Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck.
Speaker 2: Jerry's here. We're all swollen in red and that makes
Speaker 2: this a brand new episode of Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't told you this yet, but this
Speaker 1: is a very special episode, my friend. Oh yeah, because hopefully,
Speaker 1: if all goes well, this is the very last episode
Speaker 1: I will be recording in my basement.
Speaker 2: Oh. This is the end of an era.
Speaker 1: Chuck, the end of an era that started obviously in
Speaker 1: March twenty twenty and it's been three just a little
Speaker 1: over three years in the dark basement.
Speaker 2: Dank. Don't forget Dank.
Speaker 1: It is dank, and I am very excited. You know this,
Speaker 1: But I'm going to be moving into my my brand
Speaker 1: new home studio. That is a very cool space that
Speaker 1: is built under my staircase.
Speaker 2: I have two words to describe it, high falutin.
Speaker 1: Well it was. I was inspired by David Diggs. I
Speaker 1: saw his He has a record listening room heavy digs
Speaker 1: of Hamilton Fame and other things. But he has a
Speaker 1: record LP vinyl listening room glassed in and built in
Speaker 1: under his staircase and I was like, oh wow, I
Speaker 1: see the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty good. Plus also nobody knows what to
Speaker 2: do with the under the staircase thing.
Speaker 1: That's a great use of it wasted space. So now
Speaker 1: there's a recording studio under there. Jerry is coming over
Speaker 1: tomorrow with our colleague Josh Than Yeah tech tech wizard,
Speaker 1: and they're going to get it all set up and
Speaker 1: we're going to do some testing. And I'm just super
Speaker 1: excited to be moving into a bright, well lit, beautiful space.
Speaker 1: And I will put pictures of this studio on my Instagram.
Speaker 2: Chuck the podcaster, be sure to like be squinting from
Speaker 2: the new light that you're exposed to you in your
Speaker 2: new setup.
Speaker 1: And also very quickly. I don't know if you've checked
Speaker 1: your mail or where your Governor's award was being shipped,
Speaker 1: But mine just got here today, buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mine says it's on the way according to fed X.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we got the Governor's award. They shipped them
Speaker 1: to us and I just unboxed it and it's really
Speaker 1: cool and heavy and feels like a real award. And
Speaker 1: that is going to be displayed in the new studio.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally. Well, congratulations Chuck on your award.
Speaker 1: I'm very very well you got the award too.
Speaker 2: Sure I can still congratulate you, and congratulations on what
Speaker 2: you thought. I was congratulating you on your new setup.
Speaker 1: Some may say that you are more than fifty percent
Speaker 1: responsible for that award.
Speaker 2: No, no, exactly fifty percent down the middle, where's Jerry Finnet? Oh, man,
Speaker 2: geez the b it's ten percent. I hate fractions because.
Speaker 1: You know we always go one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess. I guess we're each thirty three and
Speaker 2: a third responsible for it. And then who knows who's
Speaker 2: making up that extra hundredth of a percent?
Speaker 1: All right, So anyway, announcements are out of the way.
Speaker 1: Let's talk inflammation.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's that's the most straight ahead segue I've ever
Speaker 2: heard us too, But thank you for that, because we
Speaker 2: are talking about inflammation, and I think everybody's basically heard
Speaker 2: of inflammation. But the inflammation that you've heard of is
Speaker 2: like what happens when you sprain your ankle or cut
Speaker 2: your finger or something like that. Yeah, what we've discovered
Speaker 2: is that there's another kind of inflammation. It's the same inflammation,
Speaker 2: but there's just different parameters to it that take it
Speaker 2: from being like a really important part of a healthy
Speaker 2: immune system and turn it into a thing that will
Speaker 2: kill you basically over time. And it's actually they're finding
Speaker 2: that inflammation is a common factor in so many different diseases,
Speaker 2: from heart disease to depression to diabetes, all sorts of stuff,
Speaker 2: I mean, just the gamut types of cancer. That there's
Speaker 2: they basically come up with a new unifying theory of disease,
Speaker 2: the inflammation theory of disease that if you if you
Speaker 2: look close enough, in almost any especially noncommunicable diseases, but
Speaker 2: those two there, there's inflammation and that that's really what's
Speaker 2: screwing you up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. Goodbye, goodbye. Yeah. It's called chronic inflammation.
Speaker 1: And the word inflammation and big thanks to Dave Ruse,
Speaker 1: yeah for this. This is very thorough.
Speaker 2: I thought of biblical time machine fame.
Speaker 1: That's right. The word inflammation is Latin and root of
Speaker 1: course in flammatio, and it means to ignite or to
Speaker 1: set fire in Latin. And that is really kind of
Speaker 1: straight down the middle as far as what inflammation and
Speaker 1: feels like, and in fact, the descriptors of the four characteristics,
Speaker 1: and we'll touch on the fifth of inflammation goes all
Speaker 1: the way back to our old buddy Galen, the Roman
Speaker 1: physician from the first century AD.
Speaker 2: He pops up almost as much as our friend Pliny.
Speaker 1: Did they know each other, Were they contemporaries?
Speaker 2: There's plenty I don't. Well, Pliny was in the first
Speaker 2: half of the first century, I think, and yeah, I think. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they were probably good friends.
Speaker 1: They were drinking buddies.
Speaker 2: They probably played cornhole together.
Speaker 1: That has many implications. I know, they might beat beer drinkers,
Speaker 1: they might have their Saturday spree.
Speaker 2: What else.
Speaker 1: They might be handy with a saw so they build
Speaker 1: their own. Sure, they may like football games and tailgating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a lot wrapped up in corn hole playing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Galen is the one who who kind of nailed
Speaker 1: it out of the gate way back then and said
Speaker 1: that if you are inflamed, you will have redness, you
Speaker 1: have swelling, Sure, you will have heat check, you will
Speaker 1: have pain out, and then you have My friend Josh
Speaker 1: emailed me today and just saying no, Josh Clark and
Speaker 1: said that there's also a fifth one, buddy, and you
Speaker 1: have loss of function. But I'm going to amend your
Speaker 1: email to impaired function, okay for reduced function.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is like if you have if you have
Speaker 2: that sprained ankle and it's inflamed, you're not walking around
Speaker 2: on that ankle, you're basically not using it for the
Speaker 2: time being, or you're barely, very gingerly using it. So yeah,
Speaker 2: impaired function makes actually a lot more sense. Way to go.
Speaker 1: Sure, and this is all good stuff like this acute inflammation.
Speaker 1: And we've talked about it before plenty of times, and
Speaker 1: oh boy, lots of podcasts pollin autoimmune disorders, like actually
Speaker 1: autoimmune you probably touched on it, but that's as we'll
Speaker 1: see a different thing. But acute inflammation is a good thing.
Speaker 1: This is when your body mounts a defense and you know,
Speaker 1: if you sprain that ankle, or if you cut your hand,
Speaker 1: or if you have stripped throat or something, then your
Speaker 1: body basically says, all right, you know, we need to
Speaker 1: go to that wound with a lot of stuff with
Speaker 1: T cells, with B cells. I think they're basically all
Speaker 1: lumped into this group called inflammatory mediators.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, well they are the ones that release inflammatory mediators,
Speaker 2: I believe, So like these are the cells that go
Speaker 2: and do stuff like eat other cells or eat pathogens
Speaker 2: and spit them out or carry them into the lymph nodes.
Speaker 2: But the inflammatory mediators are what they release, and those
Speaker 2: are like hormones like histamines and brady Kinan's right. And
Speaker 2: then those mediators are the ones that are actually having
Speaker 2: like effects on your body. They're the ones that like
Speaker 2: dilate your blood vessels to bring more blood to the area,
Speaker 2: which makes itmer and red or they also they also
Speaker 2: irritate your nerve endings, so that's where the pain comes from.
Speaker 2: That's the mediators that are doing all the stuff that
Speaker 2: your body is experiencing as like acute inflammation. But they're
Speaker 2: brought to that site, I believe, by white blood cells, right.
Speaker 1: And the reason and we're saying it kind of like
Speaker 1: everyone knows, because I think everyone kind of knows this, sure,
Speaker 1: But the reason why your capillaries are expanding around the
Speaker 1: ankle sprain or around the cut or whatever is is
Speaker 1: basically just saying like, hey, we need to get more
Speaker 1: blood there, so take the express train. We're gonna puff
Speaker 1: up and no stopping along the way, and let's just
Speaker 1: get as much good stuff in there as fast as
Speaker 1: we can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which also accounts for fluid collection, which is another
Speaker 2: kind of sub feature of inflammation, which which I've never
Speaker 2: really thought of before, but it makes sense. And then consequently,
Speaker 2: your lymph note do you know when those get kind
Speaker 2: of swollen when you're sick, that's because all that inflame
Speaker 2: stuff that those macrofages are eating and carrying out take
Speaker 2: them to the lymph nodes, and your lift notes get
Speaker 2: swollen from over work and eventually go back down once
Speaker 2: they drain out all of that crud. And the same
Speaker 2: thing to you also chuck for your running nose.
Speaker 1: My running knows that I have right now.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's because your mucous membranes are inflamed, and by
Speaker 2: bringing more fluid to the site, it's easier to more
Speaker 2: quickly flush out all that crud.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember when I went to the hospital
Speaker 1: in New York when we were had our initial book
Speaker 1: push that didn't become the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with our buddy Steven. I was thinking about it.
Speaker 2: Not a week ago.
Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, So remember I went to the hospital. What
Speaker 1: hospital was it, I can't remember, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the New York City hospitals, right like Manhattan. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was what did I end up having I can't even
Speaker 1: remember now.
Speaker 2: I thought it was like a like some sort of
Speaker 2: terrible astritis or something like that.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. That probably blocked it out of my mind.
Speaker 1: But long story short, after they had sort of healed
Speaker 1: me from this and they were like, all right, you
Speaker 1: can go. And I woke up from my drug induced
Speaker 1: stupor in my hospital bed. I felt behind my ear
Speaker 1: and I had a like a ping pong ball behind
Speaker 1: my ear.
Speaker 2: And I was like so disconcerting, what is this?
Speaker 1: And I would go to the nurse and I was like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: what is hair Bab Sammy Davis Junior hair Bab? I
Speaker 1: have a golf ball behind my ear? And he he was.
Speaker 1: He kind of gave me a look like what is
Speaker 1: it with you? Like are you a hypochondriac? And I
Speaker 1: was like, no, dude, look at it. It's huge. And
Speaker 1: I think he could just sort of dismissed it and
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, it's probably just some sort of a
Speaker 1: swollen node from whatever this was, and you don't worry
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I remember you coming to lunch and being
Speaker 2: like I was just roundly mistreated by like this nurse.
Speaker 1: Who was he was great actually, but he was just
Speaker 1: basically like, don't sweat it, please leave. We need Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, But anyway, that was my body again, just
Speaker 1: puffing up when something happened exactly.
Speaker 2: So that's part of your acute immune response. You get
Speaker 2: dilated blood vessels, you get more blood there, it's easier
Speaker 2: for the white blood cells to get in and out
Speaker 2: of those vessels. You got irritated, nurse, you have pain,
Speaker 2: you got fluid collecting all the stuff that happens when
Speaker 2: you cut yourself or you sprain an ankle. I don't
Speaker 2: know why I keep going to that, but it's a
Speaker 2: good one. It's a good one, and that's normal. That's
Speaker 2: your acute immune inflammatory response. Is that's a normal part
Speaker 2: of getting rid of a pathogen or treating an injury
Speaker 2: or a good thing like that. Yeah, your body's under
Speaker 2: some sort of stress and your immune system goes swarm
Speaker 2: swarm and inflames the area to help repair it more.
Speaker 2: It also one of the reasons why it gets warm
Speaker 2: and one of the reasons also why you might feel
Speaker 2: tired if you have a particularly bad infection, is because
Speaker 2: your body is diverting a lot of your energy and
Speaker 2: tabolism too, fighting off whatever that is or treating that site,
Speaker 2: whatever it is, so you don't have like the energy
Speaker 2: to do cartwheels or anything because it's being used otherwise, again,
Speaker 2: totally normal. The problem is is if this keeps going on,
Speaker 2: even if it drops down to a lower level, if
Speaker 2: it continues long after it should have stopped, now you've
Speaker 2: got problems. And this is the basis of that unified
Speaker 2: theory of disease, that chronic inflammation, systemic chronic inflammation that
Speaker 2: you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sci or ci ski Ski that's what they call them.
Speaker 1: The BIZ Sure one example of this, and we're going
Speaker 1: to go over a lot of different examples, but one
Speaker 1: example is, you know, sometimes you have infections that don't
Speaker 1: go away and your body mounts that immune response, but
Speaker 1: it's not just like, okay, we cured your or we
Speaker 1: got rid of your bronchitis for an now or whatever.
Speaker 1: There are long term infections that are very persistent. Hepatitis
Speaker 1: is one, HIV is another, they think long COVID maybe another.
Speaker 1: Where your body has this immune response and it mounts it,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't go away completely, so it doesn't wipe
Speaker 1: out all those pathogens and so it just stays around.
Speaker 1: So your body has sort of a low level inflammatory
Speaker 1: response always happening in the case of these long term infections,
Speaker 1: and your body is just sort of constantly trying to
Speaker 1: fight it.
Speaker 2: Right, So that's one that's a you can at least
Speaker 2: trace it back to a cause in that instance. Right. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's another thing that triggers chronic systemic chronic inflammation. That's
Speaker 2: oxidative stress, which we talked about in our Free Radicals episode.
Speaker 2: Is the free radical theory of aging. Wrong, Remember it
Speaker 2: came out but in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: Right, it's a good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. But we talked about oxidative stress, which
Speaker 2: is where free radicals these radically free little molecules that
Speaker 2: borrow electrons from whatever is around it. They're super reactive molecules,
Speaker 2: and by borrowing an electron, that cell or that other
Speaker 2: molecule needed that electron. So it's now in disrepair, it's
Speaker 2: not functioning correctly, maybe it's dying. It's a problem. And
Speaker 2: free radicals another term from is reactive oxidative species, reactive
Speaker 2: oxygen species. I think they're normal, like we produce those
Speaker 2: just from everything from like breathing to the immune system. Right,
Speaker 2: but they're supposed to be in balance. We have antioxidants
Speaker 2: naturally produced, and we can also absorb them from food
Speaker 2: that neutralize them. They go up to them, they say,
Speaker 2: take my electron, and they're now neutralized. They're not going
Speaker 2: to take it from a nearby cell or something like that.
Speaker 2: If that gets out of balance, you've got oxidative stress
Speaker 2: where you have more cells than you should being damaged
Speaker 2: by these free radicals because you have more free radicals
Speaker 2: than you should. And then the immune response says, we
Speaker 2: got a problem over there. Let's get this area inflamed.
Speaker 2: That's right, and that's oxidative stress. That's another reason that
Speaker 2: you could point to for systemic chronic inflammation. The problem
Speaker 2: is chuck. There's also there's also types of chronic inflammation
Speaker 2: that have no reason whatsoever, like the body's just not
Speaker 2: doing what it's supposed to do. It's basically confused in
Speaker 2: your suffering as a result.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we talked about, you know, autoimmune disorders, and
Speaker 1: we haven't done one on rum it's what arthritis yet,
Speaker 1: but I think that's probably coming.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Lupus is another example. I mean, we talked about allergies
Speaker 1: and how that's that's an overblown immune response to yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so in these cases, you're you know, your white blood
Speaker 1: cells are being dispatched to you know, whatever you would
Speaker 1: consider like the point of origin. I guess, and the
Speaker 1: body makes a mistake and said, all right, well I
Speaker 1: gotta I gotta start inflaming myself, and it inflames healthy
Speaker 1: tissues and healthy organs, and a lot of damage can
Speaker 1: be caused in a big, big way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because again, like this immune response, this inflammation shouldn't
Speaker 2: be happening anyway. It's targeting healthy stuff. It's turned on itself.
Speaker 2: Your body's turned on itself. That's problematic in and of itself.
Speaker 2: But because your body's still producing all the same things
Speaker 2: that your immune system is now mistaking as like foreign
Speaker 2: invaders or pathogens, it's constantly going to be mounting this
Speaker 2: inflammatory response, and so you're going to have systemic chronic
Speaker 2: inflammation from that as well.
Speaker 1: All right, shall we take a break, I think so
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna take a break. I'm gonna move
Speaker 1: into the new studio. Oh wait, best tomorrow, sorry very eager.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, we'll be right back. All right, So we're
Speaker 1: back talking inflammation. This is Inflammatalk with Josh and Chuck
Speaker 1: and not every chronic disease or everything that can kill
Speaker 1: you is linked to chronic inflammation. But yeah, you go
Speaker 1: over the list, it's like the most the major killers
Speaker 1: of humans you can usually link to chronic inflammation, high
Speaker 1: blood pressure, heart disease, type two diabetes, chronic kidney disease, IBS. Inflammatory,
Speaker 1: the word is even in there, inflammatory, bowel disease, asthma.
Speaker 1: Other you know, we'll talk about lung cancer later and
Speaker 1: colon cancer later, but those are a couple of kinds
Speaker 1: of cancer. We mentioned rheumatoid arthritis. But there are some
Speaker 1: surprising things in here that we're going to go over
Speaker 1: here in a few minutes. What is depression, Another is
Speaker 1: Parkinson's and dementia yep. And then the final one on
Speaker 1: Dave's list, it's a very thorough list, is non alcoholic
Speaker 1: fatty liver disease. And this is basically, you know, all
Speaker 1: the doctors have gotten together now, they all got together
Speaker 1: in one room and they said, we've got a situation
Speaker 1: on our hands where we can officially all agree, like
Speaker 1: the inflammation theory of disease is sort of coalescing, and
Speaker 1: we we're pretty sure about all this.
Speaker 2: Right, there's an outstanding chicken or the egg question though,
Speaker 2: that they've yet to answer, and that is the inflammation.
Speaker 2: Is chronic inflammation the cause of these chronic diseases or
Speaker 2: is it a symptom of these chronic diseases And they
Speaker 2: don't know yet. I'm going to put a substantial amount
Speaker 2: of my money on it's the cause. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's the symptom. I think the way that we've
Speaker 2: been approaching disease is the idea that inflammation would be
Speaker 2: a symptom of it, like you have some problem, some
Speaker 2: external problem that's coming into your body that's causing wreaking
Speaker 2: all this havoc. It's actually not right. So let's say
Speaker 2: you're talking about sugar. You eat a bunch of sugar.
Speaker 2: The sugar itself is not causing problems in your body.
Speaker 2: The sugar is triggering inflammation and chronic inflammation in some cases,
Speaker 2: and that's the problem. That doesn't mean sugar is blameless
Speaker 2: because your body's still responding to it and it's it's
Speaker 2: just going to do that every time you eat sugar.
Speaker 2: But it's not the sugar itself. So I think the
Speaker 2: inflammation is the cause of the disease.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I'm with you. Let's go over this
Speaker 1: first really interesting example of something that we kind of
Speaker 1: thought we had figured out and now we know so
Speaker 1: much more about, and that is Alzheimer's disease. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a we've do we do one specifically on Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: I think it was dementia. I don't. I think it
Speaker 2: was I don't. I don't remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I know we've talked about it. But the
Speaker 1: quickest refresher Alzheimer's is a type of dementia, and it's
Speaker 1: neuronal death. Is what's going on. We have a couple
Speaker 1: of things in the brain that function well until they don't.
Speaker 1: One is called amyloid beta proteins. These are little clusters
Speaker 1: around your neurons in a healthy brain, and they aid
Speaker 1: in neural growth and repair, doing a really good job.
Speaker 1: But when they become misfolded, then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it becomes We've talked about amyloid plaques, and that's what
Speaker 1: they are. These plaques form and they're basically misfolded versions
Speaker 1: of ordinarily good amyloid beta proteins, and these are outside
Speaker 1: the neurons. There's also something inside the neurons called taulproteins,
Speaker 1: and these are also great. They do great work, big
Speaker 1: fan they aid in neuron structure and kind of keep
Speaker 1: them nice and strong from the inside. But these can
Speaker 1: also become misfolded. But they're misfolded on the inside and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it becomes what's called a neurofibrillary
Speaker 1: tangle or a towel tangle.
Speaker 2: That sounds bad.
Speaker 1: It does sound bad, And we've known for a while now, like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you have amyloid plaques and these towel tangles in
Speaker 1: your brain, then that is what is causing this Alzheimer's disease,
Speaker 1: the type of dementia. But now they've zeroed in and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, we think it's really this neuroinflammation that's
Speaker 1: going on in the brain that's the real root cause.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's actually a good example of this inflammatory theory
Speaker 2: of disease. Creating a chicken or egg question about those
Speaker 2: tau tangles and amyloid plaques, Like, we used to think
Speaker 2: that that was the problem, but now is that just
Speaker 2: a symptom of it. We're not sure. But there's a
Speaker 2: couple theories on how neuroinflammation would cause Alzheimer's, specifically and
Speaker 2: one of them is that it's based around microglia cells.
Speaker 2: We talked about macrophasias that go around and eat like pathogens.
Speaker 2: This is the brain's version of that, a really specialized
Speaker 2: version that goes around and like cleans up the brain,
Speaker 2: eating neurons that are problematic or have stopped functioning or
Speaker 2: it's just their time to go. And they do a
Speaker 2: really good job normally, but over time, especially when we
Speaker 2: get old, those microglia can also turn on healthy neurons
Speaker 2: and which would make Alzheimer's and all of the loss
Speaker 2: of function and cognitive ability and behavioral changes in autoimmune condition, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is not exactly what you think of when you
Speaker 2: think of Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But here's the thing is, they've done some interesting studies.
Speaker 1: They've done autopsies on patients that have, like you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about the build up of these amyloid plaques
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, that's what causes Alzheimer's. They've done autopsies
Speaker 1: on these brains that had really far gone amyloid plaque
Speaker 1: build ups but really not much neuroinflammation going on, and
Speaker 1: the patients had no symptoms of dementia in these cases.
Speaker 2: But I mean, isn't it possible it's just because they
Speaker 2: were dead, they probably didn't have symptoms of anything.
Speaker 1: Very funny, Go ahead, all right, Sorry I was holding
Speaker 1: for applause. But then they looked at patients with not
Speaker 1: very many plaque formations, so you wouldn't think that they
Speaker 1: had dementia or Alzheimer's, but they had really high levels
Speaker 1: of neuroinflammation. And these people had basically all the signs
Speaker 1: and symptoms of advanced Alzheimer's.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good evidence of that theory then.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of a reversal almost.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw Another interpretation of the neuroinflammation theory of
Speaker 2: Alzheimer's is that those amyloid plaques and tau tangles, right
Speaker 2: as they build up in the brain, those microglias start
Speaker 2: to attack them and try to clear them out, as
Speaker 2: it should do. But because the brain is constantly after
Speaker 2: a certain age or or whatever, producing these tangles and plaques,
Speaker 2: the microglie are constantly attacking them. So you now have
Speaker 2: chronic chronic inflammation in your brain, which is another explanation
Speaker 2: of neuroinflammation for Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like neuronal death happens, let's just face it,
Speaker 1: and it happens more as you age. But like these
Speaker 1: microglia cells that are misidentifying the normal cells. When I
Speaker 1: read this stuff, it feels like science can figure this
Speaker 1: out one day. It feels like they just did well
Speaker 1: figure out how to fix it. Oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, like how to switch something off. And I
Speaker 1: know they're getting close with with with a lot of
Speaker 1: this stuff, but I don't know, like so much of
Speaker 1: this inflammation. As I was reading it, I just kept thinking, like,
Speaker 1: they're going to figure this out at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was wondering, So, Chuck, I don't know
Speaker 2: if we said this or not, but there they attribute
Speaker 2: fifty percent of the deaths around the world in any
Speaker 2: given year to chronic inflammation or a disease that is
Speaker 2: connected to chronic inflammation. Right, Yeah, sixty seven million people
Speaker 2: died in twenty twenty two. If they can figure out
Speaker 2: chronic inflammation, you would ostensibly save the lives of thirty
Speaker 2: three and a half million people in a year. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is amazing. But I'm also wondering, like, isn't that
Speaker 2: gonna cause like one hell of a population crisis if
Speaker 2: we have an extra thirty three million people every year
Speaker 2: that we're going to be there previously, and great, their
Speaker 2: lives are saved. But I guess my point is not like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: they need to die. No, Instead, it's we would actually
Speaker 2: need to prepare and look down the road at how
Speaker 2: to deal with that because it would be a and
Speaker 2: it'd be significant and fast if we figured out chronic inflammation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, calling Norman Borlaw right exactly. Yeah, but something will
Speaker 1: kill you eventually, but you're right, it would extend lives,
Speaker 1: like a lot of lives.
Speaker 2: Vastly and also I mean especially in the case of
Speaker 2: something No, definitely not, but in the case of Alzheimer's especially,
Speaker 2: it would vastly improve later life as well.
Speaker 1: Quality of life.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, I mean just like it'd be like night
Speaker 2: and day if we could figure out chronic inflammation, even
Speaker 2: for just Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, well, I mean quality of life for
Speaker 1: most of these if you talk about something like IBS
Speaker 1: or Crohn's disease, like so much of this stuff is, yeah,
Speaker 1: stuff that people these chronic conditions people just live with
Speaker 1: every day that makes their life miserable.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you're one of those fiscal conservatives and
Speaker 2: you're like I don't care about any of this. How
Speaker 2: does this? How are you going to make me care?
Speaker 2: Buckle up? In twenty sixteen, just that year, just in
Speaker 2: the United States, we spent one point one trillion dollars
Speaker 2: directly on healthcare for diseases associated with chronic inflammation. Indirectly,
Speaker 2: if you take like lost productivity and all that stuff
Speaker 2: into account, it cost us three point seven trillion dollars
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen. Think about what you could do with
Speaker 2: three point seven trillion dollars that you just suddenly had
Speaker 2: in your pocket because we figured out chronic inflammation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'd all just get that back, right.
Speaker 2: Sure, they just distributed it to everyone, and we would
Speaker 2: never have to work again, and things would just keep
Speaker 2: going on smoothly.
Speaker 1: You know what they in the business they call what
Speaker 1: you just did? What hit him in the pocketbook?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. That's a pretty good term for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll go. People still say pocketbook, right, that's a
Speaker 1: modern relevant term. Yeah, Oh, I forgot my.
Speaker 2: Pocketbook right in my goloshes.
Speaker 1: My goloshes, my pocketbook. Do people not say goloshes where
Speaker 1: they say wellies?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they say wellies. Now, they definitely don't say rubbers anymore.
Speaker 2: That was always weird.
Speaker 1: I think yeah, I think that ended in like the
Speaker 1: seventies or something.
Speaker 2: Probably.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like we should take our next break yet.
Speaker 1: Do you should we talk about cancer first?
Speaker 2: Hold on, I'm looking inside myself. No, I don't think
Speaker 2: we should either.
Speaker 1: Okay, well let's talk about cancer. We can start it
Speaker 1: out with lung cancer. Everyone knows that when you smoke,
Speaker 1: you have a pretty decent chance of getting lung cancer.
Speaker 1: The question is like, what exactly is going on there?
Speaker 1: And it's pretty easy. You inhale smoke along with other
Speaker 1: things that are in cigarettes, and that really is going
Speaker 1: to irritate the cells inside your lungs. That's going to
Speaker 1: trigger that inflammatory response because your body is like, what
Speaker 1: is going on? I shouldn't have this thing in my lungs?
Speaker 1: And if you do this for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: that's called chronic inflammation, and it's going to damage your
Speaker 1: lung tissues over time.
Speaker 2: Tissues tissue tissue. Sure, But the mechanism even further on,
Speaker 2: like a deeper basis, is that smoke contains reactive oxygen species.
Speaker 2: So that's going and running buck wild through your lung
Speaker 2: tissue tearing stuff up. So not only is it messing
Speaker 2: up your cells and creating inflammation some of those cells
Speaker 2: it's messing up, it's also messing with their DNA too,
Speaker 2: And when cells with broken basically DNA or altered DNA
Speaker 2: start dividing and creating new cells, they pass along that
Speaker 2: altered DNA. And if the DNA the genes that are altered, say,
Speaker 2: are like tumor suppressing genes, all of a sudden, they're
Speaker 2: not going to stop dividing. They're going to keep going
Speaker 2: and going, and now you have a tumor. So it's
Speaker 2: kind of like a one to two punch just from
Speaker 2: cigarette smoke.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean, like we said, the inflammation is
Speaker 1: going to increase the blood flow, increase that cell division rate,
Speaker 1: so it's just like this sort of cycle spinning in
Speaker 1: on itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the inflammation is kind of like
Speaker 2: I think COPD is like the inflammation without the tumor part,
Speaker 2: and lung cancer is like the whole package. That's my
Speaker 2: take on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we mentioned earlier that not all cancers are
Speaker 1: due to inflammation, but one we can definitely sort of
Speaker 1: look at now is colon cancer. If you have Crohn's disease.
Speaker 1: If you have ulcer of colitis, then you are way
Speaker 1: more likely to develop colon cancer. And like I said earlier, tho,
Speaker 1: the word inflammatory is in the name there. It's an
Speaker 1: inflammatory bowel disease because you're once again your immune system
Speaker 1: is making a mistake and it's attacking those great healthy
Speaker 1: gut microbes that are keeping your gut nice and balanced,
Speaker 1: and that is going to cause that inflammation just to
Speaker 1: stick around forever. Basically can lead to ulcers as well,
Speaker 1: and that again just sort of like the lung cancer
Speaker 1: that can damage the DNA in the same way we
Speaker 1: were talking about with lung cancer and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you have a tumor.
Speaker 2: Yep, And the same process can also happen with chronic
Speaker 2: infections like tuberculosis and HPV, which is like I've always
Speaker 2: been like, how a virus caused cancer. That's how it creates.
Speaker 2: It brings chronic inflammation to the site of the cancer.
Speaker 1: All Right, I feel like now we should take the break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right. I can find that too.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back and talk about sort of a
Speaker 1: surprising thing and how depression relates to this.
Speaker 2: All right, Chuck, So you mentioned depression before the break,
Speaker 2: and that is I mean, at least as surprising as
Speaker 2: Alzheimer's potentially being caused by chronic inflammation. Agreed, There's a again,
Speaker 2: a few interpretations of this that we'll get to. But
Speaker 2: the reason that they're like, I really think not for
Speaker 2: all of them, but that there's a significant portion of
Speaker 2: people with depression who are suffering depression not because of
Speaker 2: a neurochemical imbalance but because of inflammation. And the reason
Speaker 2: that that group has kind of emerged as a possibility
Speaker 2: is because there's always been about thirty percent of people
Speaker 2: who've never really responded to SSRIs and other treatments for depression,
Speaker 2: other chemical treatments for depression that target neurotransmitters and try
Speaker 2: to restore balance in the brain. And if your chemicals
Speaker 2: aren't out of balance, you're not going to respond to
Speaker 2: those if the problem is that you have neuroinflammation. And
Speaker 2: they're saying for at least about a third of people,
Speaker 2: it's possible that it's neuroinflammation and causing depression.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, there's a lot of things to
Speaker 1: go over here. One is, if you have an autoimmune
Speaker 1: disorder and it's an autoimmune disorder, that causes chronic inflammation,
Speaker 1: then you are way more likely to be diagnosed with depression.
Speaker 1: That is again, that's sort of a correlation I guess
Speaker 1: that we can look at right now. They have done
Speaker 1: autopsies on people who have died by suicide that have
Speaker 1: also shown elevated levels of neuroinflammation. And then this study
Speaker 1: that our ol buddy Dave Rus found in cancer patients.
Speaker 1: Forty different cancer patients that had no history of depression
Speaker 1: at all in their life were treated with a chemical,
Speaker 1: an inflammatory cytokine known as interferon alpha, which your body
Speaker 1: naturally releases all the time as part of our inflammatory response,
Speaker 1: part of our immune system. And when these patients said
Speaker 1: no history of depression, these cancer patients were injected with
Speaker 1: interfer on alpha, their moods were altered, and many of
Speaker 1: them said, you know, I feel depressed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is I mean, all of that put together especially,
Speaker 2: is pretty strong evidence for that theory. The question or
Speaker 2: the answer to the question like how is this happening
Speaker 2: or how is this creating depression? Again, there's a couple
Speaker 2: of theories. One is straightforward as well. The inflammation is
Speaker 2: messing with some of your pathways that produce things like
Speaker 2: happiness and pleasure and your ability to relax. That's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 2: There's another kind of more roundabout one that says that
Speaker 2: this chronic inflammation is triggering a sweeter cluster of behaviors
Speaker 2: called sickness behaviors, where you're fatigued, you're anhdonic, which means
Speaker 2: you can't experience pleasure, you don't eat very much, you
Speaker 2: don't really feel like interacting with other people, and that
Speaker 2: that is actually like that group of sickness behaviors kind
Speaker 2: of evolved in humans to get us to just sit
Speaker 2: down and relax and rest when we were sick, so
Speaker 2: that our immune system could like take over and take
Speaker 2: care of it without having to shuffle some of that
Speaker 2: metabolism for us going for a jog or something, right,
Speaker 2: And that the brain is is not really differentiating between
Speaker 2: the two because you're not sick, but you still have
Speaker 2: the sickness behaviors, and that they're saying that is that
Speaker 2: specific variety of depression.
Speaker 1: I really, you know how much we love when something
Speaker 1: goes back to evolutionary advantage, right, And it's just so
Speaker 1: cool to think about tuktok tuk tuk no feel good, right,
Speaker 1: Tuck Tuck go and sit by himself and let and
Speaker 1: let and let body fix itself. Sure, Tuck Tuck no
Speaker 1: want to play rock ball, Tuck Tuck need time alone.
Speaker 2: Tuk tuk need to dial up out of office email.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so people say tuktuk depressed and tuk tuk say
Speaker 1: no natural body response.
Speaker 2: Right, but again, if you can attribute it to a sickness,
Speaker 2: it might be confused for depression.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's really super fascinating.
Speaker 2: Totally, and that actually the evolution thing really kind of
Speaker 2: underscores the explanation for a whole other group of diseases
Speaker 2: that are linked to chronic inflammation, things like heart disease,
Speaker 2: type two diabetes, some types of cancer, kidney failure, a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff that a lot of diseases I should
Speaker 2: say that kill a lot of people and make even
Speaker 2: more people suffer that are probably not very old. They
Speaker 2: probably don't go very far back in our evolutionary history
Speaker 2: because they're probably the result of just kind of the
Speaker 2: trappings of industrialization. The food we eat, the environmental toxins
Speaker 2: were exposed to, the work hours that we set for ourselves,
Speaker 2: the stress that can kind of come from living in
Speaker 2: the modern world, and that all of these new things
Speaker 2: that we humans expose ourselves too don't really jibe with
Speaker 2: the way that we evolve to live. And so we're
Speaker 2: in this really rough transition period right now where our
Speaker 2: bodies are like this is all wrong and this is
Speaker 2: all disease, and we're like, no, this is the food
Speaker 2: we eat now. And that evolutionary mismatch is One group
Speaker 2: of authors of a really influential paper put it as
Speaker 2: what causes that chronic inflammation and hence those diseases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it makes sense when you think about it.
Speaker 1: We have the same brain that tuk Took had when
Speaker 1: they found uncontacted tribes, and uncontacted is a It doesn't
Speaker 1: mean literally no one has ever talked to them. It
Speaker 1: just means they're generally left alone.
Speaker 2: They want to be left alone, so we leave them alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but still we don't leave them alone because sometimes
Speaker 1: anthropologists will go in there and spend time with them.
Speaker 1: But what they're not finding in those tribes is type
Speaker 1: two diabetes, and they're not finding ibs, and they're not
Speaker 1: finding these like very sort of not to name check
Speaker 1: another Chevy Chase movie, but they're not finding these modern problems.
Speaker 2: Right, And so some people are like, well, hunter gatherers
Speaker 2: typically don't have the same lifespans that we do, so
Speaker 2: it's probably aging. It's that free radical theory of aging.
Speaker 2: That's what causes inflammation. It's not the food we eat
Speaker 2: or anything. It's like, no, it's definitely the food that
Speaker 2: we eat. It's definitely the environmental toxins. It's definitely the
Speaker 2: stress because if you study all those things, they cause
Speaker 2: that inflammation. And if you look at like hunter gatherers
Speaker 2: or uncontacted tribes, like they're not eating that stuff, they
Speaker 2: don't have that kind of inflammation, they don't have those diseases.
Speaker 2: It's not to do with the lower life expectancy. It's
Speaker 2: to do with the fact that they don't expose themselves
Speaker 2: to the things that we expose ourselves. So industrialization has
Speaker 2: kind of led to this brand new group of diseases,
Speaker 2: chronic diseases that all seem to be stemming from chronic inflammation.
Speaker 1: That's right. I wonder what happens when they give one
Speaker 1: of those hunter gatherers a cheeto.
Speaker 2: Oh dude, they go fuck wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh boy, No.
Speaker 2: One can turn down a cheetoh. And once you have
Speaker 2: a Cheetoh, You're like, give me ten more Cheetos and
Speaker 2: then give me the bag. And now I'm moving to
Speaker 2: Portland so I can have easy access to.
Speaker 1: Cheetos right in street tacos.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Good.
Speaker 1: By the way, I mentioned, I apologize for Chevy Chase
Speaker 1: because you're a well known hater of Chevy Chase.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay. I've got little bloody half crescent moons
Speaker 2: in my palm from my fingernails, okay, because I was
Speaker 2: holding my piece, But I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to explain that to newer listeners. They
Speaker 1: were like, why are you apologizing for Chevy Chase. Guess
Speaker 1: Josh is on record is not being a big fan.
Speaker 2: Well, I was raised to despise Chevy, right.
Speaker 1: You're dad didn't like him, right, Yeah, And.
Speaker 2: He literally raised me to hate Chevy Chase.
Speaker 1: That's really funny. What was his beef again? Was it
Speaker 1: just he thought he was a which is what he
Speaker 1: was was a cocky sort of sob yeah jerk.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he said SOB two probably so yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that was it. And my dad saw right through him, apparently,
Speaker 2: because even at a time when Chevy Chase was beloved
Speaker 2: and could star in like pretty big movies. My dad
Speaker 2: was still like, Nope, that guy, he's not a good guy.
Speaker 1: You know what is not bad, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: is that new Fletch movie with John Ham.
Speaker 2: I can imagine. So I could see it.
Speaker 1: It was pretty good. Yeah, it was very under the radar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I noticed. I was like, when did that come out?
Speaker 2: It just kind of showed up in Amazon Prime Movies.
Speaker 2: Will think You'll like, I don't know about that Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of these that the studio kind
Speaker 1: of just bailed on for some reason and didn't do
Speaker 1: any marketing, which I don't get because John Ham's a,
Speaker 1: you know, a big name, and Fletch is a big
Speaker 1: name and it was a good movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't understand it either.
Speaker 1: It was very fletchy. All right, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of these you talked about industrialization in the world
Speaker 1: that we live in and these risk factors in our environment.
Speaker 1: One is, you know, you don't have to be a
Speaker 1: smoker to affect your lungs because you're walking around every
Speaker 1: day as a human on modern earth, breathing airborne pollutants
Speaker 1: that are doing some of the same things that smoking does.
Speaker 1: On a lower level, you are eating microplastics. You are
Speaker 1: if you're using the wrong soaps and shampoos. You can
Speaker 1: have some nasty chemicals like the lights, slates, thelates, thollates.
Speaker 1: Let I say, I said they lights to begin with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's all very melodic. All of them
Speaker 2: are fine.
Speaker 1: Well, when you start a word with p H, T
Speaker 1: H anyone.
Speaker 2: You're just being a jerk at that point.
Speaker 1: But all of these things are just in our body
Speaker 1: from walking around in the world unless you live like
Speaker 1: a really clean lifestyle, which is you know, a great
Speaker 1: thing to aspire to, and you're still like breathing air
Speaker 1: exactly right.
Speaker 2: You just you can't get away from it. And like
Speaker 2: they're finding more and more, like microplastics are everywhere. I
Speaker 2: can't remember what they're called forever, chemicals like teflon, they're everywhere.
Speaker 2: It's just everywhere. This to me, if I'm going to
Speaker 2: make another bet in this episode, this is the one
Speaker 2: that's responsible for the most chronic disease. Microplastics, chemicals, industrial toxins,
Speaker 2: air pollution. I think it's going to plant, it's going
Speaker 2: to pan out to be plastics. We're going to find
Speaker 2: the smoking gun because get this chuck. Industrialization has produced
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand chemicals so far, and we're
Speaker 2: adding two thousand new chemicals each year to our toolbox
Speaker 2: to produce everything from food to paint. And the FDA
Speaker 2: has a mandate to test these things before they approve them,
Speaker 2: and it just isn't happening. I've read it would take
Speaker 2: centuries for the FDA to test to catch up, and
Speaker 2: they're just not ever going to. So these chemicals just
Speaker 2: make it out and no one has any idea, especially
Speaker 2: at first, whether they're harmful or not. We just kind
Speaker 2: of find out the hard way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the food we eat obviously, you know, fried food,
Speaker 1: sugary sodas, refined sugars, refined carbohydrates, trans fats, meat secured
Speaker 1: with nitrates, booze, some people gluten, some people dairy. This
Speaker 1: you know, this is going to create inflammation. That's called
Speaker 1: an inflammatory diet. If you want to avoid that stuff,
Speaker 1: then you know, the Mediterranean diet is a great place
Speaker 1: to live. I was about to say start, but kind
Speaker 1: of start and stay. Olive oil, lentils, tomatoes, leafy greens,
Speaker 1: fatty fish, cigarettes for cigarettes, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, apples, almonds, walnuts,
Speaker 1: those things are anti.
Speaker 2: What you're naming all the foods.
Speaker 1: That's not all the foods, that's all the good foods.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: You didn't hear me say twinkie and fried chicken.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's true.
Speaker 1: Just avoid those refined foods. Eat real foods. But those
Speaker 1: foods that I listed out are literally anti inflammatory. So
Speaker 1: they're not only just good for your body in general
Speaker 1: and good for your heart and stuff like that, but
Speaker 1: they have anti inflammatory effects.
Speaker 2: Pretty neat and the opposite of the Mediterranean diet, that
Speaker 2: Western diet, another name for it is the standard American
Speaker 2: diet or SAD. And one other thing about it is
Speaker 2: not only plentiful and things like fried foods and sugar,
Speaker 2: it's also really low in fiber, which is a huge
Speaker 2: problem too. And a lot of those foods that you
Speaker 2: just listed off are very high in dietary fiber, which
Speaker 2: is something that if you wanted to figure out where
Speaker 2: to start, increase fiber in your diet and it will
Speaker 2: help a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, big time. Me with my gut issues, I've been
Speaker 1: I've been trying to eat as much fiber as possible.
Speaker 2: Good for you, man. The problem is is I hope
Speaker 2: you're rich, and I hope you have a lot of
Speaker 2: time to cook, because it's really tough to avoid ultra
Speaker 2: processed foods otherwise. And that's really sad. That's a sad
Speaker 2: state of affairs. Yeah, but that's kind of how it
Speaker 2: is right now.
Speaker 1: Agreed.
Speaker 2: So another one is sedentary lifestyle physical activity, right, Like,
Speaker 2: I didn't know this, but when you exercise, when your
Speaker 2: skeletal muscles contract, they actually release anti inflammatory proteins that
Speaker 2: go throughout your entire body. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. But like, full stop, that's all
Speaker 1: you need to say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because well I'm going to say some more.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The point is it's not sitting around that causes inflammation.
Speaker 2: It's not exercising that allows inflammation to go on unchecked.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of the explanation of that one. And
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people who are not physically active.
Speaker 2: Fifty percent of American adults aren't physically active. They get
Speaker 2: less than one hundred and fifty minutes of moderate aerobic
Speaker 2: activity each week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like if you're I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: a lot of people that make a case against exercising,
Speaker 1: but I have heard people say stuff like Oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you go out and you you walk for forty five
Speaker 1: minutes and all that that just burns up. Like they
Speaker 1: just look at like how many calories that burns And
Speaker 1: you know it may not be a ton of literal calories.
Speaker 1: But there's so many other benefits to exercising totally beyond
Speaker 1: just burning calories.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I mean we've talked about it before, like
Speaker 2: exercise is not for weight loss, if that's what you're
Speaker 2: trying to do. Exercises for things like anti inflammatory release,
Speaker 2: your mental health. Yeah, all the other benefits you are
Speaker 2: talking about anything basically butt.
Speaker 1: Weight loss, yeah, plus plus a little bit of calorie
Speaker 1: production or calorie burning.
Speaker 2: But speaking of weight loss, another problem of a sedentary
Speaker 2: lifestyle is excess weight and at a posts tissue, a
Speaker 2: visceral adipost tissue, which you would call like belly fat,
Speaker 2: your body says, okay, here's it. This is a normal level,
Speaker 2: and if you exceed the normal level, your body takes
Speaker 2: it as problematic and that causes inflammation in and of itself.
Speaker 1: I know, man, that belly fat is no good.
Speaker 2: No, it's true.
Speaker 1: Any other kind of fat on your body, yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: And there's something I'm working on I've lost fifteen pounds.
Speaker 2: By the way, Hey, congratulations man, wow wee wait, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's it's just a start, but I feel like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, this feels more real than before.
Speaker 2: Are you taking a long view of it?
Speaker 1: I'm taking a I don't want to die view of it,
Speaker 1: and I want to I want to look better at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, man. One thing I've been trying to
Speaker 2: do the same thing, and one thing I've come up
Speaker 2: with is anytime I'm like frustrated or impatient or I
Speaker 2: just am not where I want to be, I've learned
Speaker 2: to just tell myself, like, this is where I am
Speaker 2: right now. I'm not always going to be here. I'm
Speaker 2: going to have setbacks, I'm going to have advances, but
Speaker 2: this is just what I am right now. And that's fine.
Speaker 1: Man. That's a very healthy way to be.
Speaker 2: It's helped me a lot, like a lot.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: It's helped get me through some real like problematic valleys.
Speaker 1: Good good advice too.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: We're just doling it out today. We totally are lose weight,
Speaker 1: support yourself, quit smoking. Don't say that about my friend.
Speaker 1: Quit smoking.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's another one too.
Speaker 1: Stress is a big deal. Obviously, if you are chronically stressed,
Speaker 1: many many bad things will happen, but it is an
Speaker 1: inflammatory trigger. The cortisol levels in your body, you know,
Speaker 1: being sustained like that are really gonna mess with your
Speaker 1: body as a whole, but definitely mess with their ability
Speaker 1: to regulate, regulate inflammation and you know, trauma. They've even
Speaker 1: found that, like childhood trauma much later in life can
Speaker 1: be really tied to inflammatory markers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we've we've always been like a well people
Speaker 2: like eat to cope later on from like a childhood
Speaker 2: trauma and more complicated. Yeah, it actually may be more complicated.
Speaker 2: That might maybe that you have, you know, markers that
Speaker 2: set you up to to have excess weight that it's
Speaker 2: really difficult for you to lose because of inflammation because
Speaker 2: you have a genetic code programmed in you from an
Speaker 2: early age epigenetically and epigenetically it can also be passed
Speaker 2: along from mom and dad to kid and set them
Speaker 2: up without any childhood trauma, but their parents had trauma
Speaker 2: that encoded it into their genes that they now passed
Speaker 2: along to their kid who's going to struggle with weight
Speaker 2: all of their life because their parents were neglected when
Speaker 2: they were young.
Speaker 1: Combine that with can your grandfather's diet affect what was
Speaker 1: it affect your weight?
Speaker 2: The name of that one weight or something I don't remember,
Speaker 2: but it was just if you just look up grandfather's diet, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, you should tell everybody at long last.
Speaker 2: I think the soft opening is over soft opening, not
Speaker 2: two words that should go together. But we just updated
Speaker 2: with the help of our great friend Brandon Reid announcing Yeah,
Speaker 2: you are you ready, because if not, we can edit
Speaker 2: it out.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, let's do it.
Speaker 2: What we just unveil the brand new, updated Way to
Speaker 2: Go version of stuff youshould know dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as in brand new, it's sort of the
Speaker 1: first time we've ever had a real website pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're fifteen years in, let's get a website.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure. So all of the episodes are there,
Speaker 2: all of them, all fifteen hundred plus. You can just
Speaker 2: keep scrolling until your eyes start bleeding.
Speaker 1: The search is much better.
Speaker 2: Yes, you can also search grandfather's diet and it's going
Speaker 2: to bring up that episode. Also, there's like tour dates
Speaker 2: about us. It's real like paired rounds, but it's got
Speaker 2: everything that you need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we asked for something sort of simple and clean
Speaker 1: and big. Thanks to Brandon, he killed it.
Speaker 2: Huge, thanks to Brandon. Thanks a lot, man.
Speaker 1: It's great speaking of websites and looking at them on
Speaker 1: a screen, like how I did that? I do screens
Speaker 1: can disrupt your sleep. All the artificial in our modern
Speaker 1: worlds disrupts our sleep. Certainly if you have a shift
Speaker 1: work job where you're alternating day and night or just
Speaker 1: completely flipping and working nights only, this is going to
Speaker 1: mess up with the natural circadian rhythm that Took Took
Speaker 1: and our uncontacted friends have, which is it's dark, so
Speaker 1: we sleep, it's light, so we wake up. And this
Speaker 1: all effects and promotes inflammation. They've even done studies where
Speaker 1: just shift work alone is a risk factor for cardiovascular
Speaker 1: cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes, obesity, different kinds of cancer.
Speaker 1: And that's just if you do shift work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's because your circadian rhythm is so intimately
Speaker 2: tied to your immune system that if it gets out
Speaker 2: of whack, your immune system gets out of whack real quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Aging also, I mean we talked about it earlier. We
Speaker 2: also talked about in the free radicals theory of aging episode.
Speaker 2: But one of the other ways that aging can create
Speaker 2: chronic inflammation is something called immunosinescence, where your immune system
Speaker 2: just stops functioning properly, opens you up to infections more.
Speaker 2: But also your immune system goes haywire a little bit too,
Speaker 2: and your t helper cells start turning on your healthy tissue,
Speaker 2: which can also trigger chronic inflammation.
Speaker 1: Isn't it interesting how much more you think about this
Speaker 1: stuff as you get hold her. Yeah, totally remember thinking
Speaker 1: about any of this stuff when I was in my twenties.
Speaker 2: No, but hopefully we have some like twenties and thirties
Speaker 2: people who are listening right now and are like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take care of myself earlier than Josh
Speaker 2: and Chuck started it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you two will age. Yeah, there ain't no stopping it,
Speaker 1: so get ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That reminds me of that Simpson's in the House
Speaker 2: of Horrors. Lisa's going through. There's an old lady in
Speaker 2: a rocking chair and she goes, behold the ravages of age.
Speaker 2: I thought that would get a better response.
Speaker 1: Well, was that the punchline?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was going through like a house of horrors
Speaker 2: and like that, I got you one of the things.
Speaker 1: Was to be like a monster and then the rabbage
Speaker 1: get it. That is the punchline.
Speaker 2: I didn't do a good job of explaining it. No.
Speaker 1: I thought she was going to say they're ravages of age,
Speaker 1: and then she would reveal something or something.
Speaker 2: But she's just sitting in a rocker's she in herself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally get it now, I'm a little slow
Speaker 1: on the uptake today. There is a test for inflammation
Speaker 1: in general, a blood test called HS little HS big CRP.
Speaker 1: It measures and something we've talked about quite a bit
Speaker 1: on the show. See reactive protein. It's produced in the
Speaker 1: liver and if you have a high CRP number, it
Speaker 1: means you probably have a lot of chronic inflammation. It
Speaker 1: doesn't pinpoint exactly what is inflamed, but it's still a
Speaker 1: worthwhile test to have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, for sure. And that's one of the things
Speaker 2: that they're trying to crack is there's no reliable biomarkers
Speaker 2: of chronic inflammation. That one's a pretty good one, but
Speaker 2: there's not like a whole whole group that you can
Speaker 2: be like, this is where it's happening, this is why
Speaker 2: it's happening, This is how to fix it just based
Speaker 2: on those those biomarkers. But there are some things you
Speaker 2: can do to keep it from ever happening in the
Speaker 2: first place, or to get to get it to go away.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the things if you start to
Speaker 2: make some lifestyle changes, like it can turn diseases around,
Speaker 2: like you can come out of pre diabetes, you can,
Speaker 2: you can cure clear up some bowel disorders like it
Speaker 2: can have like a really pronounced effect if you actually exercise,
Speaker 2: if you try to maintain a healthy weight, cut out
Speaker 2: highly processed foods, quit smoking, quit smoking, drink get that
Speaker 2: good sleep yeah, cut down on drinking yeah. And also
Speaker 2: being more social. Apparently this is bad news for the
Speaker 2: introverts like me, because the more social you are, the
Speaker 2: less inflammation you should have.
Speaker 1: That's right, and then you can live as healthy life
Speaker 1: as you can and just wait for your family's genetics
Speaker 1: to kill you.
Speaker 2: But that's probably why because the after genetics had some
Speaker 2: inflammation coded into it, and now it's you know, you
Speaker 2: can be mad at your grandpa.
Speaker 1: I loved my grandpa, Well that's great, But the one
Speaker 1: that I knew, I'm happy.
Speaker 2: For you, I didn't really I knew. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 2: I knew one of mine. He was great too. I
Speaker 2: only met one of mine a couple of times, and
Speaker 2: I was too young to really make an impression of him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Same went. My dad's dad died when I was
Speaker 1: five or six, and my mom's dad died when I
Speaker 1: was I think I like, I think I was like
Speaker 1: twelve and he was great. And it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where I was like, every once in a while,
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I wish I could have known Walter
Speaker 1: as with me as an adult.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah. You and me grew up down
Speaker 2: the street from her grandparents for years and years and
Speaker 2: years and like interacted with them. They helped kind of
Speaker 2: like raise her, like there were a secondary set of parents.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm so jealous of that, you know,
Speaker 2: like you're so lucky if you're exposed to that as
Speaker 2: a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So here's my last bit of advice. Okay, if
Speaker 1: you're sort of youngish and you love your grandma and
Speaker 1: grandpa and you're just gonna think they're always going to
Speaker 1: be around, they're not, so talk to them and ask
Speaker 1: them questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like what we're wearing galoshes?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we were rubbers.
Speaker 2: If your grandpa sounds like that he has neuro inflammation.
Speaker 1: That means he's Abe Simpson.
Speaker 2: Right, you got anything else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else.
Speaker 2: If you want to know more about inflammation and chronic
Speaker 2: inflammation in particular, just start reading about it. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of interesting stuff out there. And since I said that,
Speaker 2: it's time for listener mail, all right.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this one. It's kind of fun to
Speaker 1: hear from liners who started young and are now adults. Yes,
Speaker 1: kind of ties into where we're just talking about. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I remember listening to your podcast with my dad on
Speaker 1: a long car trips to visit extended family when I
Speaker 1: was younger. He's always been the type of dad to
Speaker 1: get us curious about things so we could learn more
Speaker 1: about what we're interested in. In Your guys show was
Speaker 1: a great way to encourage that for me and my siblings.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure the first podcast I listened to you
Speaker 1: was from twenty thirteen, How Ghosts Work? Wow, And I
Speaker 1: remember being horrified ten year old agast at Chuck's story
Speaker 1: of the Old Lady in the Road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a scary story.
Speaker 1: It was a good one. Now I'm twenty, I'm in college,
Speaker 1: still tuning in to learn new stuff that I should know.
Speaker 1: This podcast has been It's always so weird to hear this.
Speaker 1: This podcast has been a memorable part of my childhood.
Speaker 1: Who we heard and I wanted to thank you guys
Speaker 1: for doing what you're doing. I hope you're doing well.
Speaker 1: And that sincerely is from Kaya Powell.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for that, Kaya, Like we hear
Speaker 2: that from people from time to time and it's just
Speaker 2: wonderful every time. Kind of gives you chills, a little
Speaker 2: bit done at huts.
Speaker 1: That's right, like seeing the old ghost lady in the road.
Speaker 2: I think about how much life has packed in between
Speaker 2: age ten and age twenty, and we were there for
Speaker 2: the whole time of't that neat? Well? Thanks for taking
Speaker 2: us along your journey, Kaya, And if you want to
Speaker 2: be like Kaya and write in for any reason whatsoever,
Speaker 2: you can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom,
Speaker 2: and send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: You Know, Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.