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Self medication is the common practice among people in the community ,this five minute reads tries to breakdown its meaning and impact in the long run. What is self medication Self medication is an act of self prescribing and consuming medication guided by one’s view on his or her health condition without an advice from a physician commonly practiced in our communities. This behavior has been taken as a normal practice especially for health problems such as headache, fever, sore throat, gastrointestinal problems, skin disorders, respiratory problems to mention a few. Why do people self medicate? The main reason of self medication is an easy access of medications whenever one feels sick, Other reasons includes, The medicine knowledge by some people may cause them to think they know what to use even when the important examinations and tests have not been done to reach the diagnosis, The use of same medications whenever the condition seems to be similar to the previous one, Inabil
                                      GLIMPSE ON PHARMACOGENOMICS From DawaSpace. Pharmacogenomics is the study of how differences in genetic factors in different individuals affec t their response to drugs. It was commonly understood that our genetic factors play a role in how we respond to drugs, but the fact that the variations in genetic factors among individual could affect how we respond to drugs was yet to be established. The Pharmacogenetics field began when certain individual who had genetic variation in enzyme responsible for metabolizing drugs experienced abnormally severe drug reaction. The sequencing of human genome has contributed a lot to the development of this study. In 1957 the geneticist    Arno Motulsky  Published an article that highlighted the evidence that the antimalaria drug primaquine and the muscle relaxant suxamethonium chloride , possessed the adverse drug reactions that were heritable and linked to deficit in specific enzymes. Below are the scenarios in w

Captopril Triumph.

By Telesphory Wamara And Sarafina Msigwa The   deadly South American pit viper (Bothrops jararaca)  is known for its deadly venom ,it kills its prey through injection of venom, once injected in prey the venom has remarkable ability of causing high drop in blood  pressure consequently causing instant death. The venom that produces this result  solves the snake’s dietary problem promptly because it can now catch up with its immobilized victim and consume it. A few insightful scientists understanding these considerations recognized the potential value of snake venom to control malignant blood pressure if administered carefully to sufferers. The design of the antihypertensive drug captopril, a clinically important and potent reversible inhibitor of ACE, is an example of one of the early endeavors and successes of a rationally designed enzyme inhibitor, and one among of its design ideas comes from the pit viper snake venom. By about 1965 it was found that the active principles in the ven

Food Drugs interactions

 By Sarafina Msigwa and Telesphory Wamara Ever wondered why you are instructed to take or not to take a certain food while you are on a certain medication dosage?. Food has either positive or negative effects on bioavailability of a drug, on the other hand drugs also affect the way body utilizes food.  Some interactions are common or well known by people while others are not, It is important to know how these interactions occur. On this writing you are also going to see interactions of drugs with beverages and dietary supplements  While these interactions may have an advantage but in most cases they result into adverse drug reactions making it very important for physicians to provide correct and full information to the patients who should also adhere to the instructions. 1.       GRAPE FRUIT JUICE (GFJ) The grape fruit juice is one among fruit juices having interaction with almost all types of drugs. Its main effects results from its ability to change metabolism of medications by the b

Antimicrobial resistance mechanisms

By Telesphory Wamara and Sarafina Msigwa. Antimicrobial drug resistance is the acquired ability of a microorganism to resist the effects of an antimicrobial agent to which it is normally susceptible, or   we can define a resistant organism as one that will not be inhibited or killed by an antibacterial agent at concentrations of the drug achievable in the body after normal dosage. Some species are innately resistant to some families of antibiotics because they lack a susceptible target, are impermeable to or enzymatically inactivate the antibacterial agent, the Gram-negative rods with their outer membrane layer exterior to the cell wall peptidoglycan are less permeable to large molecules than Gram-positive cells.   No single antimicrobial agent inhibits all microorganisms, and some form of antimicrobial drug resistance is an inherent property of virtually all microorganisms, Several factors are associated with emergence of resistance among organisms. These factors include Widespread