So, amidst the very bleak existence of lectures, tutorials and placements where we are required to rote learn muscles, attachments, innervations, syndromes, therapies and other details that soon lose their appeal after we're forced to memorise it for the billionth time, I thought I'd make a lighter thread to remind us that alot of medical physiology, disease or phenomena ARE fascinating.
So, I thought I'd make a thread for current med students to drop in with an interesting fact they picked up related to our course, something not necessarily related to exams, but something you just went "wow, that's amazing"
Aimed at all levels, and feel free to correct.
So, my first little tidbit is that cancer cells, who continually mutate in order to survive, imitate hypoxia, making the local cells think they're hypoxic. They do this so the body secretes VEGF, which your body needs to make new blood vessels. By doing this, cancer cells use VEGF to create its own blood supply and can then use it to grow and metastasise elsewhere.