Per biomedicine, bleeding disorders are a group of heterogenous conditions that occur when the blood cannot clot properly. In normal clotting, platelets stick together when prompted by a stimulus that invokes the clotting pathway to ultimately form a plug at the site of an injured blood vessel. Proteins in the blood (clotting factors) are activated when either a pathogen or an exposed cell wall signal rupture of the blood vessel. An interactive cascade then leads to the formation of a fibrin clot, which holds the platelets in place and allows repair to occur at the site of the injury while preventing blood from escaping the blood vessel. While too much clotting can create either a thrombus or embolus that may lead to a heart attack and stroke, the inability to form clots can be very dangerous as well, as excess bleeding will also interrupt the integrity of the vascular system. | Per biomedicine, bleeding disorders are a group of heterogenous conditions that occur when the blood cannot clot properly. In normal clotting, platelets stick together when prompted by a stimulus that invokes the clotting pathway to ultimately form a plug at the site of an injured blood vessel. Proteins in the blood (clotting factors) are activated when either a pathogen or an exposed cell wall signal rupture of the blood vessel. An interactive cascade then leads to the formation of a fibrin clot, which holds the platelets in place and allows repair to occur at the site of the injury while preventing blood from escaping the blood vessel. While too much clotting can create either a thrombus or embolus that may lead to a heart attack and stroke, the inability to form clots can be very dangerous as well, as excess bleeding will also interrupt the integrity of the vascular system. |