Start of Class

At j's recommendation (both because I would enjoy it, and because it would be good if I want to design medical devices), I started an intro course to Anatomy and Physiology at Portland Community College. What fun... It's been a long time since I've been in a class. The professor is great. She's a 5ft 2in and 275lbs ball of lightening barely stopping talking or moving for the full 3 hour lecture between tirades about drug company conflict of interests and our society's irrational phobia about discussing the lower half of the digestive system, she went through the major systems in the human body. Here are some little tidbits of info that I liked:

• Every single cell in the body has direct contact to a blood vessel (j seemed skeptical that this is 100% correct)
• The lymphatic system relies primarily on body movement and breathing to bring fluid back to the heart. Example: higher rates of breast feeding and lack of bras in the 3^rd world may be an explanation of reduced rates of breast cancer in women from 3^rd world countries.
• People have differences from the average homeostatic states (body temp, metabolism, etc.), but very few people actually know where they sit on the spectrum. She suggested eating some corn and watching to see how quickly it makes it through your system... you know.... just help calibrate yourself.
• On average men burn about 11 calories/lb/day and women about 10 calories/lb/day just lying in bed
• Stomach linings are replaced completely within 3 days.
• Puberty is like new shoes (it was a long story).
• How caffeine withdrawal head aches work: When you drink caffeine this causes your veins to contract, your body reacts to this by dilating the veins. Over time your body trains itself to automatically dilate the veins…. Then when you don’t drink coffee your veins get over dilated causing a headache.