Antibiotics and Painkillers

This lesson covers the difference between antibiotics and painkillers, how antibiotics work, and the critical issue of antibiotic resistance — a key topic in the AQA GCSE Combined Science Trilogy specification (8464).

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Types of Medicine

There are two main categories of medicine you need to know:

Medicine Type	What It Does	Examples
Painkillers	Relieve symptoms of disease (e.g. pain, fever) but do not kill pathogens or cure the disease	Paracetamol, aspirin, ibuprofen
Antibiotics	Kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria inside the body, helping to cure the infection	Penicillin, amoxicillin

Exam Tip: The critical distinction is: painkillers treat symptoms; antibiotics treat the cause (the bacteria). If a question asks "Does this drug cure the disease?", only antibiotics can do this for bacterial infections.

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Painkillers