Over-the-Counter Chemistry 1st Edition – PDF/EPUB Version Downloadable

Hundreds of years of biochemical and medical research have brought us to the point in which we basically have a drug (to treat the symptoms but not always cure) for almost every ailment we can think off. This book does not intend to engage in an ethical discussion of the development and use of prescription (and some non-prescription) drugs. Instead, it aims to provide a relatively simple description of the chemistry of different drugs and their modes of action in our organism. This book attempts to answer, from a chemical point of view, the following questions: What are drugs? How do drugs work? What are “side effects” of drugs? Why do drugs have side effects? How can these side effects be lessened or avoided? How do bacteria and viruses develop resistance to drugs?

Over-the-Counter Chemistry includes the following chapters:

• Chemistry concepts: the language of chemistry
• Organic molecules
• Biomolecules and drugs
• Painkillers, allergy and cold medicines
• Nutritional chemistry
• Steroids, cholesterol, sex hormones, contraceptives, and performance-enhancers
• Psychotropic drugs
• Nucleic acids, the genetic gode, replication, and transcription and translation
• How HIV causes AIDS