Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that's uh, that's good, Chuck,
Speaker 1: even just in jazz hands everybody, that's what you have
Speaker 1: to do? That? Yeah, I think it's either that or
Speaker 1: like pump your elbow right right, maybe like flick the
Speaker 1: bottom of your chin like I can't wait to hear
Speaker 1: your intro. Uh. Okay, I've been gnawing on this one. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say. I have, I have
Speaker 1: an idea. I'll try it, all right, this man get
Speaker 1: edited out, all right? Probably not though, because it's not bad.
Speaker 1: But Chuck, yes, did you know that? I think probably
Speaker 1: the worst thing humans ever invented? Not the nuclear bomb,
Speaker 1: not saren gas, not reality TV. The second stall in
Speaker 1: the men's bathroom, the second one in our bathroom, in
Speaker 1: any public bathroom, what do you mean my second? I
Speaker 1: think the worst thing that male human being can do
Speaker 1: to another male, and I'm just speaking for my gender,
Speaker 1: is to come in and sit down in the stall
Speaker 1: next to an already occupied stall. You know what I mean? Second,
Speaker 1: you just mean more than one? Yeah? Ok, the second
Speaker 1: through infinity exactly. Yeah, I don't you know me, I
Speaker 1: don't do that either. I know you are a courteous,
Speaker 1: fine person who opens the bathroom door, sees one stall occupied,
Speaker 1: turns around. I guess it's not my time. Maybe I
Speaker 1: should go find another bathroom. There are other things you
Speaker 1: can do, so you just hand of one thing, like
Speaker 1: what what's the terminology we're gonna use here? I like poop? Okay,
Speaker 1: Poop's fine with me. Two feces, fecal matter Okay, poop
Speaker 1: is way like easier to I'm gonna say either swallow.
Speaker 1: Excrement sounds gross, Yeah, excrement is gross sometimes the fun word.
Speaker 1: I mean, this article uses the word fart. But I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten the article. You are you still in my intro?
Speaker 1: Uh So I think that that's a horrible assault on
Speaker 1: a person's humanity to sit down and already occupiestall to
Speaker 1: sit down in the stall next to it. Um, you
Speaker 1: must hate the airport, but I don't. I don't us
Speaker 1: just stall in the airport like I literally an emergency,
Speaker 1: like tin guys pooping next to each other and every
Speaker 1: airport never never, I think maybe one time in my
Speaker 1: entire life. Anyway. Uh, I hate it just as much
Speaker 1: as before. But now that I've read this article, I
Speaker 1: understand what's going on next door a little better. That's
Speaker 1: my intro. I like it. We're talking about the digestive system. Yes,
Speaker 1: who we are, which there's some amazing facts right off
Speaker 1: the bat that Melissa Jeffreys, who I'm not familiar with
Speaker 1: her work, but this is a pretty quality article. If
Speaker 1: you ask me to use the word for it she did.
Speaker 1: I that may be the only article on the site
Speaker 1: or that word comes in I find that. Is there
Speaker 1: a no that's in the that's in this article, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to that later. Huh. She also has what
Speaker 1: I think maybe one of the best sentences on our website,
Speaker 1: which is, h the digestive team is composed of a
Speaker 1: bunch of hollow passageways that start at your mouth and
Speaker 1: end at your anus. Pretty much does it all? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Food goes in one end, waste comes out the other,
Speaker 1: and we're going to tell you how. Yeah. But let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the digestive system, like how
Speaker 1: long is it man about thirty ft. Yeah, that's good
Speaker 1: long length. I mean, if you think about it, what
Speaker 1: you're six ft five nine eleven okay, so five ten,
Speaker 1: but your entrails are thirty ft long. That pretty impressive. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the one that nailed me was the oh I
Speaker 1: know what this is. Yeah, the small intestines surface area
Speaker 1: is the size of a tennis court. Yeah. So basically,
Speaker 1: if you splayed your small intestine and if you put
Speaker 1: it loose from the rest of your bowels, splaited it
Speaker 1: and unfolded it because it's the folds that that gets you.
Speaker 1: If you've straightened it out, you could pretty much play
Speaker 1: tennis on it and it be regulation size. You've got clay,
Speaker 1: asphalt and intestine. Alright. So the cool thing about this
Speaker 1: article and the digestive system period is that there's a
Speaker 1: beginning and there's an end. And they used ham sandwich
Speaker 1: in the article, so let's go with that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: makes sense, like like basically we're going to now follow
Speaker 1: what happens to ham sandwich the moment you not even
Speaker 1: the moment you eat it, starting when you pick it
Speaker 1: up and bring it to your mouth and it hits
Speaker 1: the area where your nose can smell it and so
Speaker 1: begin the journey to your anus. So, so we can
Speaker 1: do this one man, I've done way way more tawdry,
Speaker 1: potentially explosive topics in this man, we can do this.
Speaker 1: I'm a shame that I'm a grown man and I
Speaker 1: so uh you. As the sandwich comes to your to
Speaker 1: your mouth, Um, your nose smells that ham right, and
Speaker 1: it sends a signal of the brain. It says it's
Speaker 1: chow time. Let's get this party started. And your brain
Speaker 1: sends a signal of your salivary glands in your mouth
Speaker 1: and they start pumping out saliva. Yeah. Like when you
Speaker 1: say my mouth was watering when I smelled that, That's
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. It's exactly right, um. And I
Speaker 1: think my brain is overactive. You know how people are
Speaker 1: always like it sounds like Josh is eating a piece
Speaker 1: of candy. No, I'm just I overproduced spit because I'm
Speaker 1: always hungry and I can smell anything and be like,
Speaker 1: well I could go for that right now? Well not
Speaker 1: an right? Um. So you've got your mouth watering, your
Speaker 1: saliva and the reason you salivate is because it has
Speaker 1: digestive routines in it called with like amlas and Emily's
Speaker 1: is the reason you don't lick your lips. Did you
Speaker 1: know that? That's why your lips chap when you look
Speaker 1: them too much, because you're actually destroying the very thin,
Speaker 1: delicate skin of your lips with this protein that is
Speaker 1: designed to break down food. Boy, my lips are a mess.
Speaker 1: Always looking at him that man. Uh so, yeah, Josh,
Speaker 1: the amlaise gets to work immediately on the carbs and
Speaker 1: the bread. Uh. When you swallow, it's gonna go down
Speaker 1: your throat, your farynx. Yeah. And we covered a lot
Speaker 1: of this in the sword swallowing episodes, So if you
Speaker 1: want to even more in depth, look at that. Go
Speaker 1: listen to that one. Yeah, but it takes the same
Speaker 1: path because you don't want a sword going down into
Speaker 1: your lungs and you don't want bread going into your
Speaker 1: lung So thank you. Epiglottis. It's a little a little flap.
Speaker 1: It's gonna guide it in the right direction almost all
Speaker 1: the time, unless there's a malfunction. Anytime you swallowed, the
Speaker 1: epiglottis covers the trichia, leaving the esophagus to open up
Speaker 1: except your spit or your bullus. Remember bullus is chewed food.
Speaker 1: So your sandwich is no longer considered sandwich. It's bullus. Now,
Speaker 1: that's right. And I actually choked last week on a
Speaker 1: sandwich like Mama Cass, I did uh, and I uh
Speaker 1: ended up blowing it through my nose for the next
Speaker 1: ten minutes. Is it even possible? It is? That's horrific.
Speaker 1: Something happened. I choked and coughed, and it, you know, went,
Speaker 1: I guess entered my nasal passageway and I was literally
Speaker 1: blowing sandwich out of my nose. It was not fun.
Speaker 1: You have mustard, Okay, you're lucky it didn't have mustard.
Speaker 1: All right, So now we are well. We got to
Speaker 1: point out at the the top of the esophagus is
Speaker 1: the upper esophical sphincter. At the bottom there's a lower
Speaker 1: lower esophical sphincter, and they let food in and then
Speaker 1: they let it right back out, which is exactly how
Speaker 1: it should work. Right, And along the way, you have
Speaker 1: these muscle contractions, remember called parastalis sees parastalsis parastalsis. That
Speaker 1: is just basically like the rings and your esophagus and
Speaker 1: rings and muscles contracting and relaxing, and they are contract
Speaker 1: above and relax below and push the bowls down and
Speaker 1: then when it hits that lower esophageal sphincter, that opens
Speaker 1: up and it pops into your stomach, and parastalsis is
Speaker 1: the key to everything. Yeah, throughout the entire process of digestion,
Speaker 1: basically your whole, your guts and your stomach are just
Speaker 1: like contracting and expanding and stirring things up, and it's
Speaker 1: all just basically a bunch of spasmodic muscle contractions and
Speaker 1: it will get the gird later. But if you have
Speaker 1: heartburn or genuine gurd, then that means you're lower esophical
Speaker 1: sphincter is not working right and some of your stomach
Speaker 1: acid is getting back up in there right. As Melissa
Speaker 1: Jeffreys puts it, you have a lazy lower esophageal sphincter
Speaker 1: ingurd his gastro esophageal reflux disease. I've got it, a
Speaker 1: k heartburn. Do you have it? My brother in law
Speaker 1: had it um so bad that he they they first
Speaker 1: diagnosed him misdiagnosed him with a panic attack because his
Speaker 1: chest was so tight. But it hurts so bad that
Speaker 1: it just like covered his entire chest and it felt
Speaker 1: like a like a heart attack. That's what mine would
Speaker 1: be like if I didn't take take my pill. That's awful,
Speaker 1: Like a good boy didn't know that. Yeah, it's terrible. Um,
Speaker 1: the way you have him sandwich coming out your nose,
Speaker 1: you have bile and other stuff coming up into your esophagus. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got problems with it with my digestive system. Let's
Speaker 1: just say that. Okay, Okay, So we're in the stomach.
Speaker 1: Uh in your stomach is gonna you basically basically, the
Speaker 1: stomach is gonna get everything ready to go to the
Speaker 1: next step, which is a small intestine by producing all
Speaker 1: kinds of enzymes and acids to break stuff down and
Speaker 1: also uh, mucus to coat the stomach, because the acid
Speaker 1: would damage your stomach as well if it wouldn't for
Speaker 1: this protective mucus. Yes, which is very good that that's there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you don't have the protective mucus or your
Speaker 1: acid can beat your mucus in a wrestling match. That's
Speaker 1: how you get ulcers in one way. One way. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: twenty seconds, every twenty seconds to the stomach is going
Speaker 1: to go through the parastalsis Yeah. I think you can
Speaker 1: do that more frequently because I looked up why your
Speaker 1: stomach growls, rumbles, gurgles, that's just the sounds of digestion.
Speaker 1: The reason it happens when you're hungry is because your
Speaker 1: brain is not only sent a message to your salivary
Speaker 1: glands to start salivating, it's also sent it to your
Speaker 1: stomach to start the digestive process because there's food to
Speaker 1: come in. So that's why you gurgle when you're hungry.
Speaker 1: It also happens when you eat too much or after
Speaker 1: you've eaten. Your gurgling it's that's your stomach contracting, all right. So, uh,
Speaker 1: if if everything goes well and all the stuff in
Speaker 1: there can be liquefied in the clime and by the way,
Speaker 1: don't google image that. Yeah, bolus converts to cime so
Speaker 1: sandwich into bolus into kime now, and that's if it
Speaker 1: can be converted into the kind which is liquefied. Um,
Speaker 1: it's gonna get out of your stomach in about twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: It's a liquefied blob. That's that's a good definition of time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And not everything can can turn into kime though, so
Speaker 1: that's gonna remain. It's gonna take a little longer. It
Speaker 1: takes about an hour to get the more solid stuff out.
Speaker 1: And that's not a liquefied blob, is more pasty, a
Speaker 1: pasty blob. And it's not called time. That's called yield.
Speaker 1: So you get the come in's out of your stomach, right,
Speaker 1: it's now in the duodenum. Yeah, it's it's entered the
Speaker 1: small intestine, which, as we said, the small intestine is
Speaker 1: considered the small intestine because the circumference of it is
Speaker 1: is narrower than the large intestine. But the small intestine
Speaker 1: is broken into three parts, and the entire point of
Speaker 1: the small intestine is digestion and absorption breakdown of the
Speaker 1: food materials, and then the absorption of the particles that
Speaker 1: are broken down. Right, So the first part of the
Speaker 1: small intestine is what the duodenum is. How we're pronouncing it,
Speaker 1: maybe do it in um. I think that's what I
Speaker 1: was doing in my head, but I like duoten um uh.
Speaker 1: And that that's basically a big burst of um enzymes
Speaker 1: from the pancreas and the liver from the Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it starts really breaking down food like the foods like
Speaker 1: no more, no more, And then it leaves the stomach
Speaker 1: for the small intestines, and it's like out of the
Speaker 1: frying pan and into the fire for this stuff. That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The next two parts are the jum and the ilium,
Speaker 1: and they don't do a lot of breaking down the food.
Speaker 1: They mainly are absorbing the nutrients before you send it
Speaker 1: to the large intestine. Yeah. And here's this is what
Speaker 1: gets me, man, I love this UM. The large intestines
Speaker 1: also about absorption to some parts of it are but
Speaker 1: it's also the biggest function it provides is um preparing waste.
Speaker 1: It seems like UM that I've always wondered, like how
Speaker 1: do you get your nutrients oude of food? And this
Speaker 1: article explains it. It's awesome, man, think about this. So
Speaker 1: this breakdown process, and you have specialized enzymes, like some
Speaker 1: enzymes from your liver are meant to break down like fats, right,
Speaker 1: and proteins your pancreas is meant to break down like
Speaker 1: um uh carbohydrates. So you have specialized enzymes that break
Speaker 1: down certain things UM. And then you have billy, like
Speaker 1: you said, these little tiny hair like projectiles that cover
Speaker 1: the folds of your small intestines. And then you have microvilli,
Speaker 1: which are projectiles on the small projectiles, and these things,
Speaker 1: like you remember, taste buds are or taste receptors are
Speaker 1: two into certain tastes. These things are attuned to certain nutrients,
Speaker 1: so they pick up certain types of nutrients and then
Speaker 1: absorb them through the cell, through the wall of your
Speaker 1: intestines and into your bloodstream to be delivered throughout your body.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. Is it's amazing. That's an amazing process.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're knocked out by this. And so basically
Speaker 1: along the way this food is traveling down and like
Speaker 1: it just gets hit by all like hit and run
Speaker 1: by all these different proteins that just go into the
Speaker 1: walls of your intestines, leaving what's left over. That's right.
Speaker 1: I'm just amazed by that. That's great. Uh. Now you're
Speaker 1: in the large intestine um, the indigestible parts that is,
Speaker 1: and this is the last stretch here you're gonna get.
Speaker 1: You know, fluid is going to be extracted to produce
Speaker 1: what you want in the end, which is a solid
Speaker 1: fecal matter. You don't want it to solid. You don't
Speaker 1: want it too solid either. That there's like a there's
Speaker 1: a balance to ext and uh, the large intestine, you
Speaker 1: know the bottom, there's three parts of that. The bottom
Speaker 1: is that the scum, and the little appendix dangles off
Speaker 1: the end of that. Then there's the ascending ascending colon
Speaker 1: which goes up obviously, the transverse colon which shoots across
Speaker 1: your body, and then it drops back down to the
Speaker 1: descending colon. The first two sections salts and fluids are
Speaker 1: absorbed from the food electro lights has electro lights, that's right.
Speaker 1: And uh, also bacteria, good bacteria in the colon. They're
Speaker 1: gonna ferment and absorbed fiber, which is that's how you
Speaker 1: get your fiber. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, Chuck. We know
Speaker 1: a little bit about bacteria. Remember the little video we made.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's out yet. Yeah, about healthy bacteria
Speaker 1: and how you have really good, like really beneficial colonies
Speaker 1: of bacteria in your intestines. And um, if your bacteria
Speaker 1: is not doing the trick or you lose it, you
Speaker 1: can get a poop transplant, that's right, which is poop
Speaker 1: taken from another healthy person, ground up in a blender
Speaker 1: with uh sailing solution maybe, and then injected into the
Speaker 1: ailing patient. That's right. Basically, get a good colony of
Speaker 1: bacteria going in the intestine, which is a great thing.
Speaker 1: It works, man, Uh, poop is going to move about
Speaker 1: a centimeter per hour do your large intestine, so it's
Speaker 1: a lot slower than your small intestine. And it does
Speaker 1: this with the help of more mucus produced on the
Speaker 1: inside of your large intestine to help the poop move through.
Speaker 1: And then you know, at that point you basically have
Speaker 1: one in the chamber. As they say, So that's the
Speaker 1: that's the that's the path. Yeah, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: a bite of ham sandwich, that's what happens to you. Um,
Speaker 1: that's all you see. But there's other things that play
Speaker 1: there's other factors. Are other organs um involved in this.
Speaker 1: And I looked at the spleen spleens immune system. I
Speaker 1: thought for sure the spleen had something to do with digestion.
Speaker 1: It has like almost no role in digestion whatsoever. Basically,
Speaker 1: the two big organs outside of the actual digestive system
Speaker 1: that play a major role in digestion are the liver,
Speaker 1: which by the way, makes up what two and a
Speaker 1: half percent of your body weight? Did you know that?
Speaker 1: I had no idea and do not look up cirrhosis
Speaker 1: and google images either. Yeah, you realize, you know you
Speaker 1: say that a lot. You tell people not to look
Speaker 1: things up. You know that every time you do, people
Speaker 1: go look things up. That's why I talk. Um. So,
Speaker 1: the liver, like we said, creates bile, which is a
Speaker 1: brownish yellowish fluid that's designed to break down fats and
Speaker 1: proteins UM, and the liver stores this extra bilot produces
Speaker 1: in the gallbladder. And you say, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I have my gall bladder taken out. That's worry. The
Speaker 1: liver has it covered. It's just stores extra bile and
Speaker 1: bile ducks, right, that's right. The pancreas. Pancreas creates enzymes
Speaker 1: that are designed to break down things like carbs, I believe,
Speaker 1: um also fats and proteins as well. But for the
Speaker 1: most part UM the liver handles that. So basically, both
Speaker 1: of these these organs are producing these proteins, they're shooting
Speaker 1: them into your intestines, particularly you're small intestine, and um,
Speaker 1: they're helping break down your food. That's right, But that's
Speaker 1: not all. In parastalsis is helping this whole time. It's
Speaker 1: making everything move around involuntarily contracting, relaxing. It's all about
Speaker 1: and especially in the stomach too. It's basically like a
Speaker 1: washer on the washed cycle. Yeah, you know, washing machine.
Speaker 1: Glands are very important. If you didn't have glands, then
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be secreting anything, right, and you need all
Speaker 1: these juices, acids, enzymes. The glands basically start in your
Speaker 1: mouth with saliva and go all the way you know,
Speaker 1: through the stomach. Not I mean it doesn't go all
Speaker 1: the way. I don't think you well an glands. I
Speaker 1: think those are just in dogs. I don't think humans
Speaker 1: have those, and not just in dogs. But you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we have a normal glance. You should
Speaker 1: look that up. And hormones are really important, like super important.
Speaker 1: They basically control everything. Yeah, as far as starting off
Speaker 1: each process so well, a hormone it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: you're what your body is doing. A hormone is a
Speaker 1: chemical signal, and specifically with digestion, you've got gastron um.
Speaker 1: It tells the stomach to produce acid. Secreting um tells
Speaker 1: the pancreas to do its thing. Same with the liver.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, what is it talked to the stomach
Speaker 1: so basically secret and says, go start secreting your juices, right,
Speaker 1: And then c c K, which, if I may coali
Speaker 1: cisto kinan, col colcist cold, colocister kinan. It was very close.
Speaker 1: You're much better at pronouncing things than me. Well, I
Speaker 1: look it up. C c K basically says, hey, pancreas, hey,
Speaker 1: gall bladder, we need some more stuff, and they give
Speaker 1: it to them. So basically, the hormones are running throughout
Speaker 1: the body, saying you you you start. That's right, there's
Speaker 1: food a foot. There are other hormones. And we covered
Speaker 1: these grellan and pep tide y y, where do we cover? That?
Speaker 1: Was that? And I don't remember, but I got it
Speaker 1: totally backwards. What the first time we did it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I said that grellan um was the stomach signal that
Speaker 1: it was full. It's the exact opposite means you're hungry. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The stomach and the small intestine produce the hormone grilling
Speaker 1: and that communicates to the brain to say, get some
Speaker 1: food in here. Did we get listener mail on that
Speaker 1: or a lot of it? And then pep tide why
Speaker 1: why does the opposite says whoa we're very full, or
Speaker 1: is I like call it peptide Why why I don't
Speaker 1: eat until I hurt any longer? Do you? Uh No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just I don't get it. It's so American. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just pretty growth. Yeah, peptide y y says, whoa,
Speaker 1: we got enough to stop stop feeding fat boy? That's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nerves play a big part um. Extrinsic nerves are in
Speaker 1: the unconscious part of the brain and the spinal cord.
Speaker 1: And here you know the main fun You got acetocoline
Speaker 1: and adrenaline. The main function of a ctocoline is to
Speaker 1: signal all this parastalsis, all this muscle contraction, and basically
Speaker 1: adrenaline shuts it down when there's no food, saying you
Speaker 1: don't need to keep contracting and relaxing and moving around.
Speaker 1: Just take a take a chill, bill, right, And those
Speaker 1: are conducted by extrinsic nerves, which are in the brain
Speaker 1: and spinal cord. Right. The intrinsic nerves are located in
Speaker 1: the actual guts. And what's cool is they circumvent the brain.
Speaker 1: They're activated by basically the pressure of food in your intestine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I thought that was a little weird. Usually the brain
Speaker 1: isn't bypassed. It's generally the seed of everything, agreed. So
Speaker 1: you know that's digestion. We should talk about all the
Speaker 1: stuff in your food. What it means like carbs. This
Speaker 1: is this is the amazing part that I was talking
Speaker 1: about earlier, where it's just absorbed. You know, this is
Speaker 1: where it happens somewhere this molecular level. Carbs are broken
Speaker 1: down by all these juices absorbed into the small intestine
Speaker 1: and then eventually the blood um starch in the bread.
Speaker 1: If you're eating bread, the same thing is going to
Speaker 1: happen to that. But it's also going to produce a
Speaker 1: byproduct called glucose, which will give you some energy. They're
Speaker 1: in your liver. Yep, we'll give your whole body energy,
Speaker 1: but stored in the liver at least it will give
Speaker 1: your whole body energy eventually when your liver releases and
Speaker 1: burns it. That's right, it's a car aren't a dirty word. Now.
Speaker 1: You just have to be careful what kind of carves
Speaker 1: you're you're taking in. Some are definitely better than others.
Speaker 1: Complex carbohydrates are generally better than simple carbo hydrates. But remember,
Speaker 1: you know not too long ago, everyone thought bread was
Speaker 1: like an evil thing on the planet, all the stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to lose weight really fast, stop eating bread.
Speaker 1: It's as simple as that. Doesn't make it evil though.
Speaker 1: That's one way. Um protein. Remember you've got um, so
Speaker 1: you're you're specialized enzymes, some coming from the pancreas, but
Speaker 1: most of it coming from the liver in the gall
Speaker 1: bladder to break the stuff down ultimately into amino acids.
Speaker 1: And the amino acids are what are absorbed and taken
Speaker 1: throughout your body. Amino Acids are the building blocks of
Speaker 1: all life, that's what they say. And then vitamins, as
Speaker 1: my English friends say, you have an English friend, I've
Speaker 1: got more than one. What do you collecting them? How
Speaker 1: many English friends do you have? I got dozens. Vitamins
Speaker 1: are there's a couple of kinds, water soluble and fat soluble.
Speaker 1: B and C are the ones that are water soluble,
Speaker 1: and they are easily absorbed along with water and the
Speaker 1: small intestine. But they also are easily gotten rid of
Speaker 1: past through your urine. And then you got the fat
Speaker 1: soluble which we're talking about A D and K, and
Speaker 1: they're absorbed just like fat. And then they are stored.
Speaker 1: Once they're absorbed, they're stored. And uh, liposytes, I think
Speaker 1: it's lipus sites like LiPo. You say liposuction or liposuction,
Speaker 1: I say liposuction. Do you always go with the lie.
Speaker 1: That's one I didn't look up. Actually, I looked up
Speaker 1: all these other pronunciations. Lip sites like lipids, fats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like LiPo like lipids. Um. So that's it, man,
Speaker 1: That's that's the digestive a process as it's ideally meant
Speaker 1: to function. It doesn't always function like that though, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't function like that for me. Ever. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of problems that can arise. Apparently you have all
Speaker 1: of them. No, not all, Um, there's also some uh,
Speaker 1: I guess impoliteness that can arise is just a matter
Speaker 1: of course, just a normal normal doing business like belching. Right,
Speaker 1: if you eat especially quickly, uh, you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: lot of air trapped in your stomach or obviously. Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically any anything that has to do with air getting
Speaker 1: trapped in your stomach ends up as a belt or
Speaker 1: burt because that's that's good stuff. That's how that's what
Speaker 1: usually does it for me. Yeah, all it is is UM.
Speaker 1: Basically your esophagus pushing this air from your stomach out
Speaker 1: of your mouth rather quickly. Three to four burps is
Speaker 1: normal after a meal. Yeah, anything more than that, you
Speaker 1: might have an altar perhaps, or maybe you're just gassy.
Speaker 1: Well gas is something different, all right, Yeah, we'll get
Speaker 1: to that in a minute. UM vomiting, that's normal. It's
Speaker 1: considered normal to vomit three or four times after each meal.
Speaker 1: That's not true at all. That's very dangerous. Yes, vomiting
Speaker 1: is normal if you have UM. It's usually bad bacteria
Speaker 1: irritating your system and a signal ascent, Hey, you gotta
Speaker 1: get this out of here. And it's really that easy.
Speaker 1: He's ruining the party. Sure. I heard Jim Brewers a
Speaker 1: little bit about all the different alcohol coming into your
Speaker 1: stomach and finally like I can't remember which one comes
Speaker 1: in and it's like everybody and I think that might
Speaker 1: be what it is. UM. And then we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about GURD before. Chuck, you're one of twenty
Speaker 1: two million Americans. You know that. I'm a good company
Speaker 1: who has GURD seven a thousand trips to the hospital
Speaker 1: each year in the US alone. Yeah, I don't I
Speaker 1: just manage it to over the counter stuff and it
Speaker 1: it handles it for you for the most part. But
Speaker 1: it's not good to I mean my doctor told me,
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, this isn't good to live with this
Speaker 1: for your life. So what are you gonna do? I
Speaker 1: don't know. You get a new esophageal sphincter. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do nothing, like I always well, I mean, what can
Speaker 1: you do? I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: There are surgeries, but I don't know what you know,
Speaker 1: how involved that is? I don't want. I will study
Speaker 1: and you find the lowest price for surgery, I'll beat
Speaker 1: it by half. What are you in Costa Rica? They're
Speaker 1: big for a dentistry now Costa Rica like good dentistry.
Speaker 1: That's a lot cheaper. How else do you get big
Speaker 1: at something you gotta be really cheap? Um peptic ulcers, man,
Speaker 1: that's another problem that actually we walked right past and
Speaker 1: the ten scientists who used themselves as guinea pigs episode,
Speaker 1: so peptic ulcers. You remember when when we were kids,
Speaker 1: like Toms and roll Ads, was like I'm stressed out
Speaker 1: or I got a lot of I got a deadline
Speaker 1: at work I got. Yeah, not true. Ulcers. It turns
Speaker 1: out are caused largely most of the time by a
Speaker 1: bacteria called helio Bacter pylori H. Pylori. Uh. And there
Speaker 1: was a guy in Australian um physician. I think he's
Speaker 1: a physician, or at least a biologist, I can't remember,
Speaker 1: maybe a bacteriologist. We'll find out. I'm sure this is
Speaker 1: like listener mail on listener mail, that's how bad this is. Anyway,
Speaker 1: his name is Barry Marshall, and he figured out that
Speaker 1: it was H. Pylori that was probably causing peptic ulcers.
Speaker 1: To prove it, he drank a culture of that bacteria
Speaker 1: and then cured himself with antibiotics, and he developed heeptic
Speaker 1: ulcers in the interim and showed like, yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: it is. You want a Nobel Prize for it? Really? Yep? Wow? Uh.
Speaker 1: Anti inflammatory sometimes can cause those as well, and I
Speaker 1: think that's probably like an abundance of anti inflammatories. Really yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think if you take like an anville you're
Speaker 1: gonna get a peptic culture. But an ulcer of any
Speaker 1: kind basically is something has gone into, uh, your stomach
Speaker 1: and has compromised your stomach or your intestines and has
Speaker 1: compromised the lining that mucus. Right, and while all those
Speaker 1: acids are then allowed to eat through and you have
Speaker 1: holes in it. It's right, not fine? Uh, stomach bug?
Speaker 1: I get once a year once usually once? Which way
Speaker 1: does it come out both at the same time. I've
Speaker 1: you ever done that? I have had as awful. That's
Speaker 1: so awful. Yeah, that happened to me once. Um, I
Speaker 1: guess I probably get those, man, I would think more
Speaker 1: them once a year. It seems like I need to
Speaker 1: start paying attention. Yeah, yeah, I don't know it always
Speaker 1: tell you next year. My my flu always comes by
Speaker 1: way of the stomach. It seems like I don't I
Speaker 1: don't have like the regular flu that much. It's right.
Speaker 1: You don't you get like septic flus, that's right, peptic flus? No, septic.
Speaker 1: Wasn't it like a septic stomach bug? Or I don't know,
Speaker 1: you were green. I've never seen a human being green before.
Speaker 1: Oh you poor guy, forgot about that. Lactose intolerant. I
Speaker 1: am also that, yeah to a certain degree. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: like if I eat pizza, yeah, then I'm having troubles.
Speaker 1: So here, this is a rare try trifecta trivergence will
Speaker 1: call it of this episode the cheese episode and the
Speaker 1: gluten episode the Celiac episode, right, because in the Celiac episode,
Speaker 1: I say, we were talking about casin, and I was like, casin,
Speaker 1: that's probably just another word for lactose, and that's what
Speaker 1: people are in taller enough. Well, that was totally incorrect,
Speaker 1: as we found out in the cheese episode. Because the
Speaker 1: cheese episode, remember, casin is the main fat and cheese
Speaker 1: right right. Uh So now we're here and I'm correcting it. Great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all three are conjoined by mistakes and regret. Um, did
Speaker 1: we even say what it was? Lactose? And taller means
Speaker 1: you can't digest milk sugar? Yeah, lactose yeah, not everyone
Speaker 1: knows what that is. Have you ever had the milk,
Speaker 1: the lactose free milk. No. I drink a lot of
Speaker 1: almond milk these days, though it's really good. YEA. Emily
Speaker 1: is on the soy she's been on that food. Tell
Speaker 1: her to try almond milk. I think it's better. I
Speaker 1: don't think she ever wouldn't tell her to try it. Emily,
Speaker 1: try it. I call it soy juice. So it bugs her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's not milk. It's well, coconut milk. It's considered milk.
Speaker 1: Don't you consider coconut milk milk that same thing, same thing,
Speaker 1: coconut juice. No, it's coconut milk, and everybody calls it that. Well,
Speaker 1: everyone calls soy milk, soy milk. But it ain't milk
Speaker 1: to me unless it comes out of a heat. Byson teeth,
Speaker 1: Byson teeth. Um, all right, so we should cover the
Speaker 1: other end of the problems, um, near your bottom end.
Speaker 1: Like this is like ib D inflammatory bowe disease. It's structural,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with IBF. Ib D is really
Speaker 1: like I thought there was one I didn't have. I
Speaker 1: was pretty excited there for a second. Um, there's two
Speaker 1: types of major types of ibduh all sorts of colitis
Speaker 1: and Crohn's disease. About six hundred thousand Americans or or
Speaker 1: afflicted by this each year. And basically there are ulcers
Speaker 1: in the intestines that lead to cramps, diarrhea, intestinal eating,
Speaker 1: not fun. No did you know that there? And it
Speaker 1: may be like local law in some place, but they're
Speaker 1: trying to pass legislation that if you are a Crone's patient,
Speaker 1: and you tell somebody, like in a public like a
Speaker 1: business or something that doesn't provide public restrooms, that you
Speaker 1: have CRONES and you need to use the restroom. This legislation,
Speaker 1: this legislation would make it a crime to not let
Speaker 1: a person with Crones disease seriously use the bathroom. No,
Speaker 1: I think if somebody tells you I have Crone's disease,
Speaker 1: that I guess they the assumption would be that you
Speaker 1: would just have to be a total jerk to use that.
Speaker 1: But even if even if you are encountering a jerk,
Speaker 1: it's worth having to put up with that jerk than
Speaker 1: to like not let a person with crones use your bathroom. Federal.
Speaker 1: That's last I heard. Here's the thing, though, You do
Speaker 1: that and they're like whatever, dude, I don't I've never
Speaker 1: heard of that. They kick you out right, so what
Speaker 1: you can go back, can have them find or something.
Speaker 1: But then no, it doesn't right then, But then the
Speaker 1: news picks it up and start talking about it, and
Speaker 1: then awareness develops, it starts. It takes a village. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: IBS so IBD Inflammentary bowel disease is structural like there's
Speaker 1: something structurally wrong with your intestines. Like you said, IBS
Speaker 1: is functional where there doesn't appear to be anything wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, have any cysts or there's not like a
Speaker 1: hole in it or something like that, but it's not
Speaker 1: functioning properly at all. So you have like cramps and
Speaker 1: gas and yeah, just the whole, the whole nine um.
Speaker 1: And it's apparently it's it responds to stress, hormonal changes antibiotics,
Speaker 1: which makes me think that it would have something to
Speaker 1: do with that healthy beneficial bacteria colony in your when
Speaker 1: they think your brain isn't communicating with your intestines properly,
Speaker 1: but they're not sure. No, we don't know. So in
Speaker 1: the meantime, people with IBS have to probably medicate. Do
Speaker 1: we need to talk about Celiac? Well, no, go listen
Speaker 1: to the sea how Celiac disease works. What was it called? Uh,
Speaker 1: something about gluten? Should I not eat gluten or something? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Good one, that's what it is called. Yeah, let's go
Speaker 1: listen to that one. You'll learn all about celiac and
Speaker 1: you'll hear my now famous mistake about casin flatulence. Whereas
Speaker 1: Melissa Jeffrey says farting. Ah. The digestive process produces gases,
Speaker 1: as we all know, methane of course, also a little
Speaker 1: hydrogen and CEO two and uh. When the rectum senses
Speaker 1: that there's some gas in there taken up space, sends
Speaker 1: the signal to the brain. The sphincter relaxes and out
Speaker 1: it comes, thank you. And what is normal? Uh, normal
Speaker 1: is something like three pints of gas per day that's
Speaker 1: built up and then released in ten to twenty five
Speaker 1: instances a day. A lot. I don't think I shoot
Speaker 1: ducks that often. We should keep count. Okay, we'll start tomorrow,
Speaker 1: start the first thing in the morning. But you gotta
Speaker 1: give me like stay up all night though, And you know,
Speaker 1: because it's some of some of the stuff happens while
Speaker 1: you're sleep. Oh yeah, I hadn't. I hadn't considered set
Speaker 1: up a microphone or a smellometer. Do you have a smellometer.
Speaker 1: I do. It's attached to um my chest and it
Speaker 1: shocks me every time. It's sense of something constipation, something
Speaker 1: actually I've never been afflicted with. That's good, man, that's good.
Speaker 1: That's what they call a reprieve. It is um constipation
Speaker 1: is be straightforward and functionally. It just means that your
Speaker 1: intestine is not moving very fast. I mean you remember
Speaker 1: when you're in your lower intestine, especially in the colon,
Speaker 1: the the caime or whatever it's called. By that time,
Speaker 1: the waste is being stripped of water and salts um.
Speaker 1: And if it makes too long, right, but also to
Speaker 1: recycle that stuff um. And if it if it stays
Speaker 1: in there too long, it can become dry and hard
Speaker 1: and difficult to pass. Hard poop m than our household
Speaker 1: hard poop. And then this one is so gross. And
Speaker 1: then the opposite, diarrhea um is just the well, it's
Speaker 1: just the opposite. It means you have an overactive lower
Speaker 1: intestine that is passing stuff too quickly and is not
Speaker 1: absorbing fast enough. So you have wet poop. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to get into it. But there is a
Speaker 1: thing called the Bristol stool scale and it is you
Speaker 1: me's favorite poster in the world. There's ant like you
Speaker 1: have the illustration of the digestive system. There is a
Speaker 1: medical illustration poster of like I think it's seven six
Speaker 1: or seven different types of poop, from stuff that just
Speaker 1: like is like nothing but floating fats to a very
Speaker 1: hard like black poop and the different types are you
Speaker 1: want to hit somewhere in the middle. Yeah. I had
Speaker 1: a doctor to say once that soft service cream is
Speaker 1: what you're looking for. I didn't. I always thought I
Speaker 1: would be a little harder than that. Yeah, yeah, soft
Speaker 1: service cream. I don't think so. I think your doctor's
Speaker 1: full of it. Well, this is one of those doctor's
Speaker 1: fullest stool. This is one of those wacky dietician guys.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, oh, you can you change everything
Speaker 1: you eat? Which he's probably right. Probably. Um and diarrhea
Speaker 1: apparently happened um to most Americans about four bouts a year,
Speaker 1: which I was astounded to hear that. How many a day? No,
Speaker 1: I mean I just I figured people got diary and
Speaker 1: more than four times a year. Ye not not. Most
Speaker 1: people don't need as much crystals as you and I do.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Oh, crystal crystal burgers, white Castle
Speaker 1: for our northern friends. So our apologies to Crystal and
Speaker 1: white Castle, and our apologies really to every single one
Speaker 1: of your mother's because I'm sure you laughed at this.
Speaker 1: We said poop a bunch of times to part you
Speaker 1: said the F word. Yeah, T was in there. Um,
Speaker 1: so I'm glad everybody made it through this one. Good going.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you learned a little bit about your own digestive system.
Speaker 1: It's a miracle how it functions. It is. It is
Speaker 1: amazing how the whole thing happens. So, uh, if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about digestion, there's even some stuff
Speaker 1: we didn't touch in here, like coward digestion type, indigestive
Speaker 1: system in the search bar how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: and it will bring up this fine, fine article. And
Speaker 1: I said search bar, So it's time now for listener mail. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to give a This is Kiva based. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you want to give a quick overview there, okay.
Speaker 1: Kiva is an organization a website that allows schmos like
Speaker 1: us who have an extra bucks slaying around to lend
Speaker 1: it two people and say the third world, who can
Speaker 1: actually buy a substantial amount of supplies or um clothing
Speaker 1: or whatever and then use it to sell and in
Speaker 1: their business to become well off enough so that they
Speaker 1: don't have to take loans anymore and can in turn
Speaker 1: a peaceful democracy, loving times. And where is our team?
Speaker 1: Our team is k I v A dot org slash
Speaker 1: team slash stuff You should know, and we are team
Speaker 1: has gotten pretty crazy. Well yeah, where are we financially?
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha? Yeah, so we have a team of that's
Speaker 1: also third third in size, behind the Christians and the well, no,
Speaker 1: behind the Atheists and the Christians and then team stuff.
Speaker 1: You should not that crazy. Yeah, that's pretty not. That
Speaker 1: makes us a pseudo religion. I didn't want to say it,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad someone did. Um so our team with
Speaker 1: their religious fervor his loan Chuck, I'm gonna let you
Speaker 1: say it more than I didn't get the exact number,
Speaker 1: but we surpassed seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: loans in loans in in like two years, two years
Speaker 1: or one year two Yeah, you're right, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just had our second anniversars and Glenn and Sonja
Speaker 1: are our awesome I'm gonna call them official team captains.
Speaker 1: We if they weren't official, Chuck, I say we officially
Speaker 1: at this moment designate them our CIVA team captains. Glen
Speaker 1: and Towner. And they're awesome and they keep up with it,
Speaker 1: and they said our goals. Uh he actually Glenn figures
Speaker 1: and stuff out like by the month when we can
Speaker 1: hit this goal and our next one is obviously a
Speaker 1: million bucks, which is staggering. And he's calling it the
Speaker 1: million dollar March because it's due in March. If we
Speaker 1: have a nice holiday giving season, and I think we are, Like,
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of people out there that had
Speaker 1: like some really amazing stats about their own their own landing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got a few sitting there. Actually I need to
Speaker 1: re loan. Yeah, I just they've caught up to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you just had real loan day and I haven't
Speaker 1: gone and looked. Yeah, it's always nice. Uh And a
Speaker 1: special um shout to Josiah and Janelle. They are on
Speaker 1: our team. They are a US couple living in Korea,
Speaker 1: I think the English. Yeah, so they're not they're not
Speaker 1: raking in money here. They have loaned four hundred times
Speaker 1: due to the tune of ten thousand dollars, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a lot. That makes me feel really bad. Ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars in loans in Kiva. That's making a significant difference.
Speaker 1: But the cool thing is is they are loans and
Speaker 1: if they so decided, they could get their money back.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't look like they are well because the
Speaker 1: retirement plan so that's I mean, if you're not joining
Speaker 1: KIVA at this point, then you've got something wrong with
Speaker 1: something's wrong with you, for sure. And like the fact
Speaker 1: that that who is it Janelle and uh Janelle and Josiah.
Speaker 1: Janelle and Josiah, thank you so much for doing that.
Speaker 1: The fact that they loaned ten thousand dollars is not like,
Speaker 1: that's not the standards. That's incredible, It's mind blowing. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people on the team have loaned a
Speaker 1: couple of times here or there. But uh, if you
Speaker 1: go and look at you know what it takes for
Speaker 1: a loan to be fulfilled, twenty five bucks, like makes
Speaker 1: a difference, be quick. The people who are looking for
Speaker 1: loans often are asking for far less than a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and they can take that again, what what a
Speaker 1: grand here? Twenty five dollars here is exponentially more in
Speaker 1: another country. That's right, um, even in this economy. So
Speaker 1: if you want to join our kVA team, we're always
Speaker 1: happy to have new people, especially if you actually provide
Speaker 1: a loan and not just join the team. I've never
Speaker 1: gotten that of you. You can do that, Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: you can go to k I v A dot org
Speaker 1: slash team slash Stuff you Should Know and join. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can buy a Christmas gifts gift certificates. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: great gift certificates because after they're repaid, the person can
Speaker 1: either loan them or they got the twenty five bucks.
Speaker 1: So you you can be helping two people at the
Speaker 1: same time. But you can also find a lot out
Speaker 1: about your nephew, what kind of person heeded, what he
Speaker 1: does when re loan Day happened? Yea um again, k
Speaker 1: I v A dot Org Slash Team slash Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know. And if you want to talk to us,
Speaker 1: you want to communicate with Chuck and I, you can
Speaker 1: tweak to us at s Y s K podcast. You
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash Stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can join the fifty thousand on Facebook,
Speaker 1: or you can email us at stuff podcast at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for moral this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. To
Speaker 1: learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon
Speaker 1: in the upper right corner of our homepage. The How
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