|
|
|
An Introduction to First Aid Kits
To truly be prepared, you need a well-stocked, easy-to-reach first aid kit for the home, car, and when you vacation. First aid kits contain all the tools needed in any emergency. The kit may be used for a minor scrape on the knee or, more seriously,...
Clinical Hypnosis
Clinical Hypnosis Did you know that Americans spend as much out-of-pocket for holistic solutions such as hypnosis as they do for inpatient hospitalizations? The Eisenberg studies of 1991 and again in 1997 shocked the mainstream medical community...
Hepatitis
Hepatitis by Djehuty Ma'at-Ra
Hepatitis is an inflammatory condition of the liver. Hepa is
Latin for "liver" and the English suffix "itis" means
inflammation. Hepatitis is characterized by other pathologies
such as jaundice, abdominal and...
Life And Health In The Year 1000
Compared with the way things used to be, we have it so very soft
today. It's easy to take our modern conveniences for granted. We
can fill our days with leisure, bustle around in comfy autos,
work only 40 of the 168 hours in a week, chat with...
The DXA Bone Mineral Density Scan.
The Bone Density test comes in many forms. You may have seen the small machines at Health Fairs or at your local pharmacy. These devices measure bone density by ultrasound technology. It is inexpensive, portable and there is no radiation exposure....
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Antibiotics 101- What You Absolutely Need to Know
Introduction
Antibiotics are said to be the greatest contribution of modern day science helping the doctors to think beyond microorganinsms.their importance is felt much more in developing countries where the infections are prevalent. There is a mushrooming of antibiotics since last few decades because of both the need and the demand of aseptic conditions both in and out of the hospital.
What are antibiotics?
Antibiotics are chemical or biological substances either produced by microorganisms or are produced artificially to kill or inhibit the growth of other microorganisms. They are used at very low concentrations.
What are different types?
As there are innumerable antibiotics that are presently in use, different people classify them differently for e.g. those that kill or those just inhibit the action of the microorganisms, according to their chemical nature, according to the types of organisms they kill, according to the no of different types of microorganisms, their mechanism of action and so hence and so forth.
Hence sulfadiazine and others are sulfonamides while isoniazid is nicotinic acid derivatives, etc. tetracyclines are bacteriostatic while vancomycin is bactericidal.
How do they work?
Some antibiotics for e.g. penicillins inhibit the cell wall synthesis of the bacteria, some like acyclovir inhibit the DNA synthesis, some like sulfonamides interfere with the metabolism and still others like tetracyclines inhibit protein synthesis. Similarly there are many others with different mechanism of action meant to be targeted at specific function of the bacteria or virus.
Is there any need for them?
After their discovery and
then introduction into the world of medicine , initially they were used judicially but nowadays as more and more antibiotics are being developed and there has been a pressure over the physicians for an aseptic environment , these type of drugs seem to be overused. This has caused many fold problems. One problem is of toxicity that means that if the dose is much larger than expected then it may lead to accumulation in the body and may even lead to death in some cases. Second problem is of hypersensitivity, which means that certain antibiotics for e.g. penicillins can cause hypersensitive reactions in the body, which at times may be quite severe. But the most important problem and the problem, which has attracted much concern among the medical fraternity, is that of resistance. Certain microorganisms for e.g. Staphylococcus are known to get quick resistance against the antibiotics and you need to be cautious before using them blindly.
What do we mean by resistance?
By resistance we mean that a microorganism is either not responding or responding minimally to an antibiotic to which that microorganism used to respond earlier. There are numerous mechanisms by which they develop resistance and this may be making themselves impermeable to the drugs or making them inactive or mutating themselves, etc.
What is the latest research going on?
At present the latest research that is going on is to how to reduce the use of antibiotics by using them judicially so that the microbes might not fall to the prey of resistance and then be of no use to us.
About the Author
Mansi gupta writes about Antibiotics topics.
|
|
|
|
|
| National Library of Medicine - National Institutes of Health |
| Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Library of Medicine offers access to health information for consumer, patient, and physicians ... |
| www.nlm.nih.gov |
|
| Health and Medical Information produced by doctors - MedicineNet.com |
| Doctor-produced health and medical information written for you to make informed decisions about your health concerns. |
| www.medicinenet.com |
|
| Medicine in the Yahoo! Directory |
| Collection of sites for health professionals, with sections on specific disciplines, organizations, continuing education, conferences, publications, ... |
| dir.yahoo.com |
|
| MedlinePlus Health Information from the National Library of Medicine |
| Health information from the National Library of Medicine. Easy access to Medline and Health topics, medical dictionaries, directories and publications. |
| medlineplus.gov |
|
| Medicine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life ... The practice of medicine combines both science as the evidence base and art in the ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Journal Home - Nature Medicine |
| Nature Medicine has a vacancy for a Locum Assistant Editor for six months. The position involves working in all aspects of the editorial process, ... |
| www.nature.com |
|
| The New England Journal of Medicine: Research & Review Articles on ... |
| The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a weekly general medical journal that publishes new medical research findings, review articles, and editorial ... |
| content.nejm.org |
|
| eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base |
| eMedicine features up-to-date, searchable, peer-reviewed medical journals, online physician reference textbooks, and a full-text article database in 62 ... |
| www.emedicine.com |
|
| Open Directory - Health: Medicine |
| the entire directory, only in Health/Medicine. Top: Health: Medicine (11429). Description · Medical Specialties (4888); Surgery (2265) ... |
| dmoz.org |
|
| the www virtual library biosciences medicine |
| www.ohsu.edu/cliniweb/wwwvl/ - Similar pages |
|
|
| Medicine - home |
| Bimonthly journal covering the latest results in clinical investigation relevant to hospital and office practice. |
| www.md-journal.com |
|
| Institute of Medicine |
| The Institute of Medicine serves as adviser to the nation to improve health. |
| www.iom.edu |
|
| ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News |
| Medical Research News. Health news on everything from cancer to nutrition. Full-text, images, updated daily. |
| www.sciencedaily.com |
|
| Google Directory - Health > Medicine |
| Search only in Medicine Search the Web. Medicine. Health > Medicine, Go to Directory Home. Categories. Alternative Medicine (6308) Basic Sciences (66) ... |
| www.google.com |
|
| the world wide web virtual library biosciences medicine |
| www.mcb.harvard.edu/biopages/medicine.html - Similar pages |
|
|
| PLoS Medicine - A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal |
| PLoS Medicine is a peer-reviewed, international, open-access journal published ... Every issue of PLoS Medicine contains a selection of readers' responses. ... |
| medicine.plosjournals.org |
|
| Medicine On-Line - Medicine Online -The International Medical Journal |
| Medicine Online - independent and peer reviewed journal published by Priory Medical Journals - priory.com. |
| www.priory.com |
|
| Entrez PubMed |
| PubMed is a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 16 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for ... |
| www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov |
|
| Stanford University School of Medicine |
| Home Page of the Stanford University School of Medicine. |
| med.stanford.edu |
|
| Medicine OnLine |
| Meds.com offers medical information and education on cancer (lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, leukemia) and HIV / AIDS for patients, ... |
| www.meds.com |
|
|