:strip_icc()/i.s3.glbimg.com/v1/AUTH_59edd422c0c84a879bd37670ae4f538a/internal_photos/bs/2019/F/j/MXq1qOS86QkOCORBsHxg/boots-uk.jpg)
[ad_1]
Stewart Adams knew that he had found a new pain medicine after being cured of a hangover just before pronouncing an important speech.
"I was the first to talk and I had a bit of a headache after a night out with friends, so I took a dose of 600 mg, just to be safe, and I thought it was very effective. "
Adams died last Wednesday at the age of 95. In 1992, the pharmacist recalled in an interview with the BBC his years of research, the numerous tests performed on the compounds and the many disappointments before he and his team reached ibuprofen.
Since the drug was approved and marketed 50 years ago, ibuprofen has become one of the most popular painkillers in the world. It is difficult to find a medicine cabinet without these pills.
Do you have a fever? Headache? Back pain? Teeth ache? It is therefore likely that ibuprofen is the drug of choice for treating your symptoms because it acts quickly and is available even in supermarkets.
The British National Health Service, however, warns that the drug should be taken at the lowest dose and for the shortest possible time, as it can cause side effects such as nausea and vomiting.
Its popularity for the treatment of pain is not simply a phenomenon on British territory. In India, for example, it is the treatment of choice for fever and pain and, in the United States, it is an over-the-counter drug since 1984. It is also used to treat inflammation in diseases such as arthritis.
And, as Adams himself noticed during a trip to Afghanistan in the 1970s, even the village's remote pharmacies located along the Khyber Pbad sold their discovery.
It all started with a 16 year old boy from Northamptonshire, England, who left school without any plans for the future.
He later became a pharmacy apprentice at Boots, now a large branch network, and his experience led him to pursue pharmacy studies at the University of Nottingham, followed by a doctorate in pharmacology. at the University of Leeds, before returning to Boots' research department in 1952.
At the time, he was tasked with finding a new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis as effective a steroid, but without its side effects.
Aspirin is the first nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug to have been developed in 1897. Although it was commonly used as an badgesic at the time, it had to be administered at very high doses, so the risk of side effects, such as allergies, bleeding, and indigestion, was great This meant that in the 1950s, it was falling into disuse in the UK.
In search of an alternative, Adams recruited chemist John Nicholson and technician Colin Burrows to help test the potency of more than 600 chemical compounds. The key was to find a drug well tolerated by the body.
From the living room of an old Victorian house in the suburb of Nottingham, the small team patiently tested the compounds until they found something interesting to do. # 39; object of clinical trials.
Adams realized that his chances of success were minimal, but he and his team persevered for 10 years.
"I thought we would finally succeed, I always thought we would succeed."
And he was always ready to play the role of guinea pig by testing two or three compounds in himself.
Adams admitted that this would never be allowed nowadays, but at least stated that they had taken care to carry out toxicity tests in advance.
"It was important to test them and I was delighted to be the first person to take a dose of ibuprofen."
During this period, four drugs were the subject of clinical trials and failed before reaching the compound called 2- (4-isobutylphenyl) propanoic acid or isobutylpropanoic acid in 1961 who would later become ibuprofen.
A patent for this substance was granted to Boots in 1962 and approved as a prescription drug seven years later.
According to Dave McMillan, former head of health development at Boots UK, ibuprofen was an extremely important medicine for society.
"It saved Boots, it helped expand in the United States and around the world, it was Boots' number one drug."
20,000 tons of ibuprofen are produced each year by a number of companies under different brands. There are also different formats, including liquid doses developed specifically for children.
Adams is honored for his research by an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Nottingham and two boards from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He stayed at Boots until the end of his career, becoming Chief of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
What he liked the most is that hundreds of millions of people around the world take the medicines he has discovered.
It was a long way – and it all started with a headache.
Like ibuprofen works
Remedy – Photo: Unsplash
This is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Because it has a different chemical structure than steroids, ibuprofen is not so toxic.
It reduces pain by targeting compounds called prostaglandins, which cause inflammation in the body. The inflammation can cause swelling, heat, redness, loss of function, fever and pain.
The badgesic effect begins shortly after the dose is administered, but the inflammation may take longer to subside.
The success of ibuprofen lies in the treatment of minor pains. But like any medicine, it has side effects, especially if its use is continuous. The risk of heart attack and miscarriage is one of these, as well as less severe reactions such as nausea and vomiting.
Last year, researchers at the University of Copenhagen discovered other effects of prolonged use of ibuprofen, such as male infertility , muscle wasting, fatigue and erectile dysfunction.
Source link
