Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuke Bryant's willing away in some champagne.
Speaker 1: You're sorry, sparkling my shando and so it's from NAPA.
Speaker 1: And there's Jerry over there, Jerry Scudder champagne too. We're
Speaker 1: all just hanging out. We're gonna talk to you guys
Speaker 1: while we wait for the shrimp cocktail with aw literally
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff you should know. That's right. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're back in the same room everybody for the first
Speaker 1: time in about fourteen months. And Jerry brought in champagne
Speaker 1: and frozen shrimp cocktail. There's a story behind that. Go
Speaker 1: ahead and say it. You go ahead and say, I
Speaker 1: don't remember you were the shrimp you first started it,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like twelve years ago we we we
Speaker 1: were tracking to hit number one on iTunes in like
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, I think at the beginning of
Speaker 1: two thousand no nine maybe whatever, and um, I was like,
Speaker 1: I want a shrimp cocktail in the in the recording
Speaker 1: studio when we hit number one. We hit number one,
Speaker 1: came and went stayed number one, hit number one again.
Speaker 1: No shrimp cocktail. This is the shrimp cocktail from two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. Yeah, finally has made an appearance, and it's frozen.
Speaker 1: It might literally be from two thousand It might be.
Speaker 1: It's turning. The veins are turning kind of purple as
Speaker 1: it thaws. I can't wait to eat the shrimp cocktail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're having shampagne. Jerry classed it up basically, I feel
Speaker 1: I feel it was a nice homecoming she did. But
Speaker 1: the three of us are fully backs. Were in a
Speaker 1: room together. The microphones don't have fake years attached to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that joke won't make sense to you now,
Speaker 1: But we recorded another episode before this one, but it
Speaker 1: was getting released later, so this technically our second episode.
Speaker 1: It just put that in your button and smoke it
Speaker 1: in your hat. What do you talk about? Have a
Speaker 1: weird urged a curse? I don't know why. I think
Speaker 1: you just did so, Jerry Beppe bp P p peep.
Speaker 1: But it's it's great to be back together in a
Speaker 1: little weird um, but not as weird as I thought
Speaker 1: it would be. That first one was weird because we're
Speaker 1: in a different room. Yeah, we got all the weirdness
Speaker 1: out in a weird situation, it would have been weird regardless.
Speaker 1: But now we're back in in Studio one A. That
Speaker 1: was a really good move. Jerry, did you plan it
Speaker 1: like that to get the jitters out? Jerry thumbs up.
Speaker 1: Jerry's real. Everybody she chooses not to talk. Jerry's let
Speaker 1: her hair grow out. I know she got a ponytail,
Speaker 1: but the first time I've ever seen it's got an
Speaker 1: even more peppery, no salty in a salt and pepper way.
Speaker 1: It doesn't get more peppery unless you make a you know,
Speaker 1: a move to make it so. And she looks like
Speaker 1: a wealthy retiree who drives a Maseratti and knows their
Speaker 1: way around the club. You know what I mean, That's
Speaker 1: what Jerry looks like. She looks distinguished but also foxy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I spent my last January of losing twenty five
Speaker 1: pounds and then COVID hit and now I have gained backunds.
Speaker 1: I'm exactly where I was. Is that right? Exactly to
Speaker 1: the pound? And it makes me really angry. Oh no,
Speaker 1: just go with you. Oh I know, but I just,
Speaker 1: you know, let me get back together. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm doing so good. I'm so good pandemic And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, now I can eat and drink all
Speaker 1: I want because it's sad. So you lost the weight
Speaker 1: before the pandemic hit, Yeah, I hit it hard in
Speaker 1: January to junior March January one probably, yeah, okay, And
Speaker 1: like I was working with a trainer, like you know,
Speaker 1: so I was having to go to her every like
Speaker 1: three days a week, and just you know, I was
Speaker 1: making the right decisions and tracking and and the weight disappears.
Speaker 1: And then COVID hit and I just started making all
Speaker 1: the wrong decisions and let myself do that. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: happened to all of us, myself included. I went through
Speaker 1: what you went through where I lost a bunch of
Speaker 1: weight and I managed to keep it off. And then
Speaker 1: COVID hit and I was still doing okay, doing okay,
Speaker 1: maybe eating a little more than usual, like I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna let it happen though, and I was. I wasn't.
Speaker 1: And then our book hit, and that's what got me.
Speaker 1: When we were writing it and working on a two
Speaker 1: hours a day every day, I was eating so much weight.
Speaker 1: I gained book weight, and I actually I have not
Speaker 1: been this big since I don't know when. Man, but
Speaker 1: I still got it. So I'm I'm doing what I can.
Speaker 1: You look the same? I do? Well? Then I what
Speaker 1: I started two weeks ago was kicked in. I guess
Speaker 1: if I look the same, well, you look great. Great,
Speaker 1: everyone looks and feels great. Yeah, let's talk about the appendix,
Speaker 1: the Rodney Dangerfield of organs. This is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite articles that we've done in a while. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know how I often complain about science. This is
Speaker 1: a kind of science I love. Yeah. Understandable, Yeah, body science, understandable.
Speaker 1: Super cool. This factors into our hygiene hypothesis episode, our
Speaker 1: human microbiome episode, digestive system episode. Yeah, it all sort
Speaker 1: of fits together. In that little worm like organ, it's
Speaker 1: an organ, right, yeah, it's an organ. Yeah. A lot
Speaker 1: of people thought it was a vestigial organ. They're wrong, right,
Speaker 1: But that weird little thing, uh, hanging out there, just
Speaker 1: going just wiggling around like a little worm is really
Speaker 1: kind of cool and fascinating. And I love that it
Speaker 1: has a great story behind its lack of usefulness and
Speaker 1: then turns out usefulness. And it's just agreed, this is
Speaker 1: really good stuff. It's smashed bang stuff. You should know.
Speaker 1: That's right. Let's talk about it. So um, like you said,
Speaker 1: the appendix is like this little worm like thing that
Speaker 1: dangles off the bottom of the ascending coal and large intestine.
Speaker 1: Coal in large intestine and large bowl are the one
Speaker 1: and the same. So when you hear people say bowl,
Speaker 1: they're typically talking about that colon large intestine. It's all
Speaker 1: the same thing, which I found confusing until I looked
Speaker 1: it up and found okay, it's all that um two
Speaker 1: to four inches long the appendix right generally, although the
Speaker 1: biggest one was pulled out of a seventy two year
Speaker 1: old Croatian man named Sofranco August during his autopsy, and
Speaker 1: his was ten inches or twenty six centimeters long. What
Speaker 1: do you think they were like in that autopsy? They're like, wow,
Speaker 1: I think that the medical examiner's staff had a T
Speaker 1: shirt made up that Sofranco August was buried in that said,
Speaker 1: I've got the biggest appendix ever. Maybe, I mean that's
Speaker 1: crazy because when you, like I encourage you look up
Speaker 1: a picture of the appendix, it is it looks like
Speaker 1: a little worm and it's hanging there on this little
Speaker 1: bulbous pouch called the sikum, and the Sikim is kind
Speaker 1: of like where it's it's the part in between this
Speaker 1: all Intestine and Large Intestine where there there's an agreement
Speaker 1: that takes place, basically where the small Intestine it is like,
Speaker 1: all right, listen, I'll take all this food and I'll
Speaker 1: make it into clime, but I am not going into
Speaker 1: the fecal zone. Now you handle the fecal stuff, colon,
Speaker 1: And the colon says, fine, here's my buddy, the secum.
Speaker 1: It'll it'll service a little halfway house. You can pass
Speaker 1: everything along to me. I will broke rate, you won't
Speaker 1: get any poop on you Small Intestine, and I'll send
Speaker 1: it to the Large Intestine. But off of that Secum
Speaker 1: is dangling this this little dude yeah, which as far
Speaker 1: as anybody could ever tell, had nothing to do with digestion,
Speaker 1: which makes it really weird because everything else around here
Speaker 1: has to do with digestion. That's just what they do,
Speaker 1: that's their their their trade. And the appendix is just
Speaker 1: hanging out and people just thought, Okay, this this thing
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. But the fact that is attached
Speaker 1: there and doesn't seem to have to do with digestion,
Speaker 1: made people for a very long time think that it
Speaker 1: was a vestigial organ right, which we'll get into the
Speaker 1: specifics of one man who really championed that idea in
Speaker 1: a way that frankly made a lot of sense, and
Speaker 1: you can see why it took that many years for
Speaker 1: anyone to really poke around further into it. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you're just like, yeah, you just explained it's sure. But
Speaker 1: there are other mammals that have secums, uh, and in
Speaker 1: some mammals, especially herbivores, that can be really big relative
Speaker 1: to their body size, because in herbivores it acts as
Speaker 1: the the predigestion house for plants, and since they're eating
Speaker 1: tons of plants, they have large secums. Yeah, plant fiber
Speaker 1: is really really good for you, but it's also really
Speaker 1: hard to digest a lot of cellulose um. And that's
Speaker 1: that large intestine coming into play again, because in the
Speaker 1: stomach and the small intestine there's um, a microbiota, a microbiome,
Speaker 1: which we talked about in that one episode the Human
Speaker 1: Microbiome Project. Um. There's some in the small intestine. I
Speaker 1: think there's far far less even in the stomach, but
Speaker 1: in the large intestine. That's where it really shines. And
Speaker 1: those microbes, the pathogens, the virus is the fung guy
Speaker 1: all of the and the bacteria most of all. They
Speaker 1: all kind of work or fight or play and digest
Speaker 1: this stuff. They break it down so that we can
Speaker 1: absorb it. They turn it into fiber. Um dietary fiber
Speaker 1: uh keeps you from absorbing a lot of sugar or
Speaker 1: fats or whatever at once. Um insoluble fiber bulks your
Speaker 1: stool up, so it really kind of gets everything out
Speaker 1: of the coal and really cleanses it when you finally poop.
Speaker 1: Hand gestures. Yeah, I've missed you seeing my hand gestures
Speaker 1: now that I think, even when we're recording at home, Um,
Speaker 1: I forgot what it's like to be seeing so um.
Speaker 1: So the large intestine has this microbiome that that lives
Speaker 1: in there, and just just remember that. That's a big
Speaker 1: important point. Yeah, put a pin in that, but not
Speaker 1: literally because that would be dangerous. Um. Out of the
Speaker 1: three sixty one mammal species, only about fifty of us
Speaker 1: have an appendix or something like an appendix. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: great apes do, rabbits, possums, wombats weirdly square poop. Did
Speaker 1: they really comes out in cubes? Really? Yes? I can't
Speaker 1: tell if you're messing with me right now? Wait, hold on,
Speaker 1: keep talking. You're thinking of the square watermelons in Japan,
Speaker 1: maybe thinking of all of bees. I'm pretty sure wombats
Speaker 1: have square all right, a rare in show check. But
Speaker 1: dogs and cats don't have appendix, cows don't, oranges don't,
Speaker 1: sheep don't. Oh yeah, little poop poop cubes square. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks like those ice cube chocolates. How do they?
Speaker 1: How does that happen? How do they? Yeah? How does
Speaker 1: that work? Um? I don't have time to read that,
Speaker 1: but it looks like there's a science alert from January
Speaker 1: that says wombats are the only animals that poop cubes
Speaker 1: and now we know how Okay, well that's a definite
Speaker 1: short stuff. Okay, we'll do it. Look for that soon.
Speaker 1: Uh So, back to the vestigial organ aspect. Charles Darwin
Speaker 1: is the person who came out and said, hey, I've
Speaker 1: been looking at these And by the way, that was
Speaker 1: named officially by an anatomous named Phelippe Verhan in seventeen ten.
Speaker 1: Appendix vermiformists, which means worm shaped detachment, and I think
Speaker 1: the first appendix removals in seventeen thirty five. But Darwin
Speaker 1: was the one who said, hey, everybody, I've been looking
Speaker 1: at these herbivores and they've got these really big Secum's
Speaker 1: giant for this, for this reason that Josh just described
Speaker 1: future Josh and he said, so, here's the deal is,
Speaker 1: when we see a bunch of plants, we had humongous
Speaker 1: secombs as well. And as our diet changed and we
Speaker 1: got away from plants, you know, our body started to
Speaker 1: change along with it, and that seek them just kind
Speaker 1: of shrank. And the appendix is just a little shriveled
Speaker 1: up piece of that formerly large secum and it's just dangling.
Speaker 1: They're doing nothing. Isn't that amazing? And everyone until two
Speaker 1: thousand seven said it sounds right to me. Darwin's got
Speaker 1: it right. It does. I mean, it totally makes sense
Speaker 1: and seems completely believable. Yes, But now that I know
Speaker 1: it was wrong, I questioned every single thing he ever
Speaker 1: thought of or set. Welcome to our world, Darwin, So
Speaker 1: you guys messed up that one thing. I just don't
Speaker 1: know I believe anything. May we hear that like every
Speaker 1: week too? Don't we it's fun so um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it went for We went for well over a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years of just everyone believing that the appendix
Speaker 1: was a totally useless fastigial organ that had no function
Speaker 1: whatsoever any longer. And so it was fine if you
Speaker 1: just took it out, which is we'll see like people
Speaker 1: do a lot actually and it is fine for the
Speaker 1: most part, which we're lucky that it's fine. But also
Speaker 1: I think if if it weren't fine, we would have
Speaker 1: figured out very quickly, like, oh wait, this is you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to do that. So the fact that we
Speaker 1: were able to remove the appendix later on, um without
Speaker 1: a problem, um, just kind of lent to this, let's
Speaker 1: support to the idea that it was a Vista gi organ. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: But it turns out it does serve some function. We'll
Speaker 1: start talking about that. I think after a break, what
Speaker 1: do you think, Chuck? That was so smooth? Thank you
Speaker 1: so much smoother in person? All right, we're back from
Speaker 1: our break. Um, who knows what amazing as you guys
Speaker 1: just heard. But I'm envious of you because we didn't
Speaker 1: hear it. We just have a moment of silence in
Speaker 1: between that's right. Uh, And now we can talk about
Speaker 1: the microbiome a little more. And if you want to
Speaker 1: look into our Human Microbiome Project works show that was
Speaker 1: it's when fourteen there are trillion cells in the body.
Speaker 1: About thirty trillion of those are human cells with DNA
Speaker 1: and the rest of those hundred trillion are the microbiome.
Speaker 1: That isn't just amazing and it's really there's something about
Speaker 1: the digestive system that just frankly turns us both on
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, there were these animations that can
Speaker 1: I remember who made them? Um many many years ago? Yes,
Speaker 1: but the animator just understood us on a level that
Speaker 1: even I'm like, I'm like, oh, I didn't know myself.
Speaker 1: Just little shorts from clips show. They did one about
Speaker 1: a four and a half minute clip from how the
Speaker 1: digestive system works, which is worth looking up on YouTube.
Speaker 1: It's where I watched it the other day. They are
Speaker 1: they were just gifted and talented. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite little things that we ever that someone ever did
Speaker 1: for us. I want to say, Nick Nick sounds right? Okay,
Speaker 1: I think it was Nick. I hope it's Nick Nick.
Speaker 1: Please like right in if you still listen. Nick moved on. Okay, well, anyway,
Speaker 1: they were really great. What Nick's work, and if it
Speaker 1: wasn't Nick, Nick's new nickname is Nick. That's right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So um, Yes, the digestive system does get us jazz,
Speaker 1: and in particular the microbiome, which we wouldn't have a
Speaker 1: digestive system, or at least one that functions, because again,
Speaker 1: those bacteria help us break down stuff that we would
Speaker 1: normally have trouble breaking down, help us form poop all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. And there's a it's a symbiotic relationship
Speaker 1: because in breaking those those things down, like that plant
Speaker 1: fiber for instance, they're eating, they're happy, they're reproducing, but
Speaker 1: then the byproducts and the stuff that they break open
Speaker 1: make that stuff bioavailable for us, so we can kind
Speaker 1: of get the nutrients and all that stuff from it
Speaker 1: as well. It's a beautiful relationship. Not all bacteria is good, though, No,
Speaker 1: there's the bad stuff. And we should point out that
Speaker 1: most of this bacteria is in that large intestine, uh,
Speaker 1: the in the stomach and the small intestine. Most of
Speaker 1: it's killed off by gastric acid. But the bad bacteria
Speaker 1: is if you eat some bad chicken or if you
Speaker 1: have you ever done that? Yes, yeah, you know me.
Speaker 1: I've had all manner of stomach issues over the years.
Speaker 1: Where where did you get your bad chicken? I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I don't remember specifically, but I know I've had bad
Speaker 1: food before that made me sick. And in my case
Speaker 1: in Guatemala, if you remember, you and Jerry both well,
Speaker 1: it was not me. You know what, we were even
Speaker 1: closing our mouth in the shower. We're being so careful.
Speaker 1: But on that last night it was the ice, the
Speaker 1: mixed drinks. I forgot the ice is made from water,
Speaker 1: and that water was not good for Americans. And I
Speaker 1: stayed home that night so I didn't get diarrhea. It
Speaker 1: was worth it though, Jerry and I had such a
Speaker 1: good time. So yeah, I got bad sick after our
Speaker 1: guatte trip. But that's the bad bacteria, and and that's
Speaker 1: how it can get into your body. And your body
Speaker 1: is solution to this, uh as Jerry can affirm, is
Speaker 1: is diarrhea. It's your body's way of saying, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna flush you out human being. Just get rid of everything,
Speaker 1: get rid of all the stuff. But that's gonna take
Speaker 1: a lot of the good stuff with it, and that's
Speaker 1: no good because if you have all the good bacteria
Speaker 1: or a large amount of good bacteria leaving your body,
Speaker 1: then that can leave you very vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies
Speaker 1: and other bad stuff. Sure, yeah, because I mean, like
Speaker 1: a lot of the neurotransmitters that make your brain function
Speaker 1: correctly or produced in your gut from the function of
Speaker 1: the bacteria. Like, there's a lot of bad things that
Speaker 1: can happen if you don't have a balanced microbiome in
Speaker 1: your gut. Right. So Interroduke University in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: I guess someone was staring at a picture of the
Speaker 1: human body from the inside out and locked in on
Speaker 1: that appendix and they're like, it's just sitting there attached
Speaker 1: to the scumb It's got to do something right. And
Speaker 1: they did some studying and testing I know exactly you
Speaker 1: like me, and they figured out this theory that this
Speaker 1: is a safe house essentially for that good bacteria. It's
Speaker 1: got a really rich uh biofilm, which is we've talked
Speaker 1: about biofilm in a bunch of episodes. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's like coating on the inside of the blindings of
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. Yeah, it keeps bacteria from being destroyed.
Speaker 1: It's like a protective mucus get exactly, which is you
Speaker 1: know that sounds gross, but it's a really a good thing.
Speaker 1: And the appendix is just lousy with this great biofilm.
Speaker 1: And they said, I think we think the Duke University
Speaker 1: blue devils think that this is a safe house for
Speaker 1: that good bacteria. Because when the body is being flushed
Speaker 1: out with diarrhea from his illness, the appendix is down
Speaker 1: there at the end of the cul de sact. It's
Speaker 1: not even getting affected, basically, right. And so when that
Speaker 1: bacteria leaves and takes the good with it, the appendix says, hi,
Speaker 1: I'm here, look at all my good bacteria friends, go
Speaker 1: forth and do your work. Exactly, goes bloop and pushes
Speaker 1: all like a big hunk of mucasy bacteria or bacteria
Speaker 1: ridden mucus into your large intestine to recallonized, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: And and all of a sudden, the science world was
Speaker 1: turned upside down because they thought they and it turns
Speaker 1: out they did find a use for the appendix. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: and not only uh is it a storehouse they found
Speaker 1: for bacteria, the good bacteria that make up our microbio.
Speaker 1: It's also a place where um lymphocytes and other immune
Speaker 1: cells are produced. Like it's called limphoid tissue, where like
Speaker 1: T cells, B cells. I think there's one called T
Speaker 1: natural killer cells, which you don't want to mess with
Speaker 1: the iced tea. Yeah, or um the uh Woody Harrelson
Speaker 1: and Julia Juliet lewis of immune cells. Um, they're produced
Speaker 1: in the appendix right. Um, So when the recollonization process
Speaker 1: is going on, you could still have bad bugs in
Speaker 1: are but to prevent them from taking hold, those immune
Speaker 1: cells come in and just wipe them out while the
Speaker 1: good stuff comes back in and recolonizes. So the appendix
Speaker 1: is a really apparently a very useful organ It has
Speaker 1: a use after all. Yeah, but you can still live
Speaker 1: without it. That's the weird thing. Why why if it
Speaker 1: produces this really important function, why would we still be
Speaker 1: able to live without it? I don't know. Oh, well,
Speaker 1: well we'll talk about it later. Well, now, what I
Speaker 1: didn't see anywhere was like if you have if you
Speaker 1: live you know in an adverse way because you don't
Speaker 1: have your appendix, Like does that make you more susceptible
Speaker 1: to certain things? If you have that food borne illness
Speaker 1: or right, okay, So here's the other thing. Um, the
Speaker 1: there was more support from the fact that you can
Speaker 1: have your appendix remove so there's more support for the
Speaker 1: idea that the appendix plays a role um and isn't vestigial,
Speaker 1: from the fact, weirdly that if you remove it, at
Speaker 1: least in the developed world, you're you're still gonna be
Speaker 1: okay without it. Okay, it makes no sense. It's a paradox.
Speaker 1: But then when they looked into the paradox there, like, actually,
Speaker 1: this does make sense because of that hygiene hypothesis that
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier. Should we dive into it? All right? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: hygiene hypothesis in a nutshell, And I recommend you listen
Speaker 1: to that episode because it was really good, but is
Speaker 1: sort of it goes a little something like this, uh
Speaker 1: and developing. I'm sorry. In the developed world are immune
Speaker 1: systems can be overactive, and that's why we have things
Speaker 1: like allergy allergies, especially food borne allergies to like peanuts
Speaker 1: and trimp that's sitting here in front of us thawing
Speaker 1: out slowly because our immune system really wants to do something.
Speaker 1: It is not good at Netflix and chill it likes
Speaker 1: to really be act of and if you've got clean
Speaker 1: water and really good fresh food and you know your
Speaker 1: body didn't have to worry about that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: it starts to attack your body in other ways just
Speaker 1: because it wants something to do. Right. It's like one
Speaker 1: of those people at work who, like, you know, break
Speaker 1: something and then fixes it just to show they're working.
Speaker 1: Do people do that? There's gotta be some people out
Speaker 1: there we like nudge of vase off their desk or
Speaker 1: what right at the at the base putting back together plane? Okay,
Speaker 1: but there haven't been any breaks for a while, so
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to see how that would happen at
Speaker 1: our office, Like how does somebody break a podcast? Uh,
Speaker 1: you can break in RSS feed or something like that,
Speaker 1: or maybe an I T person who like screws up
Speaker 1: the system, so everyone's like, you gotta help us fix it, right,
Speaker 1: kind of like that? What about this? What about somebody
Speaker 1: who organizes things when they're already a certain way, but
Speaker 1: they just have too much idle time, so they organize
Speaker 1: stuff and all of a sudden there's a problem. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what I'm talking about. So um with the
Speaker 1: hygiene hypothesis. The idea as far as it relates to
Speaker 1: the appendix is that because we live in this very
Speaker 1: sanitary version of the world where we don't get hookwork,
Speaker 1: because we don't wear bare feet and poop outside, are
Speaker 1: drinking water is clean, we don't have like giardia in
Speaker 1: it typically um. Because we're not exposed to this stuff,
Speaker 1: our immune system is on high alert. So it attacks
Speaker 1: not just peanuts, but also potentially the appendix too, because
Speaker 1: it's just sitting there. It is just sitting there, but
Speaker 1: also remember it's a storehouse of bacteria. It's also a
Speaker 1: storehouse of um. The lymph system, so it's producing immune cells.
Speaker 1: And apparently, if you're a kid and you get appendicitist,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about in a minute, all that whole thing,
Speaker 1: the number one cause of that is overproduction of limp cells.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that your immune system says, uh, this,
Speaker 1: this part of the body is producing a lot of
Speaker 1: weird immune cells are way more than it should. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of bacteria here. I hadn't noticed before. Let's
Speaker 1: go attack it. That your immune system attacks your appendix
Speaker 1: and causes inflammation and then that creates the Appendicitis that
Speaker 1: can be dangerous later. That sounds very weird. Why would
Speaker 1: anybody say that, Well, Chuck, turns out that there's a
Speaker 1: paradox that goes hand in hand with developing countries. Huh. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they've seen this kind of proven out in
Speaker 1: developing countries is as they've become more developed and more industrialized,
Speaker 1: their rate of appendicitis has gone way up, and their
Speaker 1: body previous to that industrialization is maybe getting water that's
Speaker 1: not great for them or food that might carry some
Speaker 1: sort of food born illness. So their immune system is like,
Speaker 1: we're we we love this person in this culture because
Speaker 1: we're always busy flushing this system out with with diarrhea
Speaker 1: and we're just hard at work and we don't have
Speaker 1: time to to create some fake peanut allergy or to
Speaker 1: go after the appendix is not sitting there around do
Speaker 1: and anything. So they're it's just it's busy, and they've
Speaker 1: seen as they become more industrialized, Uh, appendicitiss have gone
Speaker 1: up and sort of lock step with that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: happened in the United States and Europe in the beginning
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. There was a big spy Like
Speaker 1: before that, there was no such thing. As appendicitis basically, Um,
Speaker 1: there was, but it was very very rare, and then huge,
Speaker 1: an enormous spike, and then it plateaus and stabilizes. I
Speaker 1: think in both Western and Eastern Europe and the US
Speaker 1: were hovered around a hundred cases per hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: of appendicitis these days UM over in like I think uh,
Speaker 1: South Korea UM around that time, no appendicitis. Later in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, early twenty one century, as their development
Speaker 1: just went through the roof huge cases, a huge increase
Speaker 1: of appendicitis UM and there you can just kind of
Speaker 1: follow it around the world. As development comes, appendicitis goes up,
Speaker 1: and they think that it's this hygiene hypoths that explains it.
Speaker 1: So you've got the safe house theory that the pendix
Speaker 1: actually does have a purpose and a role, and then
Speaker 1: you have the hygiene hypothesis that explains, um, why appendicitis
Speaker 1: is a thing in developed countries. Well, should we take
Speaker 1: a break and dig into appendicitis? I think we should.
Speaker 1: It's going to be awfully painful and gross. I'll bet
Speaker 1: the ads everyone heard were just astounding. So we've been
Speaker 1: dancing around the appendicitis kind of this whole episode It
Speaker 1: was identified for the first time in six by Reginald
Speaker 1: Fitz and before that they just said, you know, if
Speaker 1: you've got an abdominal illness and you die because of it,
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's just you had a bad stomach
Speaker 1: ache that killed you. Sorry. Yeah. So sad Dave wrote
Speaker 1: one of my favorite lines in the history of stuff
Speaker 1: you should know articles. He said, fits was the first
Speaker 1: to finger the appendix is the culprit. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: finger the appendix. That's a that's a spinal tap record.
Speaker 1: That's gross. But you actually probably could finger the appendix
Speaker 1: because it is like it's like a little pouch. Just
Speaker 1: to just think about finger sized. Yeah, you can figure
Speaker 1: a whole forearm into uh. So Franco August appendix. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that's an intr so uh appendix, everyone the appendix. Everybody
Speaker 1: grow up, Calm down, calm down. Um. So the appendicitis
Speaker 1: happens because basically I mentioned it was a cul de sac.
Speaker 1: It's a it's the end of the road situation once
Speaker 1: you get to the far end of the appendix. But
Speaker 1: that other end that connects to the sikum is very
Speaker 1: narrow and the opening is not that bigg and it
Speaker 1: can get clogged up with bacteria. It can get clogged
Speaker 1: up with certain kinds of seeds to go through your
Speaker 1: body undigested hay seeds. Hay seed. Sure, it can get
Speaker 1: this is really gross. But it can get clogged with vecaliths,
Speaker 1: which are stone like pieces of petrified feces. My friend
Speaker 1: I saw that. That is the number one reason appendicitis
Speaker 1: and adults. Uh, it's a hard word to say, but
Speaker 1: they you know, that's what happened. The opening blocks, bacteria
Speaker 1: builds up, it gets inflamed, and inflammation is that sort
Speaker 1: of enemy of all the human body. And you start
Speaker 1: to get fever and nausea, you've got pain. You might
Speaker 1: get a pain in your sort of lower right side
Speaker 1: of your gut. Yeah, because that's where your appendix is.
Speaker 1: Like if you make a L shape with your thumb
Speaker 1: and forefinger, like the loser put exactly. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to say it, but okay, we're gonna get some email
Speaker 1: about that. Um the if you take the thumb and
Speaker 1: put it in your navel and point your finger to
Speaker 1: your hip, Okay, that is like in the little um.
Speaker 1: The is where your appendix is. Okay, where your thumb
Speaker 1: and yeah, the little webbing. Yeah, all right, Well that's
Speaker 1: if you get a pain there and you are nauseous
Speaker 1: and you might have a fever, then get thee to
Speaker 1: a hospital emergency room because you might have advanced appendicitis.
Speaker 1: At that point, you might have an appendectomy quick like
Speaker 1: they can do them super fast. Um, if you get
Speaker 1: it really really early, they might concure it with just antibiotics,
Speaker 1: which is great. But I think eighteen eighty seven, the
Speaker 1: very year after FITS identified the disease in six is
Speaker 1: when they had their first appendex tomy, which means they
Speaker 1: had been happening the whole time. They finally just said,
Speaker 1: oh wait a minute, I think it's the appendix is
Speaker 1: why all these people are dying from the stomach pains.
Speaker 1: So maybe we can start removing this little useless dangle. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was a guy named Thomas Morton. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Thomas Morton was the surgeon who looks like he lost
Speaker 1: his brother and son. It was from mysterious stomach ailments,
Speaker 1: but it was probably ruptured appendixes and that's what happens
Speaker 1: at ruptures and then leaks bad stuff into your intestines
Speaker 1: and your your toast. Yeah. So so when the appendix
Speaker 1: is infected and it leaks that stuff. It perforates is
Speaker 1: what they called burst is another way to put it,
Speaker 1: depending I think on how bad it is. All of
Speaker 1: the infected pus. If there's fecalists in there, that whatever
Speaker 1: bacteria they have with them, um, all that stuff it bills, right,
Speaker 1: it spills into your abdomen, and your abdomen has an
Speaker 1: inner has an abdominal wall, and it has an inner
Speaker 1: coating called the peritonium. And the peritonium um is not
Speaker 1: to be infected with anything. It's very delicate. It doesn't
Speaker 1: like gross stuff. Keep all that and the appendix and
Speaker 1: the intestines and all that large intestine. But when your
Speaker 1: appendix bursts and releases all that stuff, it gets your
Speaker 1: paritonium infect and your paritonium is like a highway straight
Speaker 1: to your blood vessels, straight into your organs. And so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, your infection goes from your appendix,
Speaker 1: which you can deal with, to your piritonium being infected,
Speaker 1: which means your blood and then your organs are infected,
Speaker 1: which means you can go into shock and you're you
Speaker 1: have a like cascading system failure. That's why it's such
Speaker 1: an emergency when you when you have like a pendicitis,
Speaker 1: because it may rupture and that can be problematic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can still die from that. I think the
Speaker 1: surgery itself in the mortality rate from an appendectomy was
Speaker 1: now it's down to point well, it's one tenth of
Speaker 1: one percent whatever that is. That's pretty low, and that
Speaker 1: was since the mid fifties. But that's the that's the
Speaker 1: mortality rate for the appendectomy, right, for appendicitis. I think overall,
Speaker 1: maybe worldwide it's um I think point two to point
Speaker 1: eight percent, which means to between two and eight of
Speaker 1: every to and eight people who get appendicitis, out of
Speaker 1: every thousand people who get a pendicitis. There's kind to
Speaker 1: be an easier way to say this. Uh, they die
Speaker 1: from it, they buy the farm. Not many, but that's significant.
Speaker 1: If you're you know, eight people out of a thousand,
Speaker 1: that's one. I wanted that to be point eight. And
Speaker 1: I think the mortality rate is lowest in young people obviously,
Speaker 1: although young people between ten and thirty are the most
Speaker 1: likely to have an ependectomy, I think, right, yes, which
Speaker 1: is interesting, that's weird. Um, the reason that it's lowest
Speaker 1: and very young people is The common knowledge among um
Speaker 1: doctors and in the medical field is that the appendix
Speaker 1: has played a role for a long time, but it's
Speaker 1: just part of your immune system when you're very young.
Speaker 1: I have the impression that that is old school thinking,
Speaker 1: That is pre bacteria safe house thinking. What that young
Speaker 1: kids don't get it because they just have killer immune systems. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that the appendix is just on fire and it's
Speaker 1: just happily working, and that it can become problematic after
Speaker 1: it stops providing it its function. The idea is that
Speaker 1: the younger you are, the more vulnerable you are to
Speaker 1: dying from diarrheal diseases, for infections, and so you would
Speaker 1: have a healthier immune system. And kids do have like
Speaker 1: just as hopped up immune system. But I think the
Speaker 1: medical understanding up until recently is that that the appendix
Speaker 1: plays a part of that, right, but that it stops
Speaker 1: functioning as you get older, and then you're vulnerable to appendicitis,
Speaker 1: and then after you make it out of the danger zone,
Speaker 1: you can just basically coast and get fecal with all
Speaker 1: day long blocking up your appendix and it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: The new thinking is that, no, it's the storehouse for stuff.
Speaker 1: We just don't need it anymore because we don't really
Speaker 1: get diarrheal infections here in the developed world. Right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. But appendicitis is a thing, and if
Speaker 1: you do go to if you do have symptoms that
Speaker 1: seems weird, generalized pain around your navel or where your
Speaker 1: appendix is, you should go to the doctor. The thing is,
Speaker 1: as this new idea that the appendix actually does serve
Speaker 1: a function um has has, at least in some quarters,
Speaker 1: created this call for doctors to stop doing what are
Speaker 1: called negative appendectomies, where it's like, oh, you got stomach pain,
Speaker 1: let's take your appendix out and right, because supposedly a
Speaker 1: non perforated appendix may actually resolve itself, like it may
Speaker 1: go and like spit that set out and like go
Speaker 1: back to normal or whatever. Right, um, And you don't
Speaker 1: want to just lose your appendix willy nilly, for no.
Speaker 1: For one, you're undergoing surgery. There's always complications in rest
Speaker 1: of the point is, though, don't just stay home the
Speaker 1: the this one paper I read was like, you're better
Speaker 1: off for the physician to wait and see in the hospital.
Speaker 1: Keep you in the hospital under observation. So that if
Speaker 1: do need emergency surgery, you're there, um and then it
Speaker 1: may resolve itself on its own if it hasn't perforated
Speaker 1: already or um, and that that's that's preferable to just
Speaker 1: removing the appendix. Don't be like I can still play
Speaker 1: my street hockey game later, right. Yeah. I think they
Speaker 1: were saying, like, it's not up to you the patient,
Speaker 1: like just go to the hospital. I'm talking to the
Speaker 1: doctors right now. The paper was saying, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: don't remove the appendix if it if it doesn't need removing.
Speaker 1: Are we at Harry Yudini? Yeah, so this is a
Speaker 1: little addendum. Uh. I kind of think it's like an appendix.
Speaker 1: I kind of think we should do uh Harry Judini
Speaker 1: episode at some point, you bet, don't you think? Yeah,
Speaker 1: should we talk about this now at all? I think
Speaker 1: we should do Houdini around HALLOWEENI okay, okay, that sounds fantastic.
Speaker 1: I tried to think it's something to rhyme with Weenie. No,
Speaker 1: it's like a thumbs up like Magnafini. Oh that's great.
Speaker 1: That was Yeah, all right, I'm gonna stop it right
Speaker 1: there by using good Well, people really don't know that.
Speaker 1: I just left the room for like fifteen minutes trying
Speaker 1: to think of something and keep the magic of editing.
Speaker 1: Jerry didn't do like the star wipes. Uh. So there
Speaker 1: have been a few people who have died from a
Speaker 1: ruptured appendix. They believe that bring him young. The Mormon
Speaker 1: prophet did Um Charles Floyd the only person that Lewis
Speaker 1: and clark journey expedition to die. I didn't remember that,
Speaker 1: did you. I think I remember just mentioning. I do
Speaker 1: remember one person die and we're like, what was his problem?
Speaker 1: Why did he screw everything up? And it's hiss appendix.
Speaker 1: So Harry Houdini did die of an appendicitis. And I
Speaker 1: don't think we even said, uh, Perry and IDAs, Yeah
Speaker 1: we did, did we say that was the actual words?
Speaker 1: That's the Oh I don't know. But that's the affection
Speaker 1: of the peritonium. Yeah, that's the name of it. Though. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's what you do. You're like, you don't die
Speaker 1: from your appendix, person, because again, like, yeah, it provides
Speaker 1: a funk, but it's not it doesn't keep you alive.
Speaker 1: It's not like your heart bursting, right, It's it's the
Speaker 1: parent of the paratoneum getting infected that kills you. So
Speaker 1: Houdini did die of that. But you know, the old
Speaker 1: story is that he had come off stage. He was
Speaker 1: backstage in his green room and uh, presumably having smart
Speaker 1: food and beef jerky. If you're at the stuff, you
Speaker 1: should know show everywhere from opening the bottle. Oh, man,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to do that again. Uh, but I
Speaker 1: can't wait because I'm not doing that anytime soon. Still
Speaker 1: want to get on a plane, you know, not quite yet,
Speaker 1: but we're looking forward to that for sure. But you know,
Speaker 1: there are these college students came backstage and one of
Speaker 1: them was like, I heard that anyone can put you
Speaker 1: in the stomach and that you, uh, you can make
Speaker 1: your stomach strong and it won't even hurt you. And
Speaker 1: I'm a pretty good stomach puncher. He goes, well, that
Speaker 1: is sort of true. And the guy punches him before
Speaker 1: he even has a chance to really prepare and say, sure,
Speaker 1: bring it, and uh that the sucker punch and that
Speaker 1: burst as appended, and that's how he died. And that
Speaker 1: story is just a little blurry around the edges as
Speaker 1: how that went down exactly right. Yeah, So there there
Speaker 1: were there were eyewitnesses, and they did say that this
Speaker 1: guy um did punch Houdini. It's conflicting whether or not
Speaker 1: Houdini gave the guy permission to punch him. And I
Speaker 1: were the guy just started punching um. But there was
Speaker 1: a young man named Joscelyn Gordon white Head, white Head,
Speaker 1: Whodini's last words were done in by it guy named Jocelyn.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. One account was that he was
Speaker 1: still laying on the couch and the and the guy
Speaker 1: started wailing on his stomach. Well, yeah, because he he
Speaker 1: had injured his ankle the the I think night before,
Speaker 1: a couple of days before, so he was reclining on
Speaker 1: the couch. I guess somebody was sketching him. Was basically
Speaker 1: like that scene in Titanic. Yeah, he was like and
Speaker 1: um and the guy started drawing right Uh, and then
Speaker 1: the guy punches him while he that happened. Uh. The
Speaker 1: question the thing that's that's that's sketchy is whether or
Speaker 1: not that guy punched Udini. In the appendix and Jodie's
Speaker 1: appendix ruptured where otherwise wouldn't have they think that that happened.
Speaker 1: Very very rarely appendicitis prodom by blood trauma. Um, they
Speaker 1: think that he probably had appendicitis already. This guy punched
Speaker 1: Harry Houdini in his inflamed appendix, and that that created problems.
Speaker 1: So the guy definitely killed Houdini one way or the other.
Speaker 1: It's just did Houdini already have appendicitis or not? And
Speaker 1: he probably did? Most most scholars say yes, there's just
Speaker 1: no way this this little guy from McGill University. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, the Canadian Harvard, give me a break. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: that that he burst Houdini's appendix. Yeah. I was had
Speaker 1: a weird brief Houdini obsession when I was a little kid.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think I did a you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of visual report, you know when you would just
Speaker 1: do not even maybe it was a book report, an
Speaker 1: interpretive dance. Is that what you're saying. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: it was. But yeah it was on Judini, and I
Speaker 1: was just for a little while, I just was really
Speaker 1: Hudini obsessed and then kind of magic obsessed. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you have one of those kids at a
Speaker 1: magic phase. Did you have a kid. I may have
Speaker 1: had a kid. Did you go to like the trick
Speaker 1: shops magic shops? Yeah, there was one called Eddie's Trick
Speaker 1: Shop here in the Stone Mountain. Then I went to
Speaker 1: That's awesomes were great deck of fake cards or some
Speaker 1: nice fake vomit or yeah, and you always looked up
Speaker 1: to the person behind the counter and then you grew
Speaker 1: up and you're like, oh, that's a used to work.
Speaker 1: They're kind of thing. Yeah, it was the magic shop
Speaker 1: and then the place that sold sold old mad magazines.
Speaker 1: Those were the two greatest places on the planet. When
Speaker 1: you're a certain age, you know, yeah, you got anything
Speaker 1: else about Appendix appendicitis Judini, this is a good I
Speaker 1: quite enjoyed this experience. I did too, Thanks to you
Speaker 1: guys for listening. And uh, since we don't have anything
Speaker 1: else about the appendix, that means it's time for a
Speaker 1: listener mail. I'm gonna call this great idea from a
Speaker 1: ten year old listener and this one, this one is
Speaker 1: genuinely going in the two do file. Uh, dear, and
Speaker 1: this is short and sweet deer Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark. Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Jack and I'm ten years old and
Speaker 1: from hi Watha, Iowa. And I listen to your podcasts
Speaker 1: while I'm mo. My dad introduced me to your podcast
Speaker 1: and they've been great. My favorite one so far was
Speaker 1: probably Titanic. It's really interesting. Before I listened to that one,
Speaker 1: I wasn't really interested in the Titanic, but when I listen,
Speaker 1: I got more interested. I was wondering if you ever
Speaker 1: thought doing one on child labor It was after am
Speaker 1: the Grass, So okay, yeah, I learned about it in
Speaker 1: school and want to know more about it. Thank you
Speaker 1: for all your great podcast. And then it's from Jack
Speaker 1: and that is is on brand of stuff you should
Speaker 1: know episode as I've ever heard. Yeah, but also coming
Speaker 1: from child Laborer, it really kind of has a certain
Speaker 1: like glow to it, you know. Yeah, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. I wonder if this kid is
Speaker 1: just like, I'm gonna get my parents back for this
Speaker 1: maybe because do you remember wanting to mow the grass
Speaker 1: when you were ten? Totally and then you started to
Speaker 1: about the third or fourth time, You're like, I've made
Speaker 1: a terrible mistake. Well, it'll depend that, but it also
Speaker 1: depended on the kind of mo word that your parents
Speaker 1: stuck you with. We did have a writer for a
Speaker 1: short time, so that was kind of pre go card
Speaker 1: car driving. Yeah, it's like driving, Yeah, but with it
Speaker 1: blade spinning at thousands of RPMs right beneath like sure,
Speaker 1: just put that nine year old in the sea right,
Speaker 1: Who is that again? That was Jack? Jack? Thank you,
Speaker 1: great name, great idea, great person all around, Coming soon
Speaker 1: like you can. You can count on that one, Jack.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this like
Speaker 1: Jack did with the Great Idea, we are always open
Speaker 1: for those. Take your idea, wrap it up, spank it
Speaker 1: lightly on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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