What are free radicals..?

             FREE RADICALS.

Radicals (often referred to as free radicals) are atoms, molecules, or ions with unpaired electrons on an open shell configuration. Free radicals may have positive, negative, or zero charge. With some exceptions, the unpaired electrons cause radicals to be highly chemically reactive. Radicals, if allowed to run free in the body, are believed to be involved in degenerative diseases, senescence and cancers.

Free radicals play an important role in combustion, atmospheric chemistry, polymerization, plasma chemistry, biochemistry, and many other chemical processes. In chemical biology, superoxide and nitric oxide regulate many processes, such as controlling vascular tone. Such radicals can even be messengers in a phenomenon dubbed redox signaling. A radical may be trapped within a solvent cage or be otherwise bound.

What is Chronic Bronchitis

Chronic Bronchitis

Chronic Bronchotis is a condition defined clinically as persistent cough with expectoration on most days for at least three monthsof the year for 2 or more consecutive years.The cough is caused by oversecretion of the mucus .Inspite of its name, chronic inflammation of the bronchi is not a prominent feature.

What is Chronic obstructive pulmonary Disease (COPD)

 Chronic obstructive pulmonary Disease

It is Respiratory disrder in which there is chronic, partial or complete obstuction to the airflow at any level from trachea to the smallest airways resulting in functional disability of the lungs.It consists of following 4 entities.

1)Chronic Bronchitis

2)Emphysema

3)Bronchial Asthma

4)Bronchiectasis

Symptoms of tuberculosis

symptoms of tubercuosis include persistent long time cough containing blood mixed sputum,sleeplessness,fever, and chest pain ,loss of apetite, weight loss etc.,

Cause of Ulcer

Cause of Ulcer :

1) Stress  :

Stress can arise from prolonged anxiety, tension and emotion, sever physical discomfort, haemorrhagic and surgical shocks, burns and trauma, thereby resulting in sever gastric ulceration.

Ulcers due to stress condition arising mainly from physiological discomfort and the mechanism of ulceration caused in this case may be different from ulcer caused due to other factors. 

However, mechanism of gastric ulceration is poorly understood.  Recent researches have shown that restraint cold stress causes severe haemorrhoagic ulcer through derangement of the mucosal antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide, dismutase and peroxides.  The stress generate highly reactive OH^– radicals that causes oxidative damage of the gastric mucosa and that the radical is formed by metalcatalysed.  Harber weiss reaction between O₂^– and H₂O₂ following induction of the superoxide dismutase and oxidative damage of gastric peroxidase.

2) Alcohol  :

Alcohol causes secretion of gastric juice and decrease mucosal resistance. Due to of which protein content of gastric juice is significantly increased by ethanol.This could be leakage of plasma proteins in to the gastric juice with weakening of mucosal resistance barrier of gastric mucosa.This lead to peptic ulcer.

3) H. Pylori  :

It is a gram negative bacteria found in gastric and duodenal mucosa of most persons particularly the elderly.  They, while in the mucosa, split urea into ammonia and thus elevates the local pH, damage of local region of the mucosa by high alkalinity.  In this way they strongly help the peptic ulcer development.

Cause of chronic peptic ulcer

Aetiology     or Cause of chronic peptic ulcer:-

1)      Heredity : patients with peptic ulcer often have a family history of the disease.  This is particularly the case with duodenal ulcers, which develop below the age of 20 years.  The relatives of gastric ulcer patients have 3 times the expected number of gastric ulcer but duodenal ulcer occur with the same frequency amongst relatives as in the general population.

2)      Acid-pepsin Vs. Mucosal resistance :- The immediate cause of peptic ulceration is digestion of the mucosa by acid and pepsin of the gastric juice, but the sequence of events leading to this is unknown. Digestion by acid and pepsin can’t be the only factor involved, since the normal stomach in obviously capable of resisting digestion by its own secretion.

The concept of ulcer aetiology may be written as “acid plus pepsin Vs. mucosal resistance”.

3)      Gastric hyper secretion :- Ulcer occur only in the presence of acid and pepsin they are never found in achlorhydric patients such as those with pernicious anaemia.  Acid secretion is more important in the aetiology of duodenal than gastric ulcer.

Peptic ulcer is the most common gastrointestional disorder in clinical practice. However, several classes of agents like H₂ blockers, proton pump inhibitor are being used as effective line of treatment of peptic ulcer. The several side effects associated with the present line of treatment, like Arrythemias, impotence, gynacomastia and hematopoetic changes, of synthetic drugs, etc., limits the usage of there agents for a chronic period is restricted. Comparatively indigenous drugs are possessing fewer side effects. Hence, the search for better alternatives for synthetic drugs is on rise.

Symptoms of peptic ulcer

1 Symptoms:.

Symptoms of a peptic ulcer are

·         Abdominal pain, classically epigastric with severity relating to mealtimes, after around 3 hours of taking a meal.

·         Bloating.

·         Water brash (rush of saliva after an episode of regurgitation to dilute the acid in esophagus)

·         Nausea and copious vomiting.

·         Loss of appetite and weight.

·         Hematemesis (vomiting of blood); this can occur due to bleeding directly from a gastric ulcers or from damage to the esophagus from severe/continuing vomiting.

·         Melena (tarry, foul-smelling feaces due to oxidized iron from hemoglobin).

·         Rarely, an ulcer can lead to a gastric or duodenal perforation, which leads to acute peritonitis. This is extremely painful and requires immediate surgery.