Anticipating side effects when taking medication is a rather complicated task. The human body contains more than one and a half thousand molecules, which are known to be involved in various diseases. Often prescribed drugs aimed at the destruction of a single target, also affects others, similar to the main goal of the structure. This causes a side effect.

The team of researchers developed a device that allows predicting the side effects of the drug, analyzing all the potential interactions that it can enter into the body. This device has already discovered that one of the side effects of the anti-AIDS drug - a rescriptor (a non-nucleoside HIV reverse transcriptase inhibitor) can be expressed in a severe rash, since this drug touches the hormone receptor known as histamine H4.

Also, experts have found that antidepressants Prozac and Paxil are very similar to beta-blockers that are used to treat hypertension. This may explain why the side effects of these drug groups are almost the same.

During the study, scientists were able to predict about 1800 previously unknown side effects of drugs. Some of them were checked by specialists and 23 have already been confirmed. The study conducted a comparative analysis of 3665 existing and experimental drugs with more than 65 thousand chemicals that are connected with hundreds of human proteins. In addition, that the new method can be useful in determining the side effects of new drugs, it can still be used to identify new areas of application of pre-existing drugs.

Medicinform. Net.