Articles

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Since ancient man first discovered the therapeutic (or otherwise) use of plants, drugs have evolved from simple leaf concoctions to complex synthetic chemicals that modern man uses to treat ailments. The following are some of the greatest drugs that man has come up with.

Penicillin

1. Penicillin.
This most common of drugs is probably the most underrated. Its discovery is generally credited to Alexander Fleming of Scotland, who in 1928 demonstrated that by letting penicillium notatum grow in the proper substrate, it gives off material that has antibiotic properties. He called it penicillin. His discovery won him a Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1945.
The Australian Howard Walter Florey, however, is the one who gets credit for developing penicillin as an antibiotic. Florey shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine along with his colleague Ernest Chain the same year Fleming did.

2. Anti-cancer drugs.
Cancer is still the number one cause of death worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, 84 million people will die from cancer from 2005 to 2015. Chemotherapy or the treatment of the disease of cancer with the use of drugs helps prevent, and in some cases. cure the afflicted. Chemotherapy drugs obstruct the division of cancer cells by duplicating DNA or separating chromosomes that have just developed.

3. Influenza vaccine.
Up to 41,000 deaths every year in the US alone, according to the National Institute of Health, and half a million deaths worldwide annually, according to the World Health Organization, are staggering figures. The numbers would be greater if not for the invention of flu vaccine. Traditionally, the flu vaccine is cultured in fertilized chicken eggs with the use of three types of potentially threatening flu strains.

4. Rifampicin and Isoniazid.
Tuberculosis (TB) used to kill 1.7 million people worldwide every year. The anti-TB drugs Rifampicin and Isoniazid keep the numbers in check. Since 2005, with the help of these drugs, TB mortality rates have slowly decreased. According to WHO, these rates in 2005, dropped by 2.6 percent the following year.

Antiretroviral drugs

5. Antiretroviral drugs.
Earvin “Magic” Johnson still alive 17 years after being infected with the fatal
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is proof enough of the effectiveness of these drugs.
Antiretroviral drugs are used to treat retroviral infections, mainly HIV. Usually, three to four of these drugs are ingested together – a method called highly-active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).

6. Prozac.
Prozac is only the third most-prescribed antidepressant in the United States but it far outstrips other drugs of its kind in the world. It was first introduced to the public in 1988. Since then, about 35 million individuals have used it. Zoloft and Lexapro sell more than Prozac in the US but they have not captured the imagination of the public like Prozac has.

7. Statins.
Statins are drugs that reduce levels of cholesterol in persons who are in danger of cardiovascular disease or are already suffering from it. Statins are the most powerful cholesterol-lowering chemicals that have been discovered so far. It has been estimated that people who use them have 60-percent less chances of suffering from heart attacks and 17 percent less chance of suffering from a stroke. They are sold under the brand names Lipitor, Crestor, Torvast, Lescol, Zocor, and Simcor, among many others.

8. Human rabies immunoglobulin (HRIG).
An estimated 55,000 people around the world each year die from rabies (acute encephalitis or brain inflammation). The numbers would be much greater if not for the vaccine human rabies immunoglobulin (HRIG). Post-exposure prophylaxis (P.E.P.) is a type of treatment a person who has been exposed to rabies should undergo. If dispensed within a 10-day period upon infection, HRIG’s success rate in prevention of the disease is very high.

9. Ritalin.
When simple corporal punishment and psychotherapy will not do, parents have resorted to this drug to treat children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. Commonly known by the brand name Ritalin, methylphenidate (MPH) is a psychostimulant that almost five million kids take everyday. It is also used to treat depression and obesity.

Steroids

10. Steroids.
It has gained a very negative reputation among the public, but steroids are medically used to treat a wide range of conditions like anemia, osteoporosis, breast cancer, pituitary problems, chronic wasting, and many others. It is the unabated abuse of steroids by athletes and those who simply want to have more muscles fast without having to lift weights and eat the proper diet that has given steroids a bad name.

No related posts.