Disease / Medicine

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Last Updated: Sunday, 12 January 2025 06:14
Published: Monday, 29 May 2023 11:27
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Disease and Medicines:

Biology is not only about how human body works, but also about what makes it not work, and how to fix it.

Bioavailability of Medicine:

It's the fraction (%) of an administered drug that reaches the blood for systemic circulation. By definition, when a medication is administered intravenously (via veins), its bioavailability is 100%. However, when a medication is administered via routes other than intravenous, its bioavailability is generally lower than that of intravenous due to intestinal endothelium absorption and first pass metabolism. Since the concentration of drug in blood varies with time, the whole area under curve is taken for calculation purpose. Bioavailability refers to avg value as the absorption rate varies greatly among individuals. Bioavailabilty is a very important term for drugs, as your eventual "mg" dosage per day will depend on it's bioavailability.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioavailability

 

Diuresis:

It's the excretion of urine, especially when excessive. In healthy people, excess water drunk is passed in form of extra urine to maintain fluid balance. People with heart failure (HF) and kidney disease have difficulty getting the excess water out of their body, which results in fluid accumulation in body, a condition known as edema.

Diuretics are medicines that help get this extra fluid out of the body, by increasing urine production. As such they benefit people with edema, and are also known as water pills. Diuretics are also used to lower blood pressure (BP) for people with high BP (Hypertension). In such cases, deuretics do lower water in the blood, but the reduction in BP occurs due to other mechanisms. Any removal or absorption of fluid in blood disturbs the balance of electrolytes, such as sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc in blood. So, people taking deuretics should watch out for these too.

There are mainly three types of diuretic medications.

  • Thiazide: Thiazides are the most commonly prescribed diuretics. They’re most often used to treat high blood pressure. These drugs not only decrease fluids, they also cause your blood vessels to relax. Thiazides are mostly taken with other medications used to lower blood pressure. Examples of thiazides include:
    • chlorthalidone
    • hydrochlorothiazide (Microzide)
    • metolazone
  • Loop diuretics: Loop deuretics are often used to treat heart failure. While Thiazide diuretics are more effective in patients with normal kidney function, loop diuretics are more effective in patients with impaired kidney function. Loop diuretics are also used to treat high BP, though primary use is to for HF patients. Loop diuretics usually have a "ceiling" effect where there is a maximum level of dosage where further increase in dosage will not increase the clinical effect of the drug. Examples of these drugs include:
    • furosemide (Lasix) =>
    • torsemide (Demadex) =>
    • bumetanide => A dose of 40 mg of furosemide is equivalent to 20 mg of torsemide and 1 mg bumetanide.
  • Potassium-sparing diuretics: Above 2 diuretics disturb electrolyte balance and may cause lower potassium in blood (especially for people with low potassium in blood), which is an important nutrient. Potassium sparring diuretics are an answer to that. They reduce fluid levels in your body without causing you to lose potassium.  

 

 

 

Diabetes:

If you have diabetes (which is high levels of sugar or glucose in your blood), you will require to measure your sugar levels multiple times a day, and adjust your dosage of insulin based on that. There are glucose meters that measure the glucose level. These meters themselves are usually free or cheap, but the strips that come wit these are pretty expensive ($1 per strip). Many meters come with 10 free strips and 10 free needles.

Prodigy sells strips for 10 cents per strip for their glucose meter. This is the cheapest option:

Prodigy strips on ebay (13 cents/strip as of Jan, 2025) => https://www.ebay.com/itm/335545752368