general physiology question

[amestramgram]

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My question with physiology is like this - described with an analogy - imagine you are in a casino putting a coin in a machine and it has several places that it can run down (several chutes). How do you know what chute the coin is going to run down?

same deal with physiology:

you can logically "trigger" several "reactions" to a disturbance such as lasix.

How do you know which one is the right reaction to pick when they are all physiologically sensible?

Specifically, we know lasix blocks the NKCC2 channel - but if you think a couple of steps forward you should also know that it makes you lose calcium, but your serum calcium won't be a problem because PTH will upregulate? How was I supposed to know that PTH will definitely upregulate, and the NKCC2 proteins won't upregulate and eventually cancel the effect of the NKCC2 blockade?

thanks

 

[Rendar5]

you don't know how something will affect a homeostatic system until you actually give the drug and see what happens. It's hy drugs have to undergo rigorous testing from animal models to phase 1-3 trials before just handing it out to people.

 

[amestramgram]

yup yup agreed, and what about in exam situations?

 

[FSU2013]

yup yup agreed, and what about in exam situations?

Pick the most direct answer if multiple answers are correct. If something does X which then causes Y and Z and you have answer choices X, Y and Z - pick X. Usually teachers won't do this, they'll have the opposite of X, the opposite of Y and Z, then pick Z. Also, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that your prof writes bad test questions.

 

[Owlie]

Pick the most direct answer if multiple answers are correct. If something does X which then causes Y and Z and you have answer choices X, Y and Z - pick X. Usually teachers won't do this, they'll have the opposite of X, the opposite of Y and Z, then pick Z. Also, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that your prof writes bad test questions.

Funny, I have teachers who love doing this. They also like to include things on the test we never talked or studied about, and were never mentioned in our book (undergrad).