Human health is a very vital part of each individual’s existence as it goes a long way to enhance productivity, happiness, and living a fulfilled life. When it comes to living healthy, there are some vocabularies that we would come across regularly. They include vaccines, drugs, and preventive measures. You might be wondering what each of these means and how they can contribute to your health.
Vaccines
The vaccine is another name for immunization and it depicts taking medications, mostly injection to prevent an ailment. When an individual is immunized, they get an active immunity that is acquired towards a specific infectious disease. Typically, a vaccine will contain an agent with the resemblance of the microorganism that causes the disease.
The microorganism is mostly gotten from killed or weakened forms, surface proteins or toxins of a particular microbe. The immune system of the person who is immunized for that disease is stimulated to that agent. Thus, the immune system is capable of recognizing the threat that the agent possesses and destroys it. It would also be able to destroy any other microorganism that is related to that agent that it comes across at a later time.
A vaccine could be therapeutic such that it can fight a disease that already occurred like cancer or prophylactic where it is to ameliorate or prevent a prospective infection by wild or natural pathogens. Generally, vaccines or immunization are given in advance of the infection. While some vaccines can be given after an individual has tested positive to the disease it is immunizing against, there are others, such as the immunization for Hepatitis B, that cannot be given to a person that is already infected for the disease. Thus, most labs or hospitals will require you to take a test and would only give you the immunization after they have confirmed that you are negative for the disease.
Drugs
Drugs are substances that can cause a psychological or physiological change in a person or other organisms. There are several ways through which drugs can be consumed including ingestion, injection, inhalation, smoking, dissolution beneath the tongue, and absorption through a patch on the skin. The production and distribution of drugs is highly regulated by authorized institutions in virtually every country.
Drugs are often referred to as chemical substances with a known structure and the ability to produce a biological effect when consumed by a living thing. They are also referred to as medicine or medication and are mostly used for diagnosing, preventing, curing, and treating disease. Some drugs are used for the promotion of well-being.
In the past, drugs were majorly gotten from medicinal plants. However, drugs are now made from the organic synthesis in addition to medicinal plants. There are instances where an individual might be required to take the drugs for just a few days, while there are other instances where they would have to take it continuously for a prolonged period or the rest of their lives.
All vaccines are drugs but not all drugs are vaccines. Thus, a vaccine is a subset of drugs whose use is for the prevention of diseases. There are other types of drugs for treatment and diagnoses of diseases that do not fall under vaccines. Drugs will also work better when you are taking the right diet. It is important to always get your diet advice from reliable health stores to ensure you get the right dietary information that would improve your conditions and not worsen it further.
Why do we take drugs?
The major reasons why we take drugs include prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases as explained subsequently.
Prevention of Diseases
A major reason why people take drugs is for preventive reasons. Immunizations are very important and popular in virtually every country in the world. High-risk sicknesses in terms of chances of people getting the sickness and how severe the disease could be are the major motivations for vaccines. With the successful development of the vaccine, it is given people at birth, regularly, or when they are exposed.
For example, the tetanus vaccine or tetanus toxoid (TT) is given during childhood with the recommendation that they should be taken every ten years. However, most people only get to take tetanus injection at the adult age when they step on nails or other rusty metal that gives them a cut beneath their feet. It is believed that the circumstances for the injury as well as the nature of the injury put them at risk of tetanus. Thus, they are given the tetanus vaccine to prevent tetanus especially as there is no cure for tetanus.
Generally, every drug is also given for preventive reasons even when they are given as diagnosis or treatment. For example, when they are given as treatment after the individual has contracted the disease, it is to prevent more severe symptoms, prevent disabilities, and/or preventing death. Thus, every drug has some level of preventive characteristics, even though at this point, they are no longer referred to as vaccines since it is not to prevent the infection itself.
Diagnosis of Diseases
Some drugs are administered to diagnose if an individual has a particular disease. An example of such a drug is the radiopaque agent. The drugs are useful for diagnosing some medical problems. The agent contains iodine that can absorb x-rays. Depending on the way the agent is administered, they build up in specific parts of the body.
Diagnosis is carried out for different reasons. The diagnosis could be to check if an individual has a disease or not. It could also be to check how the individual contracted the disease, as the cause of a disease can be sometimes instrumental in how the disease should be treated.
For Treatment and Cure of Diseases
Another reason drugs are administered to people is to cure or treat them from a disease they have contracted. For instance, there are pain relief drugs that can be taken by a person who has a headache, migraine, or other forms of pain.
Drugs for treatment or cure are easily the most consumed as many people are careless about their health. They do not go for check-ups or look up important vaccines they need to take to stay healthy. Some would not even go to the hospital when they start to suffer mild symptoms for a particular disease until it becomes severe. Thus, they would have to take treatments that would aid their body and immune system to fight the disease, prevent death or disability, and to get them back on their feet.