Drug effects control

Saussurea Cappa Clarke. The root contains saussurine i which, according to Prasad, accounts for the effect of the drug in controlling attacks of bronchial asthma, especially of the vagotonic type. ((1) Ghosh, Chatterjee and Dutta, J. Ind. Chem. Soc., 1929, 6, 517 (2) Ind. J. Pharm., 1945, 7, 81.)... 

Usually fairly high concentrations of such a drug are needed for effective control of an infection because the inhibitor (the false substrate) should occupy as many active centers as possible, and also because the natural substrate will probably have a greater affinity for the enzyme. Thus the equilibrium must be influenced and, by using a high concentration of the false substrate, the false substrate-enzyme complex can be made to predominate. The bacteria, deprived of a normal metabolic process, cannot grow and multiply. Now the body s defense mechanisms can take over and destroy them. 

The therapeutic drug effect is achieved and the infection is controlled. 

The expected outcomes of the patient may include an optimal response to therapy, which includes control of die infectious process or prophylaxis of bacterial infection, an absence of adverse drug effects, and an understanding of and compliance with die prescribed treatment regimen. 

The most common adverse reaction associated with phenobarbital is sedation, which can range from mild sleepiness or drowsiness to somnolence. These dru > may also cause nausea, vomiting, constipation, bradycardia, hypoventilation, skin rash, headache fever, and diarrhea Agitation, rather than sedation, may occur in some patients. Some of these adverse effects may be reduced or eliminated as therapy continues. Occasionally, a slight dosage reduction, without reducing the ability of the drug to control the seizures, will reduce or eliminate some of these adverse reactions. 

In 58 percent of cases, symptomatic treatment with Valium, pheno-barbital, or paregoric, for a period ranging from 2 to 14 days, was required to control drug effects. However, in 42 percent of the cases, symptoms were successfully managed with more conserva-... 

There is yet another possibility. The general assumption is that the effect of a drug adds to the placebo effect, so that the total improvement that patients experience is the drug effect in addition to the placebo effect. This assumption is implicit in the design of placebo-controlled clinical trials, in which the drug effect is assessed as the difference between the response to the drug and the response to the placebo. Anne Harrington, an historian of science at Harvard University and the London School of Economics, calls it the oil-and-water hypothesis. 

The formulation of timed-release medicines is based on the specific response of polymeric coatings to their chemical environment. The chemical packaging of these medicines determines the precise conditions for effective control and sustained dosage of these drugs. 

---