Selected words and phrases
mitochondria – energy producing factories that live inside other cells.
T1/2 (half-life) – the time taken a drug to clear from the highest concentration to half this level. Drugs have different half-lives in different compartments (ie half-life in blood can be different from the half-life inside a cell). It take 5 x the half-live for a drug to be considered cleared.
BMI (body mass index) – a calculation using height and weight that is used to decide whether someone is over or under weight.
NRTI – Nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor, a type of HIV drug – also called ‘nuke’ or ‘nucleoside analogue’. AZT, 3TC. FTC, d4T, ddI, abacavir all belong to this class. Tenofovir is a nucleotide analogue which is counted as part of this class.
HCV – hepatitis C, a virus that causes liver disease.