This question came about as my wife has just started a course of steroids to treat her Crohn’s Disease. They work amazingly well, amazingly quickly… But they are only a temporary solution as they have a range of significant side effects such as thinning of the bones, insomnia, etc…
Steroids are “old” in medical terms – why haven’t we managed to remove the side effects yet?
In: Chemistry
Because substances will have different effects on different parts of our body. Or even if it only affects one specific thing, that might then trigger a bunch of other things. Too many things are connected, no matter what you do, something else will usually happen.
They can and do find out how it affects the whole body. And then evaluate whether the negatives are worth the positive effects. If so, it’ll pass certification. And sometimes, a new drug is developed that perhaps does the same positive thing but fewer negatives because the mechanism is different.
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