Medicine

Key Stage 4

A symbol used to represent medicine.

Meaning

Medicine is any treatment, including drugs which can improve the health of an organism or prevent an organism from becoming unhealthy.

About Medicine

All medicine has some side effects as it changes the way the body works.

When taking medicine it is important to decide whether the side effects are worse than the disease you are attempting to treat.

Medicines must go through a strict process of testing to prove they work and are safe before they can be given to the general public. Anything that has not been proven to work or has been proved not to work is called Alternative Medicine.

Some common medicine types you may have heard of:

Vaccines - Prevent infection by some pathogens.
Pain Killers - Can reduce or eliminate pain.
Antibiotics - Weaken pathogenic bacteria when you have an infection.
Antihistamines - They reduce the symptoms of hayfever.

Medicine Development

New medicine goes through several stages of testing before it is made legal to use on patients.

Discovery - Thousands of chemicals are identified which could be used to treat a disease. Only some are found to be suitable.
Preclinical Trials - A potential medicine is tested on tissues grown in a lab or on animals to determine a medicinal effect, before using it on humans.
Clinical Trials - A potential medicine is tested on humans to see if it is safe and if it works.
- Stage 1 - The potential medicine is tested in small doses on healthy volunteers. This is done as a double blind trial using a placebo.
- Stage 2 - The potential medicine is tested on small numbers of patients with the disease. This is done as a double blind trial using a placebo.
- Stage 3 - The potential medicine is tested on large numbers of patients in different doses to find the optimum dose.
Licencing - The new medicine is reviewed for safety and if it passes the review can be prescribed by doctors.