WILTIMS #105: What the floc?

One more thing from yesterday's history bonanza: part of the reason that both ancient and Renaissance European physicians are so much better known than their middle-eastern counterparts from the Golden Age of Islam (aka. Europe's "Dark Ages") is that the latter had no anatomical art. The Islamic tradition of aniconism, forbidding the depiction of the human form, extended all the way to to medical anatomy. Thus, though Islamic physicians such as Rhazes and Avicenna made huge strides in diagnosis and the clinical exam, they had a harder time passing-on their anatomic discoveries.

TIL: One of my professors casually dropped the word "flocculation" into a discussion today and I half-thought he just made it up. Alas, apparently it was incredibly apt. Flocculation is the process of colloids (suspended microscopic particles (in this case clotting factors on the blood)) precipitate out of solution.

After about 20 hours of fasting or 20 miles into a marathon, you hit "the wall." Physiologically, this is when your body runs out of its glycogen stores. The body has several types of energy to burn, including glucose, glycogen, fatty acids, and proteins. It uses these differently in different tissues and prefers some stores over others.

Free glucose is used first and is burned within a few hours. As glucose is depleted the body turns to glycogen (a high-density polymer of glucose) to take up the task. If all of the glycogen store is used, your body is -and this is a technical phrase- not happy. Now it has to make glucose from fatty acids, which isn't very efficient, or from amino acids, which requires the breakdown of protein. Not happy.