the seventeenth century, the book moves to a discussion of more modern stimulants, such as cocaine and ecstasy. In addition, Regan explains how we process memory, the nature of thought disorders, and therapies for treating depression and schizophrenia. Regan then considers psychedelic drugs and their perceived mystical properties and traces the history of placebos to ancient civilizations. Finally, Intoxicating Minds considers the physical consequences of our co-evolution with drugs—how they have altered our very being—and offers a glimpse of the brave new world of drug therapies.

Download or read book Pharmacology of Recreational Drugs written by Donald Slish and published by Cognella Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pharmacology of Recreational Drugs: The Neurology of How Drugs Work introduces readers to neurobiology and provides detailed mechanistic explanations of how drugs work. After an opening explanation of normal nerve and brain function, the text goes on to explore how various drugs change the way a person feels and sees the world. While exploring topics such as pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, addiction, cognition, opioids, alcohol, cannabis, hallucinogens, and CNS stimulants the book carefully explains connections starting at the minuscule level of a drug binding to a receptor, through to the holistic - the physiological and psychological effects of the drug on the person. Along the way students learn about the way each drug effects neurons, the role of these neurons in the brain, and the neurobiology of the drug experience. Each chapter includes multiple choice and essay questions for each. Suggestions for further reading create opportunities for extended exploration of the topics. Common-sense and approachable in style, yet comprehensive in coverage, Pharmacology of Recreational Drugs is well-suited to courses in biology, neurobiology, and health sciences, as well as those in nursing programs. It is also suitable for the novice, non-science reader and no prerequisite knowledge is required.

Download or read book The Drugs Don't Work written by Professor Dame Sally Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-09-15 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Drugs Don't Work - A Penguin Special by Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England 'If we fail to act, we are looking at an almost unthinkable scenario where antibiotics no longer work and we are cast back into the dark ages of medicine where treatable infections and injuries will kill once again' David Cameron, Prime Minister Resistance to our current range of antibiotics is the new inconvenient truth. If we don't act now, we risk the health of our parents, our children and our grandchildren. Antibiotics add, on average, twenty years to our lives. For over seventy years, since the manufacture of penicillin in 1943, we have survived extraordinary operations and life-threatening infections. We are so familiar with these wonder drugs that we take them for granted. The truth is that we have been abusing them: as patients, as doctors, as travellers, in our food. No new class of antibacterial has been discovered for twenty six years and the bugs are fighting back. If we do not take responsibility now, in a few decades we may start dying from the most commonplace of operations and ailments that can today be treated easily. This short book, which will be enjoyed by readers of An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore and Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre, will be the subject of a TEDex talk given by Professor Dame Sally Davies at the Royal Albert Hall. Professor Dame Sally C. Davies is the Chief Medical Officer for England and the first woman to hold the post. As CMO she is the independent advisor to the Government on medical matters with particular interest in Public Health and Research. She holds a number of international advisory positions and is an Emeritus Professor at Imperial College. Dr Jonathan Grant is a Principal Research Fellow and former President at RAND Europe, a not-for-profit public policy research institute. His main research interests are on health R&D policy and the use of research and evidence in policymaking. He was formerly Head of Policy at The Wellcome Trust. He received his PhD from the Faculty of Medicine, University of London, and his B.Sc. (Econ) from the London School of Economics. Professor Mike Catchpole is an internationally recognized expert in infectious diseases and the Director of Infectious Disease Surveillance and Control at Public Health England. He has coordinated many national infectious disease outbreak investigations and is an advisor to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. He is also a visiting professor at Imperial College.