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Speaker 1: stories of things we simply don't know the answer too.
Speaker 1: Hey there everybody, and welcome again to another episode of
Speaker 1: Thinking Sideways. As the cat runs through the road, I
Speaker 1: am I am Steve, as always, I am joined by
Speaker 1: O and Devin. He was pointing at me, was it?
Speaker 1: It was sort of pointing in between us. So I
Speaker 1: just as always, we have another mystery for you. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a listener suggestion before I get too far in,
Speaker 1: because we seem to be trying to forget mentioning that
Speaker 1: their listeners suggestions. Lately, there's just too many suggestions. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you just formissed that it's a suggestion. Yeah, well then
Speaker 1: you suggestion by Joel. So Joel suggested the topic today,
Speaker 1: which is the Glasgow effect, or you may see it
Speaker 1: referred to as the Scottish effect. But it's more Glasgow
Speaker 1: than anywhere else, right it is, and we're we're saying that, right,
Speaker 1: I'm Glasgow. It's not Glasgow or like Glasgow. Listen, do
Speaker 1: we have to go and start angry emails in the
Speaker 1: first two minutes? You too? Yes, damn it. Well, this
Speaker 1: mystery is a little bit different than normal. It's not
Speaker 1: a murder mystery. There's there's a lot of death. It's
Speaker 1: it's more of an unknown health situation, socioeconomic mystery. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know how to classify it. Steve Special, it's
Speaker 1: Steve Special. Actually, there we go. That to really appeared
Speaker 1: to be all that socioeconomic. I think it's to do
Speaker 1: with spoilers. Spoilers as we'll find out. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's start by explaining the Glasgow Effect. Starting somewhere in
Speaker 1: the your early two thousand's, a bunch of studies started
Speaker 1: cropping up that we're talking about the unexplained poor health
Speaker 1: uh and blow average life expectancy of the residents of Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaker 1: The Glasgow effect is and I quote, a term used
Speaker 1: to describe the higher levels of mortality and poor health
Speaker 1: experienced in Scotland over and above the that explained by
Speaker 1: socio economic circumstances. Evidence of this excess being concentrated in
Speaker 1: West central Scotland has led to discussion of the more
Speaker 1: specific Glasgow effect. Unquote, if anybody driving home hoping for
Speaker 1: you know, something to keep them awake, this might not
Speaker 1: be it. It's definitely more academic. If you're living in Glasgow,
Speaker 1: is probably going to scare the crap out of you,
Speaker 1: or you're already dead, one of the two. But you
Speaker 1: know this is this is definitely much more of an
Speaker 1: academic mystery than than our normal fair So it's a
Speaker 1: good one for the people who listen and run at night. Yes,
Speaker 1: the that quote before I interrupted you Sorry, yeah, well
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say no, is that the quote
Speaker 1: doesn't really do a good job of explaining it. So
Speaker 1: let me try and break this down a little more
Speaker 1: of Layman's term situation UM. Glasgow's mortality rates are considered
Speaker 1: easily the highest in Britain, and they're among the highest
Speaker 1: in Europe. Whether it's death from things like siro cirosis,
Speaker 1: drug abuse, a cancer, murder, suicide, life expectancy at birth
Speaker 1: in Glasgow is lower than average, and for men that
Speaker 1: means that the men will live to be an average
Speaker 1: of seventy one point six years, whereas everywhere else in
Speaker 1: the UK they would normally live to an average of
Speaker 1: seventy eight point two years, basically six year difference. And
Speaker 1: also it's it's concentrated in certain areas of Glasgow too.
Speaker 1: There's areas of Glasgow where a white male life expectancy
Speaker 1: is fifty four, yeah, and other areas where the life
Speaker 1: expectancy is actually like eighty three. Correct, So it's all
Speaker 1: over the map. But that's you know, that's the thing
Speaker 1: about statistics that you've got to average the whole thing.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to this. So now if we
Speaker 1: talk about women, they the average for women is four
Speaker 1: years below the national average. So in Glasgow women will
Speaker 1: are expected to average seventy eight years compared to in
Speaker 1: the UK the average of eighty two point three. And
Speaker 1: these are just to help frame it. That's these are significant, right,
Speaker 1: it's not I mean there and they must be. They
Speaker 1: must be significant enough that there's there's a total effects
Speaker 1: named after it. But you know, when when you talk
Speaker 1: about the difference of four years life expectancy, that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound that outrageous. Okay, well let me know, so let
Speaker 1: me try to break this down and so it makes
Speaker 1: a little more sense than all right, you've got a
Speaker 1: city that on its own people. And this is you know,
Speaker 1: in the developed world, we've got a city where people
Speaker 1: in general aren't living as long. Now. The easy thing,
Speaker 1: and this is something that will come up in the theories,
Speaker 1: is people say, oh, well, it's the impoverished, it's the poor.
Speaker 1: They don't live a good lifestyle, they don't eat right,
Speaker 1: so no wonder they die early. Well, it turns out
Speaker 1: that the upper ten percent of the of Glasgow, the
Speaker 1: people who are in that upper ten percent of the
Speaker 1: economic bracket, they also die younger than their cohorts that significantly, yeah,
Speaker 1: in in other cities. So it's not as if it's
Speaker 1: this one demographic that's holding all the numbers down. And
Speaker 1: that's what's got everybody kind of scratching their head is
Speaker 1: wait a minute, So it's all across the board. It's
Speaker 1: all walks of life. It's not just one group. They
Speaker 1: should do some research on this they I bet they have.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I read some of it. Actually, um yeah,
Speaker 1: well no, actually, you know, that's a good point to
Speaker 1: bring up. There is a bunch of research on it.
Speaker 1: And one of the places that I will cite because
Speaker 1: they put out so much great information is the Glasgow
Speaker 1: Center for population health. They have study after study after
Speaker 1: study after study. If you want some good nighttime reading,
Speaker 1: I have a couple of reports that are pages long
Speaker 1: that are they are just they will deriveting. So the
Speaker 1: people that are maintaining this side, are they all still alive?
Speaker 1: I think, I guess won't that much longer, right, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be up for a while. Now that
Speaker 1: we've kind of explained the mystery, there's a there's some
Speaker 1: details we should probably give some people. Uh, first of which,
Speaker 1: for folks who don't know Glasgow is in Scotland and
Speaker 1: Scotland is part of the UK, it's what would you say,
Speaker 1: it's about the upper third of the island. It's ballpark
Speaker 1: that But with some people, you know, the geography isn't
Speaker 1: there their gigs. So I just always try to point
Speaker 1: that out to the island you're talking about. It's not
Speaker 1: the UK though, right Britain. Yeah okay, oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you're right. It would be Britain. Detail that's going to
Speaker 1: point that out. Yes, you're absolutely right, you're right. I
Speaker 1: would have I would have got us on that one. Uh.
Speaker 1: For some there's I pulled census data because I figured
Speaker 1: this would probably be important. It didn't turn out in
Speaker 1: the long run to be as much as I wanted.
Speaker 1: But there's something to keep in mind, which is Glasgow
Speaker 1: is a really big city. Uh. The city itself is
Speaker 1: sixty eight square miles, which is a d seventy five
Speaker 1: square kilometers, but there is also the Greater Glasgow Urban
Speaker 1: Area that means just all the area around the city
Speaker 1: of Glasgow what we call the metro area, called the
Speaker 1: metropolitan area, and that's a hundred forty two square miles
Speaker 1: or three sixty square kilometers. Not nothing, No, it's it's
Speaker 1: a big, big place. And according to the last census
Speaker 1: in Glasgow, which when I pulled it was from there's
Speaker 1: six hundred thousand people in the city. Now I census
Speaker 1: that I pulled for the urban area was from two
Speaker 1: thousand one, but at that point it was one point
Speaker 1: two million people. So it's a big city. It's not
Speaker 1: the biggest city in the world in terms of population density.
Speaker 1: There's what did I figure it out here, There's like
Speaker 1: hundred people per square mile or something like that, but
Speaker 1: it is of Scotland's population lives in that city, so
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of the major city. Yeah, A lot. Now,
Speaker 1: I pointed out that there's the city of Glasgow and
Speaker 1: then there's the Glasgow greater urban area. That's kind of
Speaker 1: important to know because if you do ever go dig
Speaker 1: into the studies, you'll see some studies refer to just
Speaker 1: the city of Glasgow and some of them that pull
Speaker 1: from the greater urban area. UM. Now, that's important because
Speaker 1: it are they using the smaller pool of people or
Speaker 1: the larger pool of people to to get their data
Speaker 1: and to get their results. I've seen some conflicting reports,
Speaker 1: but most of them, even when they pull it from
Speaker 1: the greater urban area, the effects still seems to be present.
Speaker 1: But it's something to be aware of. If you do
Speaker 1: the reading statistics, you gotta love them if you can
Speaker 1: work them. However, you need to the other bit of
Speaker 1: technical information that you need to know here. If you
Speaker 1: do go in any of the reporting, you're gonna see
Speaker 1: a phrase which I believe it or not, took people
Speaker 1: all the figure out, and that is excess deaths. I
Speaker 1: didn't understand that. I was like, it wasn't every one
Speaker 1: of them just neccess And yeah, now it turns out
Speaker 1: that is the number above and beyond what the expected
Speaker 1: average is gonna be. So we're gonna get into some
Speaker 1: more sexy numbers here. I can see the look on
Speaker 1: Devon's face. She is excited about percentages. Alrighty, So what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you here is the percent of excess
Speaker 1: deaths in the Glasgow area above and beyond what the
Speaker 1: national average is. And this is going to be for
Speaker 1: all age groups, so from zero to one hundred or
Speaker 1: I guess it's one, but yeah, well I guess it
Speaker 1: could be. Yeah, Well you get the point. So we
Speaker 1: have above the average death of cancer is twenty three
Speaker 1: the sorry, so it's uh that much above average? Right?
Speaker 1: So average is zero in this case. Let's say the
Speaker 1: average was a thousand. Okay, so there's an the average
Speaker 1: of a thousand deaths a year from cancer is expected normal.
Speaker 1: Then it would be two d and thirty two because
Speaker 1: that's more more right. So yeah, I guess I was
Speaker 1: saying that, like, you put average at zero, so the
Speaker 1: is above average? Correct, got it? All? Right? So then
Speaker 1: we have deaths from circulatory issues, which I would take
Speaker 1: to mean things anywhere from heart attacks to strokes. But
Speaker 1: that is five. I never actually got a good explanation
Speaker 1: of what they meant by that, and then alcohol related
Speaker 1: that is higher than expected, so that'd be alcoholism and
Speaker 1: sorrosism and stuff like that. Any deaths related to alcohol, yes,
Speaker 1: exactly does that? I'm sorry, does that include like car crashes?
Speaker 1: To be quite honest, that is one of the things.
Speaker 1: So there's a bunch of phrases used that are never
Speaker 1: the same from one report to the next. So sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a little difficult to know if you're comparing apples
Speaker 1: to apples or apples to oranges. So I can't answer
Speaker 1: exactly what it is. But if we do, if we
Speaker 1: look at the numbers, and we were then to remove
Speaker 1: anybody who is sixty five and over, as our British
Speaker 1: friends like to say, the pensioners, you take them out,
Speaker 1: and we have people who die from alcohol related issues,
Speaker 1: only it's higher. So it seems like the younger generation
Speaker 1: maybe is is boozing it up more. Um. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing that's notable for that group is drug
Speaker 1: related issues, which is seventeen percent higher than expected. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although you know, I've I've read that they've done studies
Speaker 1: and the other other comparable like, um, British towns, there's
Speaker 1: actually uh, there's no more drinking in Glasgow than in
Speaker 1: other towns. No. Actually, it turns out in Glasgow they
Speaker 1: actually drink inc They have less binge drinking and it
Speaker 1: seems like there's less drinking there than the other towns
Speaker 1: of the talent that you're talking about that are in
Speaker 1: the reports in the research, that's going to be Liverpool
Speaker 1: and Manchester. Yeah, to be the favorite. Yeah, because well
Speaker 1: they seem to through the data somehow they seem to
Speaker 1: match up in terms of I'm guessing something to do
Speaker 1: with population size and then the spectrum in terms of
Speaker 1: demographics from you know, way below the poverty line to
Speaker 1: making x an amount or more a year, probably similar
Speaker 1: you know, male female ratios, all those and all that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've got to presume that's why they would
Speaker 1: be selected. Otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to select them.
Speaker 1: Um that right there, though, Believe it or not, that's
Speaker 1: one of our shortest mysteries, because that is the mystery,
Speaker 1: is that we've got all these people who are just
Speaker 1: dying younger than they should and we don't know why.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you mentioned this. This this whole
Speaker 1: thing actually started in about nineteen fifty. We haven't got
Speaker 1: to that, but you're absolutely right, Yeah, you gonna mention that,
Speaker 1: like we can do it and we can talk about
Speaker 1: now that's not a problem at all. You're right, Joe.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I'm kind of intrigued
Speaker 1: by since we're heading into theories anyways, and probably somebody
Speaker 1: has thought to check this, but what are there any
Speaker 1: major population movements starting about nineteen the whole bunch of
Speaker 1: people move away or a whole bunch of people move in.
Speaker 1: So there have been migrations. Um, Glasgow itself, it's always
Speaker 1: been or traditionally it was a large industrial city and
Speaker 1: they were known for a couple of things, one of
Speaker 1: which was shipbuilding. That's what brought a lot of people
Speaker 1: to the city. Um, there was a huge migration push
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds. There a lot of people came in.
Speaker 1: And when you're in that, um what is that? That
Speaker 1: era called the Industrial Revolution? Thank you that we're just
Speaker 1: skipped right out of my head as soon as I wanted.
Speaker 1: When the Industrial Revolution hit, you know, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of that trip typical growing city situation. Everybody came in
Speaker 1: and it was a dirty, jammed, gross place, but they
Speaker 1: made a lot of stuff and then, but also one
Speaker 1: can presume not much more. I mean, it wasn't more
Speaker 1: dirty or jammed than many other major cities that we No, No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. It wasn't in any way that I can
Speaker 1: tell in the research crazier or more dangerous or dirtier
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And it was kind of average.
Speaker 1: You're right until Joe was saying, is that in the fifties,
Speaker 1: And at that point that's when they started to see
Speaker 1: that people were dying younger there than they should have.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there was migration out of the area,
Speaker 1: but there's also been migration into the area, because, like
Speaker 1: I said, it started with ship building, and then they
Speaker 1: had chemical processing and then I can't remember. I want
Speaker 1: to say, it's a textile. I've got it somewhere in
Speaker 1: my notes here. I'll find it in a bit. I
Speaker 1: can't with the third industry was but there were three industries.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like plutonium mining and handling or
Speaker 1: something like that. It wasn't that, but that would just
Speaker 1: be the answer. Then. But are clean industries, so it
Speaker 1: makes sense that they're they're workers are likely to be sicker,
Speaker 1: except that over time things clean up. But it's it's
Speaker 1: no worse than any other industrial It shouldn't be any
Speaker 1: worse than any other industrial towns. And that's that's again
Speaker 1: the problem. Those industries started moving away. So as these
Speaker 1: people who are now dying in their fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: they were probably born at a time when those industries
Speaker 1: were just getting out of town. It doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: I mean something, so they should have been breathing or
Speaker 1: anything that these nobody would spit out. The genetic donor
Speaker 1: that created them, had something like that that caused their
Speaker 1: you know, the DNA that they were given to reproduce
Speaker 1: a way, that's something that they do know. But I mean, again,
Speaker 1: this is like we're probably way into your theories at
Speaker 1: this point. No, actually, no, this is this is actually
Speaker 1: I'm glad Joe brought it up. I hadn't thought about
Speaker 1: the fact that this is probably should be talked about
Speaker 1: in the and the onset of this before we get
Speaker 1: into theories. But yeah, you know, and and just so
Speaker 1: people know, is that, yeah, people were coming in. The
Speaker 1: cultural demographic of the area has changed over time. So
Speaker 1: as with any any city, um, it's changed over time.
Speaker 1: So it's a completely different gene pool now than it
Speaker 1: was fifty and a hundred years at least statistically significant, Yes,
Speaker 1: a significant, significant enough that I would I would say
Speaker 1: it's notable. Um so that stuff has happened. And then yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you know, the the economy has changed. All of the
Speaker 1: big industries, most of the big industries. I think it's
Speaker 1: sixties some percent of it started leaving as of I
Speaker 1: think nineteen sixty or sixty one. They started leaving, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, thirty some of what they originally had
Speaker 1: is is industrial jobs. Is what's still there. They do
Speaker 1: like to put those industries in places where the government's
Speaker 1: care a little less about regulations. That's one reason. Um so, yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean that's you know, that's had an effect on it,
Speaker 1: which is why you see cultural migrations. Because if I
Speaker 1: am a chip builder and there's no more ship building jobs,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go somewhere else where I can build ships,
Speaker 1: make that money for building ships rather than flipping burgers
Speaker 1: at a McDonald's or something. And then here's the deal,
Speaker 1: is that the people that migrated out might have actually
Speaker 1: been uh might have actually been a little smarter, little
Speaker 1: more hard working. I don't want to I don't want
Speaker 1: to offend anybody from Glasgow, but I don't think that
Speaker 1: would have any effect on it. I don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: actually would be a fascinating thing to study, but it
Speaker 1: seems like it's mostly a health issue. Well you never know,
Speaker 1: it might be a genetic issue, who knows. But it
Speaker 1: would be interesting to track down all the people who
Speaker 1: left Glasgow and see how long they lived. Leaving Glasgow
Speaker 1: actually extend your lifespan. It seems like something that they
Speaker 1: should have done and at some point. But I don't
Speaker 1: know how easy that is though it would be tough
Speaker 1: to track. What you need to do is you have to,
Speaker 1: like on ancestry dot com that like, for fifty bucks
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, we could figure this out. I
Speaker 1: think I'm charging I'm charging to read the Wikipedia page
Speaker 1: of you know, different cases right now. So, uh, I
Speaker 1: think we'd charge more than fifty to solve this one. True. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds fair. Let's now that we've gone through that,
Speaker 1: let's get into the theories, because I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the next logical step for us. Um So we're going
Speaker 1: to start with the first theory, which is poverty, because
Speaker 1: as I said, that's the big one that you will
Speaker 1: see people point at is that people who are in
Speaker 1: a lower economic station in life, they don't have the money,
Speaker 1: so they're not going to eat as well, they're gonna
Speaker 1: do things that aren't good for them. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: work in those shipyards or in the platonium platonium holding
Speaker 1: in here. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's just I mean,
Speaker 1: that is just a reality that we know. Yeah, yeahs
Speaker 1: things have changed. Yeah, and also just the stuff of
Speaker 1: you know, the different stresses and the incredible toll that
Speaker 1: that can take on your lifespan. Is if you know
Speaker 1: you're living paycheck to paycheck, or in unstable housing, or
Speaker 1: or if you're if you're on the doll as they say,
Speaker 1: Because here's something to keep in mind is that in Glasgow,
Speaker 1: one out of five people are out of work and
Speaker 1: one out of four are getting assistance. So that's that's
Speaker 1: a lot of joblessness, and that means that's a lot
Speaker 1: of people, as you said, we're kind of scraping by. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the and the added stress on that I know,
Speaker 1: we've they've done so many studies all over the world
Speaker 1: on all that stress significantly affects the health levels that
Speaker 1: you'll see. Yeah, we've and generations down and even actually
Speaker 1: interesting fund side fact, I think I heard this on
Speaker 1: like NPR or something like that, so I may have
Speaker 1: my facts wrong. I'm just recalling, so please don't tell
Speaker 1: me that I'm lying or anything like that. But I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that they've done studies on the stress levels
Speaker 1: of pregnant mothers and how it affects the obesity rate
Speaker 1: of their children, which is so interesting. I actually have
Speaker 1: some of that at this point, So that's yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you're but you're on track. It does, it does make
Speaker 1: a huge difference. Um, so let's talk about we talked
Speaker 1: ahead and sorry, So I just mean that that's something
Speaker 1: to keep in mind when you say, well, even if
Speaker 1: you know the families are doing better and better, just
Speaker 1: because that's the case, it doesn't mean that today doesn't
Speaker 1: mean yea. Um, So if we take a look at
Speaker 1: the history in Glasgow. You remember I told you there
Speaker 1: was that big cultural migration in the eighteen hundreds. Well,
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties there was this thought that we
Speaker 1: need to build the city, we need to change the city,
Speaker 1: and so the government actually built a bunch of high
Speaker 1: rise tenement housing, kind of like we did here in
Speaker 1: the States. And we die. Yeah, Chicago is the one
Speaker 1: that comes to mind for me, and it was a
Speaker 1: situation where it was government owned and these people were
Speaker 1: living in it, and conditions weren't always healthy, they weren't clean.
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming anybody for this, it's just what happened sometimes,
Speaker 1: as we've seen all over the globe with this kind
Speaker 1: of housing situation. So just to be clear, the comparison
Speaker 1: is that this kind of housing would be the projects essentially. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it becomes a slum in a way. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that they've gone. They've now come back. I
Speaker 1: think in the last twenty or thirty years they started
Speaker 1: tearing those buildings down. They're trying to fix things up. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's left this poverty stricken area because if you can
Speaker 1: afford not to live in that building, you're you're gonna escape.
Speaker 1: You know, people flee that people who can't can't. And
Speaker 1: so this is something that gets pointed out. It's more
Speaker 1: of a you see it pointed out more than anywhere
Speaker 1: else in the news reporting of this. When you get
Speaker 1: into the actual data, it's it's actually admirable the amount
Speaker 1: of work that every researcher does to just kick the
Speaker 1: living crap out of this theory because they've taken they
Speaker 1: if they take this what they it's referred to as
Speaker 1: a socio economic factor. That means you're station in life,
Speaker 1: your income level against the poverty line. And when they
Speaker 1: balance through that and they take it out of the equation,
Speaker 1: people in that area are still dying sooner than people
Speaker 1: in similar cities with at the same time when they
Speaker 1: take it and they put it in an evil, uh
Speaker 1: even playing field. Yeah. That The thing about this, this
Speaker 1: particular mystery is is U policy advocates usually, you know,
Speaker 1: use it as an excuse to ride there on the
Speaker 1: law abby horse. So if you're a big anti poverty advocate,
Speaker 1: well you're going to jump right on this, you know.
Speaker 1: And well and it seems like a really easy thing
Speaker 1: to blame it on. Oh yeah, you know, really easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. But the impoverished or what is it that
Speaker 1: they get referred to? Disenfranchised I think is one of
Speaker 1: the words that I've seen used. And there's another one.
Speaker 1: I think that disenfranchise is kind of inappropriate though, well,
Speaker 1: you know, isn't the word that I'm looking for. It's
Speaker 1: it's in here. But there's a couple of different terms
Speaker 1: that are used, but it is just basically it's pointing
Speaker 1: at deprived all that stuff. Deprived, thank you. That was
Speaker 1: the word that I was looking for. They call it
Speaker 1: a deprived neighborhood. The Yeah, the term that you you
Speaker 1: use in social work, at least in America is you
Speaker 1: say that these people are experiencing this, not that they
Speaker 1: are this. Oh it's a good point. Yeah, that somebody
Speaker 1: is experiencing homelessness or experiencing poverty, not that they are
Speaker 1: the poverty or they are homeless. And it's like you
Speaker 1: know those people that are experiencing stab wounds and stuff
Speaker 1: that kind. Yeah, okay, it's equally painful problem a lot
Speaker 1: of times. But just as a you know, point of interest.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and just because just because somebody's poor doesn't
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't because you don't die, you don't
Speaker 1: make that much money. But one of the things is
Speaker 1: Joe said, is when you're an advocate of these things
Speaker 1: and you really want to go after something, one of
Speaker 1: the things that you'll see pointed out a lot is
Speaker 1: you'll see you'll see behaviors. So eating behaviors will get
Speaker 1: pointed at drinking behaviors and alcohol is what I'm getting
Speaker 1: at here will be pointed at, and smoking and drugs,
Speaker 1: so those those are things to get pointed out a
Speaker 1: lot as well. It's this group that does that which
Speaker 1: is not right. But that's why, that's why I say that.
Speaker 1: I like so much every researcher that just went so
Speaker 1: far to just obliterate this thing. That's good, you know,
Speaker 1: because it is it's so easy to just say, even
Speaker 1: as somebody who's trying to deal with this in their city,
Speaker 1: to say, well, it's just those poor people, it's their fault.
Speaker 1: We don't have to do anything. There's not actually anything wrong.
Speaker 1: It's just these poor people. They are all their fault
Speaker 1: and if their lifestyle, they just live that way and
Speaker 1: then they die early and that's fine. So I'm glad
Speaker 1: to hear that most researchers think that's bunk. Yeah, there's bunk.
Speaker 1: Speaking of some bunk. Can we get onto the next theory?
Speaker 1: I just wanted to point out the other The other
Speaker 1: instance where this kind of association has made is in
Speaker 1: the link between poverty and crime, which is a very
Speaker 1: popular theory. Absolutely not based on anything. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean not at all. I mean there ain't no link,
Speaker 1: I mean no causal link anyway. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a bunch of people want to come up
Speaker 1: with a reason that, like, you know, get the government
Speaker 1: to throw a bunch of money at poverty. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: theory number two, Yeah, I actually put this in. I
Speaker 1: put some of the theories in here in very specific
Speaker 1: orders because I figured we have a lot of fun
Speaker 1: with them. I like this one because I think it
Speaker 1: might apply to us too. So the next theory that
Speaker 1: we have is that it is due to vitamin D deficiency,
Speaker 1: meaning okay, well, if you ever look at the weather
Speaker 1: for that area you hear about in in England, it
Speaker 1: is gloomy, it is gray, it is rainy. You don't
Speaker 1: hear about how sunny and warm it is all the time.
Speaker 1: So it's an it's it's a very easy anecdote to make,
Speaker 1: and you actually only ever see it refer to anecdotally,
Speaker 1: always see or it could be this, and then they
Speaker 1: go on to the next thing. They never actually explain it.
Speaker 1: My total problem with this theory is if it was
Speaker 1: vitamin D deficiency, we should see this in other places,
Speaker 1: namely where we live as a giant part of Russia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where this should be happening all the time, where it's
Speaker 1: cold and cloudy and crutty, well a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I think they could they could answer this one.
Speaker 1: And they need to select a thousand residents of Glasgow
Speaker 1: and just grab him, you know, put him in calicars
Speaker 1: and take them somewhere sunny and just make them live
Speaker 1: there for fifty or six Do you know how they
Speaker 1: do it is they just put vitamin D in the
Speaker 1: drinking water. And that's what would be another thing to do.
Speaker 1: I think you can do that, right, they do it before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well but they're different, I mean, you know, the different molecules,
Speaker 1: and also they don't do that here. So calm down.
Speaker 1: Like I like vitamin D efficiency because I I once
Speaker 1: head a doctor who said, well, if you're gonna live
Speaker 1: in Portland, you should definitely take at least five milligrams
Speaker 1: vitamin D a day year round. And I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I could do that. Okay, okay, And I'm
Speaker 1: down on the whole vitamin thing, Okay, not buying it.
Speaker 1: So let's move to the next theory, which is poor
Speaker 1: diet equals poor health, which logically makes sense and we
Speaker 1: kind of talked about that under poverty. Well we did
Speaker 1: in a different way, right, but in a different way
Speaker 1: because this this does actually come to some of the stuff.
Speaker 1: This is where some of the stuff that Devon was
Speaker 1: talking about actually comes in. And there's there's a couple
Speaker 1: of different ways that this can be earned. Um, it
Speaker 1: is a known fact that people in Glasgow do have
Speaker 1: greens available to them, but they don't eat them as often.
Speaker 1: So in other words, it's it's not that the healthy
Speaker 1: food isn't available, it's that it is not chosen interesting,
Speaker 1: and that's across all different socio demographics as an average Okay,
Speaker 1: well we're talking. We are talking in averages. So that
Speaker 1: would be something interesting to check out, would be to
Speaker 1: go to go to grocery stores in Glasgow and check
Speaker 1: out the vegetable apartment. You would expect it to be smaller,
Speaker 1: significantly smaller than in other cities because of the line demand.
Speaker 1: And then you would also expect that that that would
Speaker 1: probably have like a cause and effect sort of situation
Speaker 1: where people would buy it less, so they'd be less available.
Speaker 1: So people would buy it less because it's less available,
Speaker 1: diminishing returns, yes, no, no, absolutely, and then and then
Speaker 1: there's the flip side, which is everybody points out you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be eating so many processed foods. Don't buy the
Speaker 1: frozen pizzas and the burritos just because they're fast. And
Speaker 1: yeah it says it's a veggie egg roll, but it's
Speaker 1: still processed to the end degree. So that is one
Speaker 1: of the things that gets pointed at is that there's
Speaker 1: this is what's happening and if that was such a problem,
Speaker 1: then we should have huge rates of obesity and diabetes
Speaker 1: in that region in the Glasgow, except that again it's
Speaker 1: not anywhere above and beyond what would be expected of
Speaker 1: the average. As a matter of fact, yes, the obesity
Speaker 1: rate is actually lower in Glasgow than the other cities
Speaker 1: in the in Britain. That that doesn't pan out. The
Speaker 1: math on that doesn't work. It's not necessarily any worse. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah that's probably true. Yeah, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's struggle with that. Then it's like on the flip side,
Speaker 1: it's like, does that mean that you actually have a
Speaker 1: lot of malnourished people? Right? If you don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of obese people, but we know that they aren't eating, well,
Speaker 1: does that mean that actually the people who should be
Speaker 1: obese are just malnourished, and so that's something else that's
Speaker 1: going on there. But that seems like that would be
Speaker 1: like the first thing that you would do as a
Speaker 1: research scientist to saying, oh, look at how malnourished these
Speaker 1: people are. Although I would agree with that to argue
Speaker 1: against myself, I also don't think that a lot of
Speaker 1: people realize that they're malnourished necessarily. I think if in
Speaker 1: terms of mild cases of malnourishment, obviously, right, we're not
Speaker 1: talking like African children who are literally starving to death.
Speaker 1: We're talking about adults who are just living on food
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be living on, not getting the nutrients they
Speaker 1: should be. You just feel kind of tired and run
Speaker 1: down and grumpy and you know all that stuff. But
Speaker 1: I don't know that you would necessarily go to the
Speaker 1: doctor and the doctor would say, well, what exactly are
Speaker 1: you eating? Oh, you might be malnoursed. That that would
Speaker 1: be the kind of thing that would come out in Uh,
Speaker 1: it's self reported happiness is one of the things. That's
Speaker 1: one of the things that you'll say are if they
Speaker 1: do study that, it's one of the things that is
Speaker 1: studied and one of the things that has asked. But
Speaker 1: the funny thing about self reported happiness is that people
Speaker 1: almost always, as an average, unless there's, you know, a
Speaker 1: giant meltdown in the area, I think they report on
Speaker 1: average something like six and a half to eight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's no range. So unless the city has just burned down,
Speaker 1: everybody's like, yeah, seven. So okay, this is um. I'm
Speaker 1: going to use some anecdote that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with this to prove a point I have had Tonight's
Speaker 1: my entire life. I hear ringing in my ears far yeah,
Speaker 1: all the time, as for literally as long as I
Speaker 1: can remember. And I thought, literally until like five years ago,
Speaker 1: that was a thing that everybody had. No I genuinely did.
Speaker 1: I thought everybody they have had this conversation. So I
Speaker 1: think there's also some argument to be made. I think
Speaker 1: that's a bit of human nature. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people kind of feel that way, especially awkward people,
Speaker 1: especially uh, you know, people from the United Kingdom who
Speaker 1: are stereotypically awkward. I'm kidding, I'm sorry, no, but I
Speaker 1: think that's a human Part two is to just say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I feel tired, but maybe this is just how
Speaker 1: people feel. I don't know, and if a lot of
Speaker 1: people around you are feeling that way, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to keep arguing. You guys, stop me. So I think
Speaker 1: they just need to give them all a lot of
Speaker 1: itemins clear it all up. It's possible. But is there
Speaker 1: is there any evidence that actually people in Glasgow eat
Speaker 1: any worse than people in say Chicago or London or Manchester.
Speaker 1: I can see yeah, no, I mean it's again, if
Speaker 1: they were eating that badly, it should show up in
Speaker 1: other very easy to identify health issues. But but those
Speaker 1: things that they're looking for specifically aren't showing up. So
Speaker 1: that's why it appears to not be such a poor
Speaker 1: diet issue. Now, part of the diet is, of course,
Speaker 1: like we talked about, there is the consideration of how
Speaker 1: much do people drinking smoke. We talked about the fact
Speaker 1: that people in Glasgow appear to actually drink less than
Speaker 1: the other British cities. Maybe that's the problem we also
Speaker 1: have in there, something we briefly touched on in the beginning,
Speaker 1: and this is also it kind of got lumped into
Speaker 1: the diet, but that's drug use. Turns out the drug
Speaker 1: of choice is of all things heroin, What do you
Speaker 1: mean of all things? It's like literally the most addictive
Speaker 1: thing you could ever do. It's the worst damn thing
Speaker 1: that you could ever do, because people do well, I
Speaker 1: don't know, people who get on heroin to have a
Speaker 1: pretty hard time and it it rides them for a
Speaker 1: lot longer. People can go a lot longer falling down
Speaker 1: the well to hit bottom, at least in the people
Speaker 1: that I've known. Then people on meth because tweakers are
Speaker 1: easy to spot and they usually burn out and get
Speaker 1: themselves caught pretty fast, whereas it's people on heroin, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a you know, it's chasing the dragon. I
Speaker 1: believe it's what is what they refer to it as.
Speaker 1: But either way, I mean, both of those drugs they
Speaker 1: kill people, they do terrible things to and that there
Speaker 1: are things that get looked at. Eence that people in
Speaker 1: Glasgow do more hair I wanted other people, not that
Speaker 1: I can find. I mean, drugs are an issue. If
Speaker 1: we if we go back to that stat from the
Speaker 1: beginning with the excess deaths, yeah and under it was
Speaker 1: good memory. So I mean obviously there's something going on. Well,
Speaker 1: it is true. I mean heroin is Whitely touted as
Speaker 1: literally the most addictive drug. I'm not I'm not just
Speaker 1: like saying that. The thing they do studies on it.
Speaker 1: It's you know, people get addicted way faster to heroine
Speaker 1: than they do to most other drugs, and especially if
Speaker 1: there is a higher usage. Again we're saying we don't
Speaker 1: actually know if there's a higher usage or not, but
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, four of your friends are
Speaker 1: doing it and they seem fine, Well, maybe you'll try
Speaker 1: it too, because you know your life's not going so
Speaker 1: great and you want to high. So that addiction can
Speaker 1: kind of you know, snowball, Yeah, that much greater. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's I I've known several people who have managed to
Speaker 1: kick it, and both of them were deathly afraid of it,
Speaker 1: and one of them to the point that of getting
Speaker 1: addicted to anything that for years she wouldn't take any medication.
Speaker 1: And it turned out years later she was you know,
Speaker 1: found out through health issues what had actually done. And
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, she was on it for only
Speaker 1: a couple of years. So stuff does. And that's part
Speaker 1: of the reason that I bring up the heroine is
Speaker 1: that it can have a long range effects. So even
Speaker 1: if somebody does it for a couple of years and
Speaker 1: then is lucky enough to kick it, gets the help
Speaker 1: they need and gets off of it. It still can
Speaker 1: have done the damage that nobody knows right away, and
Speaker 1: then five, ten, twenty years down the line, those effects
Speaker 1: wear their ugly head. Yeah and again. But again it
Speaker 1: does seem like you know, I mean, they know they
Speaker 1: do demographic studies on is this area, you know, the
Speaker 1: Scotland capital of Heroin. I mean, it may very well be,
Speaker 1: but that seems like something they would mention. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't see any evidence to that. No, I don't either,
Speaker 1: But but it's it's the drug that you get that
Speaker 1: always gets brought up. So that's why I wanted to
Speaker 1: bring it up, so that we're not leaving anything behind. Okay.
Speaker 1: Another thing that seems to be killing a lot of
Speaker 1: people as murder. Yes, yeah, it used to be in
Speaker 1: the murder capital of Western Europe. He was at one point. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but now some murder has gone down. I understand quite,
Speaker 1: but it was it was murders that were guns are illegal,
Speaker 1: so they can't have a gun there, so it was
Speaker 1: knife things or beatings and stuff like that. So I'm
Speaker 1: just like for people in the US, when you hear
Speaker 1: murder capital, we always automatically assume that they were shooting everybody,
Speaker 1: which is not the case. I just want to get
Speaker 1: that on the table so we know what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: put it into proper context. I mean, people can get
Speaker 1: illegal guns. There are murders, sarcastic air quotes. It's not
Speaker 1: as rampant. Yeah, on the ship for possession, I should
Speaker 1: say possession of firearms is not nearly as rampant or
Speaker 1: prevalent as it is here. I think two of the
Speaker 1: three of us have guns in our home. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's pretty I mean, it's pretty strong statistic not to
Speaker 1: say that, you know, all Americans are like, I have guns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well there's Texas, but there's that, and then there's the
Speaker 1: rest of the United States. But I mean I think
Speaker 1: that's that's a pretty fair statistical thing. Yeah. Here in
Speaker 1: the West, I mean a lot of people own guns.
Speaker 1: I know towns of people that own guns. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean that's about what. Let's move on to another theory.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to a awesome theory. This
Speaker 1: is another one you just kept in here for fun.
Speaker 1: Is I didn't totally did uh, and that is that
Speaker 1: the theory is the cause is an environmental factor and
Speaker 1: that's temperature. I'm not buying this one. Let me tell
Speaker 1: people about first time. Come on, man, don't don't don't
Speaker 1: build it up then tear it down. Is what you
Speaker 1: told me before. Okay, Okay, So it turns out that
Speaker 1: it is actually pretty chilly in in Glasgow in the winter.
Speaker 1: The highs as an average are five degrees celsius or
Speaker 1: forty four degrees fahrenheit five degrees celsius. I'm just doing
Speaker 1: a little writh of take that sounds right. Put it
Speaker 1: into the Google calculator. I know how to I know
Speaker 1: how to convert. Did you do it on March Fools Day? Okay?
Speaker 1: So that's that's the winter highs and the summertime average
Speaker 1: temperature is nineteen degrees c or sixty six degrees f. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like what is it in Moscow? Like let's talk
Speaker 1: about so right, and Moscow is much larger. So if
Speaker 1: I'm sorry not to like tear this down before you
Speaker 1: builds as I could do. But if you if you're
Speaker 1: gonna argue that it's an environmental factor and that it's
Speaker 1: it's just too cold all the time. There are so
Speaker 1: many other places that you would be seeing things like
Speaker 1: this happening, I guess. I mean it's possible that people
Speaker 1: just don't notice in Russia. I know, I can agree
Speaker 1: with your point that again, this is just like the
Speaker 1: Yeah I checked. I checked just three countries randomly that
Speaker 1: are way north and colder Iceland, Norway in Finland and yeah,
Speaker 1: Iceland life expectancy eighty three years old. Norway I think
Speaker 1: it was about eighty two and a half, and I
Speaker 1: think it is that what it is. Okay, Yeah, temperature now,
Speaker 1: because they're women are also more beautiful cold. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm trying really hard not to offend anyone. I didn't
Speaker 1: mean that in an offensive way. Scottish women are very beautiful.
Speaker 1: Scottish women are very beautiful. I mean every country has
Speaker 1: the most beautiful women, that's true. Yeah, let's get a
Speaker 1: move on now after that debacle to the next we
Speaker 1: have to actually have two environmental factors theories. The second
Speaker 1: one is pollution. Yeah, so as we talked about, we
Speaker 1: had the shipyards, we had the chemical processing um and
Speaker 1: it looks like you know what I was right, it
Speaker 1: was textiles. They don't specify exactly what the textiles were
Speaker 1: in some of the stuff that I was reading. But
Speaker 1: we talked about this. They're not exactly clean. They're not
Speaker 1: really good about keeping the city around them nice. They
Speaker 1: dump everything in the river. I'm saying historically, not today.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Can I share it today? I learned today?
Speaker 1: I learned that Victoria doesn't have a waste treatment plant Victoria, BC. No,
Speaker 1: they just dump it right into the river. Are you serious? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they dump it into the harbor or what the harbor? Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently apparently the state of Washington is considering like a
Speaker 1: no travel ban on them to say, like, you have
Speaker 1: to start treating this stuff. Anyway, that's my Today. I
Speaker 1: learned some crazy poop. Yeah, I've been I find that
Speaker 1: hard to believe because I've been to Victoria quite a
Speaker 1: few times and I've never seen poop floating in the harbor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you can't smell anything. Well, you've been there, did
Speaker 1: you smell anything? No? But I was drunk. Okay, actually
Speaker 1: it wasn't. That's just my go to excuse. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: let's keep going with this, uh, with this pollution. So
Speaker 1: if that was if pollution was responsible for the higher mortality, rate,
Speaker 1: then you would expect that we would see higher levels
Speaker 1: of cancers, which cancer does kill at a higher level
Speaker 1: than the average expected. One of the things I kept
Speaker 1: seeing called out is they always said lung cancers, but
Speaker 1: they never said exactly what it was. So I was
Speaker 1: always curious if that might be something to do with it.
Speaker 1: Lung cancers plural or lung cancer. Uh, you know that's
Speaker 1: now that you specify, I'm not sure which it was.
Speaker 1: Let's just say lung cancer. I believe there is one.
Speaker 1: More more than one there is, I mean there's multiple
Speaker 1: there's muth cancers that can be in your lungs. Then
Speaker 1: that might be. As much as I love our British friends,
Speaker 1: they have different ways of phrasing things sometimes, and so
Speaker 1: I'm not always sure if it's just phrasing for the
Speaker 1: way I would normally expect it to be, or if
Speaker 1: it's something slightly different. So I wasn't positive. But again,
Speaker 1: how do we have any evidence that pollution there is
Speaker 1: stronger or no, not really than anywhere else, certainly not
Speaker 1: more than Southeast Portland. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean it's London.
Speaker 1: At one time was considered one of the filthiest cities
Speaker 1: in the world, and it's super clean China and well
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about in the UK and then you
Speaker 1: go up to Glasgow and it's pretty clean. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure the pollution back back in the day was a
Speaker 1: lot worse. Yeah. I mean, if we look at the
Speaker 1: at the nineteenth century or even the twentieth century, they
Speaker 1: didn't care. It was stuff everywhere, you know, it was
Speaker 1: it was the cold snow, I believe it. It was
Speaker 1: the ash was so thick that it was like snow.
Speaker 1: But that's I don't think that is that dirty anymore.
Speaker 1: And I guess this it feels like this isn't easy
Speaker 1: to prove or disprove theory. You just take some samples
Speaker 1: of the air, and if it's super contaminated you can
Speaker 1: start to say, well that might be a reason, or
Speaker 1: it's not super contaminated, so that may not be a reason,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but also it's not there not strong evidence.
Speaker 1: There's not. And it's also not as though lung cancer
Speaker 1: is the thing that is killing this many more people.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's cancer in general is higher, but
Speaker 1: its general that are higher in general to like alcohol,
Speaker 1: is that well yeah, but I was gonna say it's
Speaker 1: if it's cancer in general, then you can't find as
Speaker 1: easily a specific cause because certain things tend to cause
Speaker 1: certain kinds of cancers and other things tend to cause
Speaker 1: other kinds of cancers. But if it's if it's cancers
Speaker 1: in general, then it makes me think that it might
Speaker 1: not just be from one factor, which in this theory
Speaker 1: would be the pollution. But but but but also the
Speaker 1: other thing is that people aren't just dying of cancer,
Speaker 1: where they're dying about a whole lot of other sects too.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and even if I mean, I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know how you necessarily could find this out, but
Speaker 1: you know, there is certainly the the idea that but
Speaker 1: just because you have cancer, you can die of something else. Right,
Speaker 1: you have cancer in your heart gives out, you die
Speaker 1: of that heart attack, So your cause of death is
Speaker 1: the heart attack, but you still had cancer. Uh, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's tracked in these records, So
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's taken into effect that these
Speaker 1: people also had. Can I think cause of death is
Speaker 1: cause of death. So if you crash your car and
Speaker 1: die and you just happen to have a terminal disease,
Speaker 1: they say your cause of death vehicle in that case. Yes,
Speaker 1: but doesn't that seem like that would be really important
Speaker 1: factor to find out for Glasgow in terms of the
Speaker 1: Glasgow effect if somebody were that like, even if you
Speaker 1: crashed your car at seventeen and you had a terminal
Speaker 1: case of cancer, it's important that you have the terminal
Speaker 1: case of cancer just as much as it is that
Speaker 1: your cause of death was a car crash. But that's
Speaker 1: that's the problem, is that, right? And this is what
Speaker 1: this is what's now starting to go on, is that
Speaker 1: they're starting to have to do like what you're suggesting
Speaker 1: is they have to they're having to go deeper because
Speaker 1: they've got the surface data the easy numbers, and the
Speaker 1: easy numbers aren't making sense. And so yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that is one of the things there's Uh, there was
Speaker 1: a report that was due out at the beginning of
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons actually held off on this
Speaker 1: story for a while because I wanted to get that
Speaker 1: report and as of you know, this is March now
Speaker 1: when we're recording and report out, so I you know,
Speaker 1: I was really hoping that there was gonna be that
Speaker 1: shining answering. But I think it's likely this. The report
Speaker 1: will come out next week probably after we're done. We'll
Speaker 1: follow up, we'll do a short Okay, so pollution I
Speaker 1: think is out. Yeah, yeah, I think I'm right. So
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and let's move on down the line
Speaker 1: to our next one, which is again a Devin special.
Speaker 1: It is food scarcity and then the stress levels which
Speaker 1: are which are notably higher in this town. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: the reason that this is brought up is because we
Speaker 1: just we talked about earlier is the the amount of
Speaker 1: people who are unemployed and who are on public assistance.
Speaker 1: So chances are if they have any other reason, the
Speaker 1: things that they want to spend their money on, whether
Speaker 1: it be booze, smokes, naked women, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 1: if they've got some other vice, some other vice, then
Speaker 1: they are going to be spending money on that. So
Speaker 1: therefore they're not going to be spending as much on food,
Speaker 1: and that's gonna then cascade down through a household, because
Speaker 1: if the household doesn't have as much money, then everybody's
Speaker 1: you know, a little unsure of where their next meal
Speaker 1: is going to come from. So that's where this is,
Speaker 1: That's what this is based on. Yeah, I have to
Speaker 1: say that being on the doll is not healthy in
Speaker 1: many sense, many senses, it's not good for your self esteem,
Speaker 1: and it's not you know. The thing about having a
Speaker 1: job that's good besides you don't have an income, is
Speaker 1: that it gives you reason to sort of like stay
Speaker 1: on top of yourself, you know. I mean, you can't
Speaker 1: be you can't be sleeping until three in the afternoon
Speaker 1: every day, and you can't be starting drinking at ten
Speaker 1: in the morning. It you got to rself in order.
Speaker 1: Negative cycles can can manifest your well I mean. And
Speaker 1: then the other thing too, that happens often. I know
Speaker 1: that I've I've gone through this when I've been on
Speaker 1: or under employed. You know, right now, I have a
Speaker 1: steady job, however much I like it or not. But
Speaker 1: I wake up at the same time every day. I
Speaker 1: go to sleep about the same time every day. I
Speaker 1: have a routine. When I'm not employed, I wake up
Speaker 1: whenever I go to sleep, whenever it starts to mess
Speaker 1: with the sleep cycle. And and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of studies about how a messed up circadian rhythm can
Speaker 1: really mess with your body. And that's that's another thing too,
Speaker 1: is if you don't have the schedule that you need
Speaker 1: to stick to, at least me. I think you guys
Speaker 1: would agree. It's really easy to just slip out of
Speaker 1: that and then it just starts to kind of with
Speaker 1: your body. And the last time I was out of work,
Speaker 1: it was quite well back, but it was amazing how
Speaker 1: quickly I adapted to staying up till two every night
Speaker 1: and slipping intil ten every morning. So easy. Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about the I've got some stuff here about
Speaker 1: the food shortage cycle. Actually, since I've been yambering on
Speaker 1: this whole time, Devin, do you mind reading this quote?
Speaker 1: The cycle of having enough food followed by food shortage
Speaker 1: is thought to play a direct role in dietary compromise,
Speaker 1: accumulation of visceral fat and weight gain. Inadequate nutrient nutrition
Speaker 1: and weight gain play a direct role in the development
Speaker 1: of chronic diseases. Stress plays an active role in metabolism
Speaker 1: chronic disease. Animal models suggest mice exposed to stress conditions
Speaker 1: in the presence of high fat, high sugar food secrete
Speaker 1: stress hormones and insulin, which leads to a subcutaneous fat
Speaker 1: and weight gain just by being near the high fat,
Speaker 1: high sugar food I don't know exacts as two means
Speaker 1: are eating it. Okay, okay. Quote. Food insecurity is inconsistently
Speaker 1: associated with overweight and obesity among women. However, several studies
Speaker 1: have found a significant association between food and security and
Speaker 1: diabetes and poor diabetes management. For example, a significantly higher
Speaker 1: percentage of adults with diabetes from food insecure households report
Speaker 1: difficulty following a diabetic diet, decreased confidence in their ability
Speaker 1: to manage their diabetes, and a higher score for emotional
Speaker 1: distress related to diabetes. Food insecurity during pregnancy is associated
Speaker 1: with higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, just stational
Speaker 1: weight gain and over twice the risk of developing gestational
Speaker 1: diabetes compared with low income food secure women. Unquote, thank you,
Speaker 1: You're welcome. But that that that does play into some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that you were bringing up earlier. It's
Speaker 1: the more articulate way to say all the things I
Speaker 1: was just saying. What sound more smarter, more smarter, more better? Steve,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's uh, I mean we and we
Speaker 1: already know as we talked about the stress is excess
Speaker 1: amounts of stress is bad. Your body is meant to
Speaker 1: deal with stress to a certain degree. But if you
Speaker 1: go ahead and add in lots and lots of it,
Speaker 1: you're in what I would I would just say, let's
Speaker 1: call it fight or flight mode all the time that
Speaker 1: high blood pressure is gonna happen, heart attacks are gonna happen, uh,
Speaker 1: circulation breathing issues. I mean, these are just kind of
Speaker 1: a handful of the things that are going to happen.
Speaker 1: So it plays havoc on the body and the immune system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's very well known scientifically. They've looked at
Speaker 1: it and they figured it out, and yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: bad thing for you. But has anybody done, um, any
Speaker 1: surveys on food insecurity in Glasgow? Um? So the reports
Speaker 1: that I read, it's kind of presumed that there's a
Speaker 1: portion of the households that are food insecure and there's
Speaker 1: a portion that are food secure. What the ratio is
Speaker 1: and what those numbers are. I didn't see that specifically
Speaker 1: called out, but that may have been because I didn't.
Speaker 1: I wasn't on page sixty eight and one specific table.
Speaker 1: It's also it's also hard since we're talking about cross
Speaker 1: generational stuff, right, We're talking about how a parents food
Speaker 1: insecurity can affect a child. For instance, that data certainly
Speaker 1: probably wasn't really I mean, that wasn't a thing that
Speaker 1: people really thought about in previous generations, especially if we
Speaker 1: start talking about a couple of generations back. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm so, I'm third second generation from my grandma, right,
Speaker 1: and she was born in like nineteen hundred, and that's
Speaker 1: a long time ago, and there's one person in between
Speaker 1: me and her, and when she was growing up, they
Speaker 1: just called it being hungry. It wasn't food insecurity and
Speaker 1: stress levels and all that stuff. And so when we
Speaker 1: start talking about getting just a couple of generations back,
Speaker 1: those studies aren't being done, so we probably don't have
Speaker 1: and the records are are not there, and frankly, like
Speaker 1: it's kind of an embarrassing thing. I have to say
Speaker 1: it to somebody. Yeah, yeah, we don't always have food.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I mean as a as an adult, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just not something talk about now. People don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about that, or you may think you are.
Speaker 1: You may say I'm doing the best I can, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's enough, but it turns out it's you know, mac
Speaker 1: and cheese from or a half portion every other day. Listen,
Speaker 1: that's what we've got. We have food. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's a whole I mean, I don't want to go
Speaker 1: too far down this because there's a whole number of
Speaker 1: ways that that can play out, but that does have
Speaker 1: as you were pointing out, that long term effect. One
Speaker 1: of the long term effects that I actually saw brought
Speaker 1: up in some of the research is epigenetics. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys, do you guys know much
Speaker 1: about epigenetics. I read it and I'm okay, well, then
Speaker 1: I did that. I took the reading and I've boiled
Speaker 1: it down here because it's DNA stuff and that is
Speaker 1: above my pay grade. I admit this right now. But
Speaker 1: the way that I understand it is that in the
Speaker 1: super simplified explanation is epogenetics would be the study of
Speaker 1: environmental effects on the body and whether or not it
Speaker 1: influences certain genes to turn on or off. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, how does at a at a base level,
Speaker 1: how does the body react, and then what does that
Speaker 1: do to it? And it's future generations. I've seen some
Speaker 1: actually well, and it's it's interesting because I've seen some
Speaker 1: studies that say, um that at times it can make
Speaker 1: people prone to obesity and diabetes, and then at other
Speaker 1: studies that say, if it's time correctly, and that's that that,
Speaker 1: by the way, is not necessarily that person, but their
Speaker 1: offspring or their second generation forward, or it can if
Speaker 1: it hits in the right time, it can actually make
Speaker 1: their offspring or the second as well as or the
Speaker 1: second generation have factors that make them healthier individuals, so
Speaker 1: they're less prone to overeating or more prone to overeating.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a really for me, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a gray area. But it's also just that right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it affects literally every part. I mean, but when you
Speaker 1: look at how it reacts. So I mean, we've all
Speaker 1: I've done this where I've gone and eaten something and said, well,
Speaker 1: that's all I need to eat. And then I've gone
Speaker 1: and said I've eaten that and that's all I needed
Speaker 1: to eat. But I'm going to eat more anyway. And
Speaker 1: there are, because of some genetic predispositions, times where there
Speaker 1: will be people who always feel like feed, like feel
Speaker 1: like they need to eat more. I mean, I've got
Speaker 1: a cat who always sits the cat bowl, even though
Speaker 1: she gets enough food every day, sits at the capitol
Speaker 1: for six hours there the food bull staring at me, like, dude,
Speaker 1: I totally need more food. It's but that is to
Speaker 1: a degree, can be dictated at the genetic level, and
Speaker 1: that's where this is coming from. Yeah, I mean, like
Speaker 1: I was kind of saying, it's not just obesity, It's
Speaker 1: not just that. I can also you can also predisposition
Speaker 1: your kids almost anything, right, I mean one of the
Speaker 1: things they talked about two is to be less able
Speaker 1: to handle stress, you know, just because of the way,
Speaker 1: which is one of those scary things as a woman, right,
Speaker 1: you're kind of like, oh my god, I could literally
Speaker 1: ruin my child's life by just breathing something, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's but that's terrifying. But it's also might get
Speaker 1: they might but so but that seems like the sort
Speaker 1: of thing also that it would come out and studies.
Speaker 1: But but that's the problem is that epi genetics they're
Speaker 1: just learning how to study some of this stuff. So
Speaker 1: it's very it's very difficult to say, well, let's just
Speaker 1: look back, ye And and as you said, it's hard,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to go historically and say, well, this
Speaker 1: family was suffering from food and security or extra stress
Speaker 1: levels or whatever. And you were saying that there's there
Speaker 1: is a really high unemployment rates high there, but yeah,
Speaker 1: and also there again the the murder rate. Now that'll
Speaker 1: that'll stress you a little bit too. Yeah. Well initially, well,
Speaker 1: and I think the thing that we need to look
Speaker 1: at you actually we're starting to talk about this a
Speaker 1: little bit devon is the effect is that if we
Speaker 1: look at current generation of children and maybe how that's
Speaker 1: going to play forward on them, because um, if so,
Speaker 1: I pulled some stats on children in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: more than six of the children uh in the Greater
Speaker 1: Glasgow area we're from families that were out of work.
Speaker 1: So that's as we talked about the insecurity the stress
Speaker 1: there in ninety between nine six to two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: there was a trend in what they referred to as
Speaker 1: looked after children, which means that that as children who
Speaker 1: are under the care of nanny's nurseries, going to preschool,
Speaker 1: talking to foster care and foster this is this is
Speaker 1: looked after children. This is this means this is state
Speaker 1: are aren't able to take care of them, and basically
Speaker 1: the state has taken them in and taken them away
Speaker 1: from their their family. That's a lot. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: that well, it's it's the number. Yeah. So in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight there were forty hundred looked after children
Speaker 1: in the Greater Glasgow area. So this is a generation
Speaker 1: that is their children. So we don't know, if you know,
Speaker 1: once they go into that situation, does that mean there're
Speaker 1: no longer food insecure because you're being looked after, Whereas
Speaker 1: in the past maybe that wasn't available so they just
Speaker 1: had to I guess I might. I know, I just
Speaker 1: rolled my eyes that. But I think that that comes
Speaker 1: from just at least the system in America. I don't
Speaker 1: know how it is in Glasgow. I don't know how
Speaker 1: it is in Scotland, but just the foster care system
Speaker 1: or social services in America that just because child is
Speaker 1: in foster care doesn't mean that they are no longer
Speaker 1: food insecure or that that looked I understand it's deemed
Speaker 1: to be more able to take care, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that they're going to be out of the
Speaker 1: woods with that sort of stuff. But again I don't
Speaker 1: know how it works in Glasgow. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it means they actually are getting three square healthy meals
Speaker 1: a day and the help they need and the sleep
Speaker 1: they need, and they're also not stressed out about the
Speaker 1: fact that they aren't with their parents anymore. I really
Speaker 1: the only way the boots on the ground is you know,
Speaker 1: the people who were there and in those situations, those
Speaker 1: are the only ones who could answer that. And I
Speaker 1: imagine that that is Again, this is where I feel
Speaker 1: like the next step in the research process is that
Speaker 1: they're probably going to start drilling into these things, because
Speaker 1: again they're they're doing the high level numbers. Drill down
Speaker 1: that deep. I mean, okay, if it's if it really
Speaker 1: is stress from food and security and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: just look at the family history of people who die young,
Speaker 1: and that's all you gotta do. That's not that, but
Speaker 1: that's not that easy to find, especially after they died.
Speaker 1: You need to get to them right before they die. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that I guess the good news about this
Speaker 1: is that it's we're aware of it, and they are.
Speaker 1: They're taking care of the data right now. Right there's
Speaker 1: a lot more tracking happening right now trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what they're really trying to figure out what's going on.
Speaker 1: They'll probably do all the testing that would be required
Speaker 1: from day one, but it's taken eight to ten years
Speaker 1: to get to the understanding level that we have at
Speaker 1: this point, so it's hard to say how long we're
Speaker 1: it's going to take generations before, you know, before it's
Speaker 1: like let's try this that worked or crap that didn't work.
Speaker 1: So it's probably be an industry. Yeah, but it will be.
Speaker 1: I mean it has to be. You have to study
Speaker 1: that generation as they come up and see if that
Speaker 1: generation also continues to die on average young, and if
Speaker 1: they do, then you start saying, okay, well we tracked
Speaker 1: all of this stuff, so what's the common threat here,
Speaker 1: which means that if you've got a bunch of children
Speaker 1: who are under you know, let's say twelve and under,
Speaker 1: that means we've got to wait another seventy or eighty
Speaker 1: years before we're going to see if any of the
Speaker 1: things that are being tried today have an influence. So
Speaker 1: it is literally an entire generation has to go by,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean one generation in the next. So
Speaker 1: one breeds and they create their next, it's before they
Speaker 1: live their entire life cycle, and good news is it's
Speaker 1: much shorter for them. Don't look at me like that.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean we'll get it six years earlier. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move forward. I do have one more and this
Speaker 1: is actually a really easy one, um. And it's actually
Speaker 1: it's it's a hard one because A it's hard to
Speaker 1: track and be it's just hard to think about. Is
Speaker 1: that it's there is a certain amount of cultural alienation
Speaker 1: that goes on, and that is keep the stiff upper lip,
Speaker 1: don't tell anybody your problems. You can just handle it
Speaker 1: on your own. Yeah, and I, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: reach out for help. So then people feel alienated and
Speaker 1: they're they're stuck and there they've got to deal with
Speaker 1: it themselves. So that could be part of it. There's
Speaker 1: also there is, um, there is an issue with suicide,
Speaker 1: and there there are suicides. Most of the suicide I
Speaker 1: seemed to be linked back to drug and alcohol problems
Speaker 1: and I don't know if that's correct or not, but
Speaker 1: that's where the data is leading people. I forget how
Speaker 1: but how much higher is suicide in Glasgow than everywhere
Speaker 1: else in the UK. He didn't have that number. I
Speaker 1: had that number and I don't have it anymore. It
Speaker 1: is higher, right, it is higher, Yes, significantly higher. It's
Speaker 1: fifteen Let's say it's it's a it's a significant enough
Speaker 1: number that it gets raised. So that's the cause of death.
Speaker 1: I mean it's not that, oh I jumped off a bridge,
Speaker 1: but my cause of death was cancer because I had it,
Speaker 1: as previously mentioned, right, So that's enough. I was dying
Speaker 1: because I had cirrhosis and my liver was about to
Speaker 1: give out. So yeah, I mean, we don't know. We
Speaker 1: don't have that because again the data. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer to this. I don't know if
Speaker 1: either of you know the answer to this. But does
Speaker 1: Glasgow have any kind of right to life? No right
Speaker 1: idea with you. I never even would have thought to
Speaker 1: look at that because I wonder because it's technically suicide.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what happens with that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean Europe tends to be a little
Speaker 1: a little more flexible about that than conservative America is.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, okay, I I don't know if
Speaker 1: that would count account for Also, if if there is
Speaker 1: this much higher instance in terminal cases of things, if
Speaker 1: the reason you know, if you stay, well, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna end my life because I don't want to deal
Speaker 1: with this. I don't know if that has something to
Speaker 1: do with the suicide, right, it's it's but it's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing. It's intriguing that more burger, more suicide, but
Speaker 1: also more cancer and more just health problems in general. Everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And the screwy part is it's more of everything in general.
Speaker 1: So I would say that it's could be one of
Speaker 1: two things. Uh, and I don't buy any of these series,
Speaker 1: but might have been to your poverty or any of
Speaker 1: that crap. It's all crap. Either a migration of a
Speaker 1: significantly different, genetically different population into the area at some point,
Speaker 1: like around the turn of the twentieth century, or a
Speaker 1: change in their water supply. Um, you know, they might
Speaker 1: have started started sourcing their water supply somewhere else. I mean, hey,
Speaker 1: I probably checked the water. I think that it's probably
Speaker 1: a combination of several of these things. I also think
Speaker 1: that you're the migration is a good thing to point
Speaker 1: out because until what was it the I mean, in
Speaker 1: terms of massive migrations of people from genetically different areas,
Speaker 1: you didn't see a whole lot of that happening until
Speaker 1: I guess maybe the less hundred years on a grand scale.
Speaker 1: And so it may be that the people who were
Speaker 1: there all so genetically similar that that is part of it.
Speaker 1: We won't and we won't see that change until after
Speaker 1: we've got you know this, I'm just gonna call it
Speaker 1: the new gene pool introduction is then going to bring
Speaker 1: in the different genes that are then going to make
Speaker 1: it so that you're not as prone to getting one
Speaker 1: of these things that everybody seems to be having. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I guess when we're really talking about that, right,
Speaker 1: we're just talking about the percentages above average, Right, so
Speaker 1: we're saying the population shift was about population shift, which
Speaker 1: is is significant statistically, but realistically, I mean with a
Speaker 1: lot of the like refugee migrations that are happening right now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you see cities that are changing population
Speaker 1: demographics like that these days. And so it would be
Speaker 1: interesting to see was there something like a famine or something,
Speaker 1: you know, within a hundred years of when we're seeing
Speaker 1: this that pushed of the population to be genetically different
Speaker 1: that just happened to have a shorter lifespan anyway, shorter
Speaker 1: anticipated lifespan, or you know the fact that they were
Speaker 1: fleeing a famine and they had food and security and
Speaker 1: they've passed that down to generations and that may work
Speaker 1: itself out. I mean, those are all things that I think,
Speaker 1: to us, because we're so used to having the Internet
Speaker 1: and all of this information, seems like it would be
Speaker 1: really easy to find out. But I think probably that's
Speaker 1: just almost impossible. Yeah, it's difficult, but it's it could go.
Speaker 1: I mean, I am I realized I'm about to do
Speaker 1: what you just did earlier, which is I'm about to
Speaker 1: question my own theory because it's been seen before where
Speaker 1: when you get an influx of people who were genetically different,
Speaker 1: and let's say that they were fleeing an area where
Speaker 1: they always had a bit of a food scarcity. So
Speaker 1: from an a genetic level, they were inclined to acquire
Speaker 1: more body fat because that is the way you survive,
Speaker 1: and suddenly to be put into this food rich environment
Speaker 1: or over rich environment, that could then push them into
Speaker 1: some other unhealthy spectrum. I mean, I also don't know.
Speaker 1: Think I throw my hands up because it's like I'm
Speaker 1: damned if I do it, I damned if I don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think that really the key to this
Speaker 1: is genetics. They need to just like you know, you know,
Speaker 1: grab a bunch of these. I don't know how to
Speaker 1: call glass legions. I don't know, so I'll just say
Speaker 1: people from Glasgow, for example, size. I think they need
Speaker 1: to like and they need to like look at start
Speaker 1: looking at their jeans and seeing what makes if they're
Speaker 1: actually different, because I haven't bet than they are, I think,
Speaker 1: And it's probably just like I said, due to some
Speaker 1: migration or the plutonium processing facility things. The Scottis showmer
Speaker 1: Simpson or no, it's cousin Willie. That's who it is.
Speaker 1: Groundskeeper Willie, ground groundskeeper will He didn't actually do any
Speaker 1: plutonium stuff. He took care of the school. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: because he got out of Glasgow. Yeah, as smart as
Speaker 1: can be. Well, uh, let's go ahead and give folks here,
Speaker 1: because that's really all we've got in our theories and
Speaker 1: are debating here. We've got some pertinent details. As always.
Speaker 1: We have our website, which is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find this episode, any past episode will have
Speaker 1: some of our research links on there um and of
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Speaker 1: anything else you guys, I'm all right, Well, that's it,
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Speaker 1: Byeye bye guys. Three