55
votes
What is the benefit of fever during infections?
Fever is a trait observed in warm and cold-blooded vertebrates that has been conserved for hundreds of millions of years (Evans, 2015).
Elevated body temperature stimulates the body's immune ...
- 51.8k
44
votes
Accepted
Are drugs made bitter artificially to prevent being mistaken for candy?
Short answer
A bittering agent may be applied to therapeuticals to prevent pediatric poisonings, but many drugs inherently taste bitter by themselves.
Background
Bitter taste is thought to have ...
- 51.8k
35
votes
Accepted
Why do animal cells "mistake" rubidium ions for potassium ions?
There are multiple biological mechanisms that can be brought to bear for distinguishing between atoms. In addition to binding properties (e.g., ionic charge, electronegativity, bond strength), there ...
- 6,967
34
votes
Accepted
Why are vaccines for polio taken orally while vaccines for TB need to be injected?
There are different polio vaccines - one live (attenuated) vaccine which is given orally and one inactivated, which is injected. The main reason for using the live orally vaccine is that it provides ...
- 51.1k
25
votes
Accepted
Why are drug dosages so high in some mice studies?
Mice are simply different from humans; they have different metabolism, different lifespan, different body size.
Generally, for a first order approximation, one might scale simply by body weight to ...
- 40.1k
21
votes
Accepted
Is cancer caused by vitamin B17 deficiency?
Short Answer: No.
Background: First of all, there is no such thing as vitamin B17. The compound, amygdalin or laetrile, which is referred to by this term, is not a vitamin1. Amygdalin is indeed a ...
16
votes
Accepted
How does methamphetamine (meth) damage neurons?
Nice question! I will directly begin with the process through which methamphetamine causes damage to neurons, putting in as much details as are known, and adding appropriate citations wherever ...
15
votes
Accepted
Does homeopathic or herbal treatment of cancer have any scientific recognition?
The methodology behind homeopathy is scientific nonsense. If you dilute anything a billion times, it will have no chemical effect, not even if you shake it all the while. So no, homeopathy does ...
- 5,080
15
votes
Accepted
How does aspirin "thin" blood?
Aspirine irreversibly inhibits the enzyme cyclooxygenase. This enzyme facilitates the reaction from arachidonic acid to prostaglandin G2/H2. The further reaction leads to the generation of Thromboxane ...
- 51.1k
15
votes
How do you calculate the time until the steady-state of a drug?
Here's a short simulation that show the process. You can find more about how to simulate a half decay process here
You can notice that the first dose of 40 mg should decay to 20 mg in 30 hours, but ...
- 677
14
votes
Is cancer caused by vitamin B17 deficiency?
Short version: This is nonsense, cancer does not arise from nutritional deficiencies.
Long version: The substance is called Amygdalin, a poisonous cyanogenic glycoside. It can be found in higher ...
- 51.1k
14
votes
Accepted
Meaning of "acute LSD"
In the abstract they refer to "acute LSD administration" (emphasis mine), and in the next section of the results after the one you mention in your question, they clarify it as "Acute ...
- 15.2k
13
votes
Accepted
Why is insulin given in type 2 diabetes?
Isn't it illogical to give more of insulin for a deficit amount of receptors?
Seems like there is some confusion in the definition of type-2 DM itself. According ...
12
votes
Accepted
What is "irrational" drug/molecule design?
"Irrational" design in these papers refers to combinatorial mutagenesis, which is put forward as the alternative to "rational" protein design.
Rational design involves using existing information ...
- 8,206
11
votes
How do you calculate the time until the steady-state of a drug?
heracho's answer does a good job showing the realistic timing. However you can do a pretty good approximation with a simple differential equation, where you approximate the daily dose as a continuous ...
- 211
10
votes
Does one wing of fly contain harmful microbes and the other contain only antibodies?
Does one wing of fly contain harmful microbes and the other contain
only antibodies?
False.
A healthy microdose of skepticism is all you would ever need here. It's just a silly attempt to prove a ...
- 6,124
9
votes
Accepted
By what mechanism does Risperidone swell breast tissue?
Risperidone prevents dopamine from acting on the pituitary gland by blocking dopamine type 2 receptors. One of dopamine's effects on the pituitary is to suppress prolactin production. In patients ...
- 1,771
9
votes
Accepted
Does inhaling glue (glue sniffing) reduce appetite?
Short answer
Various inhalants, most notably organic solvents including those used in paint and glue suppress appetite.
Background
From the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse I learned the following: ...
- 51.8k
9
votes
Why is insulin given in type 2 diabetes?
This is true for the beginning of the disease. As a reaction to the reduced sensitivity of the cells in the body to insulin (and thus less uptake of glucose from the blood and a resulting ...
- 51.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Relationship between toxicity of drugs and negative effects on brain
Short answer
The causes of death after heroin, cocain or cannabis overdose are mainly due to cardiac and respiratory arrest, and not to neurotoxic effects.
Background
The cause of death after a ...
- 51.8k
8
votes
Accepted
Do spinal cord reflexes (such as the knee-jerk reflex) continue to function under general anaesthesia?
The issue is complicated. In general it depends on the specific spinal reflex and on the specific anaesthetic. But it seems that the modern general anaesthetics usually do NOT block monosynaptic ...
- 301
8
votes
Accepted
How does Tylenol relieve pain without making me drowsy?
Opiate pain killers or pain killers that act on opioid receptors have a different mechanism of action than NSAIDs. They tend to act as receptor agonists which exert their effect on the CNS (oxycodone ...
- 8,081
8
votes
Accepted
Does LSD "stay" in your fat storage and then "returns" back?
I've heard this rumor for years, both from pro- and anti-drug people, and it is not true. According to this review of LSD's pharmacology, its half-life in the body is about 5 hours, with it being ...
- 15.2k
8
votes
How do you calculate the time until the steady-state of a drug?
Let's take a moment to think about what it means for a drug dosed multiple times to reach "steady-state": "steady-state" would mean that it doesn't matter much if you've been ...
- 40.1k
7
votes
What is the benefit of fever during infections?
Fever normally under hypothalamic heat center's control which stays at limbic system of brain . Hypothalamus sets its own set point 36.4-37.2 in healthy peoples by some molecules named exogenous and ...
- 91
7
votes
Accepted
Can controlled dose of Codeine improve brain's functionality?
the first time you take them you will feel better, think sharper, and
act better
You are probably thinking of amphetamines, not opiates. Militaries have used amphetamines for just that purpose for ...
- 40.1k
7
votes
Accepted
What is the motivation behind fluorinated pharmaceuticals?
Fluorine has a combination of unique chemical properties, which makes it very useful in drug design :
It is small, such that replacing a C-H with a C-F is often possible, from a sterical point of ...
- 1,135
7
votes
Accepted
Humans have Cannabinoid receptors. Does that mean we're meant to consume cannabis?
Receptors
Any drug or compound with specific effects has a receptor. You can read about this general concept in Goodman and Gillman's The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. Chapter 1 introduces ...
- 8,731
7
votes
Accepted
Why don't anti-viral drugs like "Acyclovir" work against coronaviruses?
Aciclovir specifically targets HSV-family viruses.
It is metabolized by a viral-specific enzyme into an inhibitor of the specific DNA polymerase expressed by the virus:
in infected cells, HSV or ...
- 40.1k
6
votes
Do spinal cord reflexes (such as the knee-jerk reflex) continue to function under general anaesthesia?
From an animal-experimentation perspective, the absence of functional reflex arches are often used to assess adequate anesthetic depth. For example, in rodents a toe-pinch is often used to assess ...
- 51.8k
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