TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Céline Valéry: How does your body process medicine?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Have you ever wdeonerd what happens to a painkiller, like ibuprofen, after you slowalw it? Medicine that slides down your throat can help treat a haaedche, a sore back, or a throbbing sprained alkne. But how does it get where it needs to go in the first place? The answer is that it hitches a ride in your circulatory blood stream, clynicg through your body in a race to do its job before it's snared by organs and molecules designed to nraueitzle and expel frogien substances. This pcrseos starts in your digestive system. Say you swallow an ibuprofen tablet for a sore ankle. Within minutes, the tablet starts disintegrating in the acidic fluids of your smoctah. The dissolved ibuprofen travels into the small intestine and then across the itaietsnnl wall into a network of blood vessels. These blood vsseles feed into a vein, which carries the blood, and anything in it, to the liver. The next step is to make it through the liver. As the blood and the drug molecules in it taevrl through liver blood vessels, enzymes attempt to react with the ibuprofen molecules to neutralize them. The damaged ibuprofen molecules, called mebatleitos, may no longer be effective as painkillers. At this stage, most of the ibuprofen makes it through the liver unscathed. It continues its journey out of the liver, through veins, into the body's circulatory system. Half an hour after you swallow the pill, some of the dose has already made it into the circulatory boold stream. This blood loop travels through every limb and organ, including the heart, brian, kedynis, and back through the liver. When ibuprofen molecules encounter a lctioaon where the body's pain response is in full swing, they bind to sicfipec target molecules that are a part of that reaction. Painkillers, like ibuprofen, block the production of compounds that help the body transmit pain signals. As more drug molecules accumulate, the pain-cancelling affect increases, reaching a maximum within about one or two hours. Then the body starts efficiently eliminating ifrpueobn, with the blood dose decreasing by half every two hours on average. When the ibuprofen meuoeclls detach from their targets, the systemic blood seartm ceirras them away again. Back in the liver, another small fcotairn of the total amount of the drug gets transformed into metabolites, which are eventually filtered out by the kidneys in the urine. The loop from liver to body to kidneys continues at a rate of about one blood cycle per minute, with a little more of the drug neutralized and filtered out in each cycle. These bsiac steps are the same for any drug that you take orally, but the seepd of the process and the amount of medicine that makes it into your blood stream varies based on drug, person, and how it gets into the body. The dosing instructions on medicine labels can help, but they're averages based on a sample population that doesn't represent every consumer. And getting the dose right is important. If it's too low, the medicine won't do its job. If it's too high, the drug and its metabolites can be toxic. That's true of any drug. One of the hardest groups of patients to get the right dosage for are children. That's because how they process medicine changes qlukciy, as do their bodies. For inatsnce, the level of lievr enmzeys that neutralize medication highly fluctuates during infancy and childhood. And that's just one of many complicating factors. Genetics, age, diet, deasise, and even pregnancy influence the body's efficiency of processing medicine. Some day, routine DNA tests may be able to dial in the precise dose of medicine personalized to your liver efficiency and other factors, but in the meantime, your best bet is reading the label or consulting your doctor or pharmacist, and taking the recommended amutnos with the recommended timing.

Open Cloze

Have you ever ________ what happens to a painkiller, like ibuprofen, after you _______ it? Medicine that slides down your throat can help treat a ________, a sore back, or a throbbing sprained _____. But how does it get where it needs to go in the first place? The answer is that it hitches a ride in your circulatory blood stream, _______ through your body in a race to do its job before it's snared by organs and molecules designed to __________ and expel _______ substances. This _______ starts in your digestive system. Say you swallow an ibuprofen tablet for a sore ankle. Within minutes, the tablet starts disintegrating in the acidic fluids of your _______. The dissolved ibuprofen travels into the small intestine and then across the __________ wall into a network of blood vessels. These blood _______ feed into a vein, which carries the blood, and anything in it, to the liver. The next step is to make it through the liver. As the blood and the drug molecules in it ______ through liver blood vessels, enzymes attempt to react with the ibuprofen molecules to neutralize them. The damaged ibuprofen molecules, called ___________, may no longer be effective as painkillers. At this stage, most of the ibuprofen makes it through the liver unscathed. It continues its journey out of the liver, through veins, into the body's circulatory system. Half an hour after you swallow the pill, some of the dose has already made it into the circulatory _____ stream. This blood loop travels through every limb and organ, including the heart, _____, _______, and back through the liver. When ibuprofen molecules encounter a ________ where the body's pain response is in full swing, they bind to ________ target molecules that are a part of that reaction. Painkillers, like ibuprofen, block the production of compounds that help the body transmit pain signals. As more drug molecules accumulate, the pain-cancelling affect increases, reaching a maximum within about one or two hours. Then the body starts efficiently eliminating _________, with the blood dose decreasing by half every two hours on average. When the ibuprofen _________ detach from their targets, the systemic blood ______ _______ them away again. Back in the liver, another small ________ of the total amount of the drug gets transformed into metabolites, which are eventually filtered out by the kidneys in the urine. The loop from liver to body to kidneys continues at a rate of about one blood cycle per minute, with a little more of the drug neutralized and filtered out in each cycle. These _____ steps are the same for any drug that you take orally, but the _____ of the process and the amount of medicine that makes it into your blood stream varies based on drug, person, and how it gets into the body. The dosing instructions on medicine labels can help, but they're averages based on a sample population that doesn't represent every consumer. And getting the dose right is important. If it's too low, the medicine won't do its job. If it's too high, the drug and its metabolites can be toxic. That's true of any drug. One of the hardest groups of patients to get the right dosage for are children. That's because how they process medicine changes _______, as do their bodies. For ________, the level of _____ _______ that neutralize medication highly fluctuates during infancy and childhood. And that's just one of many complicating factors. Genetics, age, diet, _______, and even pregnancy influence the body's efficiency of processing medicine. Some day, routine DNA tests may be able to dial in the precise dose of medicine personalized to your liver efficiency and other factors, but in the meantime, your best bet is reading the label or consulting your doctor or pharmacist, and taking the recommended _______ with the recommended timing.

Solution

specific
travel
swallow
neutralize
metabolites
process
brain
fraction
stream
intestinal
amounts
carries
enzymes
quickly
blood
foreign
basic
stomach
wondered
speed
disease
location
vessels
kidneys
instance
ankle
molecules
headache
liver
cycling
ibuprofen

Original Text

Have you ever wondered what happens to a painkiller, like ibuprofen, after you swallow it? Medicine that slides down your throat can help treat a headache, a sore back, or a throbbing sprained ankle. But how does it get where it needs to go in the first place? The answer is that it hitches a ride in your circulatory blood stream, cycling through your body in a race to do its job before it's snared by organs and molecules designed to neutralize and expel foreign substances. This process starts in your digestive system. Say you swallow an ibuprofen tablet for a sore ankle. Within minutes, the tablet starts disintegrating in the acidic fluids of your stomach. The dissolved ibuprofen travels into the small intestine and then across the intestinal wall into a network of blood vessels. These blood vessels feed into a vein, which carries the blood, and anything in it, to the liver. The next step is to make it through the liver. As the blood and the drug molecules in it travel through liver blood vessels, enzymes attempt to react with the ibuprofen molecules to neutralize them. The damaged ibuprofen molecules, called metabolites, may no longer be effective as painkillers. At this stage, most of the ibuprofen makes it through the liver unscathed. It continues its journey out of the liver, through veins, into the body's circulatory system. Half an hour after you swallow the pill, some of the dose has already made it into the circulatory blood stream. This blood loop travels through every limb and organ, including the heart, brain, kidneys, and back through the liver. When ibuprofen molecules encounter a location where the body's pain response is in full swing, they bind to specific target molecules that are a part of that reaction. Painkillers, like ibuprofen, block the production of compounds that help the body transmit pain signals. As more drug molecules accumulate, the pain-cancelling affect increases, reaching a maximum within about one or two hours. Then the body starts efficiently eliminating ibuprofen, with the blood dose decreasing by half every two hours on average. When the ibuprofen molecules detach from their targets, the systemic blood stream carries them away again. Back in the liver, another small fraction of the total amount of the drug gets transformed into metabolites, which are eventually filtered out by the kidneys in the urine. The loop from liver to body to kidneys continues at a rate of about one blood cycle per minute, with a little more of the drug neutralized and filtered out in each cycle. These basic steps are the same for any drug that you take orally, but the speed of the process and the amount of medicine that makes it into your blood stream varies based on drug, person, and how it gets into the body. The dosing instructions on medicine labels can help, but they're averages based on a sample population that doesn't represent every consumer. And getting the dose right is important. If it's too low, the medicine won't do its job. If it's too high, the drug and its metabolites can be toxic. That's true of any drug. One of the hardest groups of patients to get the right dosage for are children. That's because how they process medicine changes quickly, as do their bodies. For instance, the level of liver enzymes that neutralize medication highly fluctuates during infancy and childhood. And that's just one of many complicating factors. Genetics, age, diet, disease, and even pregnancy influence the body's efficiency of processing medicine. Some day, routine DNA tests may be able to dial in the precise dose of medicine personalized to your liver efficiency and other factors, but in the meantime, your best bet is reading the label or consulting your doctor or pharmacist, and taking the recommended amounts with the recommended timing.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation	frequency
ibuprofen molecules	3
blood stream	3
circulatory blood	2
blood vessels	2
drug molecules	2

Important Words

accumulate
acidic
affect
age
amount
amounts
ankle
answer
attempt
average
averages
based
basic
bet
bind
block
blood
bodies
body
brain
called
carries
childhood
children
circulatory
complicating
compounds
consulting
consumer
continues
cycle
cycling
damaged
day
decreasing
designed
detach
dial
diet
digestive
disease
disintegrating
dissolved
dna
doctor
dosage
dose
dosing
drug
effective
efficiency
efficiently
eliminating
encounter
enzymes
eventually
expel
factors
feed
filtered
fluctuates
fluids
foreign
fraction
full
genetics
groups
hardest
headache
heart
high
highly
hitches
hour
hours
ibuprofen
important
including
increases
infancy
influence
instance
instructions
intestinal
intestine
job
journey
kidneys
label
labels
level
limb
liver
location
longer
loop
maximum
medication
medicine
metabolites
minute
minutes
molecules
network
neutralize
neutralized
orally
organ
organs
pain
painkiller
painkillers
part
patients
person
personalized
pharmacist
pill
place
population
precise
pregnancy
process
processing
production
quickly
race
rate
reaching
react
reaction
reading
recommended
represent
response
ride
routine
sample
signals
slides
small
snared
sore
specific
speed
sprained
stage
starts
step
steps
stomach
stream
substances
swallow
swing
system
systemic
tablet
target
targets
tests
throat
throbbing
timing
total
toxic
transformed
transmit
travel
travels
treat
true
unscathed
urine
varies
vein
veins
vessels
wall
wondered