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For risks and side effects ...

14.05.2017

Side effects are often accepted when taking medication. But probably only few people realize, that side effects can also have deadly consequences. The pharmacist Gerhard Ecker and his team are developing computer models to detect the side effects of substances early and reliably.

Annually around 7,000 people die to drug interactions in Austria- in America it is the fourth leading cause of death. "Taking five to six drugs at the same time, the probability of serious side effects is at 80 percent," says Gerhard Ecker from the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.

Not only are "drug cocktails" dangerous. Also taking single medication can have side effects with fatal consequences. "The biological system is so complex that it is not possible to predict with certainty whether and where a specific molecule causes a negative effect in our body," the expert says. [more]

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