Biochem

We just got a taste of some biochem last week. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but the purpose was to prepare us for learning about anemias, some of which are related to GI etiology (bleeds and nutritional deficits). Oddly enough, we started with the pentose phosphate pathway ("pentose phosphate mess") and nucleotide synthesis. Then we covered the importance of iron, folate, and Vitamin B12 - generally the harder things in biochem.

I actually really like biochem. I got a decent background in it as an undergrad, and organic chemistry is a lot of fun (maybe not mechanisms though). But it is a bit daunting for a lot of people as this is our first immersion into metabolic pathways. We're only touching the surface though. We don't have to memorize much, and we only focus on steps that are affected by human disease. That makes a lot of sense as I doubt most doctors can really tell you the molecules in glycolysis, but they may be able to describe the symptoms of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (it's an X-linked disease that causes hemolytic anemia if you eat fava beans among other things).