Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and it's short Stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a p S. A episode of Short Stuff.
Speaker 1: We like to do those kinds of things where we
Speaker 1: tell you to stop doing something that you're doing because
Speaker 1: it's harmful and you didn't know it. So that's what
Speaker 1: we're going to do here today. And also hat tip
Speaker 1: to my wife Umi, who sent me an article on this.
Speaker 1: Um had I had no idea about this, but um,
Speaker 1: we're talking about nose picking. We have to kind of
Speaker 1: start off first, Chuck, um, by establishing a link between
Speaker 1: the nose and the brain. Go uh sure, um. And
Speaker 1: this is going to relate to some particular brain diseases
Speaker 1: like Alzheimer's and and generally dementia overall. But when those
Speaker 1: things happen, it's super sad. And that's the result of
Speaker 1: plaque building up and protein tangles in your brain that
Speaker 1: are blocking neurological pathways and coming up the works basically,
Speaker 1: and over the years, they've kind of known for a
Speaker 1: while that like memory and smell or some of the
Speaker 1: first early signs and that's no surprise, but the University
Speaker 1: of Chicago Medicine has stumbled upon not stumbled upon, did
Speaker 1: some very intentional research that found recently that if you
Speaker 1: have a sudden loss of smell uh, and generally you're
Speaker 1: if you're in the age range. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: thirteen and you lose your smell for something, you probably
Speaker 1: have COVID. So don't worry. You probably got you did
Speaker 1: something wrong. You're being punished by God, that's right. But
Speaker 1: if you have a sudden loss of smell, it can
Speaker 1: be a very good early warning sign that you might
Speaker 1: be headed down um a road for dementia or Alzheimer's. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What was interesting is the link is so strong that
Speaker 1: the sudden loss of smell is as big a risk
Speaker 1: factor as having the literal gene that they basically say, like,
Speaker 1: this is the Alzheimer's gene, the apoe E four gene,
Speaker 1: Like you don't have to have that gene, and if
Speaker 1: you lose your smell suddenly, you're just as likely to
Speaker 1: develop Alzheimer's shortly after pretty remarkable finding, I think so too, so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: that was really well done. You established a link between
Speaker 1: the nose and the brain, which sets us up for
Speaker 1: the next part um, which is to say there is
Speaker 1: a connection between the nose and the brain physically as well,
Speaker 1: not just neurologically. That is problematic because researchers from UM
Speaker 1: the CLEM. Jones Center for Neurobiology and Stem Cell Research
Speaker 1: in Brisbane in Australia found that UM, picking your nose
Speaker 1: could actually be a risk factor for Alzheimer's as well.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And they cavey at it, and we
Speaker 1: should cavey at it as well. That they use mouse mouses,
Speaker 1: these mices, mouse models to check this out, and they
Speaker 1: have definitely found that there's the introduction of a bacteria
Speaker 1: called chlamydia. Uh, I don't. I never have remembered, even
Speaker 1: though people wrote in how do you pronounce it when
Speaker 1: it's I A E at the end um I A.
Speaker 1: I think it's pneumonia. I mean, we've had very smart
Speaker 1: scientists and doctors say, guys, and did you see that
Speaker 1: it is pronounced this way? And I never can remember.
Speaker 1: I think it is a A. I mean if you
Speaker 1: just take the iowa A remember A on flux. That's
Speaker 1: how they fell bad. So I'm guessing it's pneumonia. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Clamidia pneumonia, which can be very dangerous, is very
Speaker 1: dangerous for the brain. Uh. And this bacteria goes from
Speaker 1: the nose to the brain and kind of kicks off
Speaker 1: the production of this amm alloid plaque, which is one
Speaker 1: of the plaques that can you know, kind of kick
Speaker 1: off Alzheimer's and dementia. Yeah, and what's interesting about that
Speaker 1: is that once this um this p pneumonia gets into
Speaker 1: your brain or your central nervous system and you start
Speaker 1: developing this amyloid plaque. That seems like a dumb thing
Speaker 1: to do since that's going to trigger Alzheimer's. But they
Speaker 1: found anti viral and anti microbial properties in amyloid plaque,
Speaker 1: so they think it might be part of our immune systems. Interest.
Speaker 1: You just you don't want this bug, not just for that,
Speaker 1: like it's it's been linked to a lot of other
Speaker 1: stuff too, because it's so effective at attacking our central
Speaker 1: nervous system that, um, they think it's possible that multiple
Speaker 1: sclerosis is the result of an infection of this bug.
Speaker 1: That's pretty crazy. Um. It exacerbates asthma. Uh, it can
Speaker 1: trigger material sclerosis, which apparently it makes us start absorbing
Speaker 1: L D L cholesterol, which inflames our our blood vessels.
Speaker 1: Which hardens them over time, all because this bug made
Speaker 1: its way into your body. So the upshot of this
Speaker 1: is that, um, these researchers in Brisbane say, don't pick
Speaker 1: your nose because all you're doing is helping this bug
Speaker 1: get in there in the first place. All Right, I
Speaker 1: think it's a great spot for a break and we'll
Speaker 1: come back and explain all that in a second. Alright,
Speaker 1: So the Australians tied this to mice. Uh, they came
Speaker 1: out and said, all right, we've tested the mice, now
Speaker 1: we need to test this on humans. But in the meantime,
Speaker 1: we are really pretty sure that it's bad for humans
Speaker 1: and that you shouldn't be picking your nose because you
Speaker 1: could get some of that bacteria on your finger and
Speaker 1: basically stick it up onto a highway that goes to
Speaker 1: your brain. Uh, it may already be on your hands,
Speaker 1: it may already be in your nose, in which you'll
Speaker 1: be shoving it up there further by picking your nose.
Speaker 1: And now comes to the second half of this episode
Speaker 1: where we're just going to talk a little more generally
Speaker 1: about picking your nose. Yeah, because what the uh, the C.
Speaker 1: Pneumonia um is not the only bug that you can
Speaker 1: push into your um, your nose even further. The problem
Speaker 1: with that one in particular is that it attacks the
Speaker 1: central nervous system. Right. Um. But picking your nose, like
Speaker 1: you said, is not um something you want to do
Speaker 1: in the first place. First of all, it's it's gross.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, you just know it's gross. But it
Speaker 1: can be dangerous too. But it also seems to be
Speaker 1: really really widespread chuck. Yeah, And I do want to
Speaker 1: point out really quickly, like the whole thing with COVID
Speaker 1: and masks, one of the reasons that they were telling
Speaker 1: people to wear masks was not just to keep from
Speaker 1: inhaling particles into your nose, but it was to keep
Speaker 1: your fingies away from your mouth and nose so you
Speaker 1: don't just like scratch your nose with a little COVID
Speaker 1: on it because it could be a carrier. So that's
Speaker 1: another reason people are saying to keep those masks on,
Speaker 1: because they found that picking your nose is literally shoving
Speaker 1: whatever bacteria you have on that index finger or thumb
Speaker 1: sometimes or pinky if it's in the little corner, and
Speaker 1: getting it closer to your brain. Right. So, there was
Speaker 1: this um study from out of Madison Wisconsin, and these
Speaker 1: researchers sent a thousand questionnaires out to people, and the
Speaker 1: questionnaires basically said, hey, we have a bunch of questions
Speaker 1: about um, picking your nose. You want to answer these?
Speaker 1: And two hundred and fifty four people responded that, and
Speaker 1: the response that they got was we all do all
Speaker 1: of us pick our noses? Of the people in the
Speaker 1: survey reported picking their nose said that they think everybody
Speaker 1: picks their nose. I thought everyone kind of pick their
Speaker 1: nose occasionally. I think they do. This study is criticized because, um,
Speaker 1: it could. It could very easily suffer from response bias.
Speaker 1: If you remember from our Scientific Biases episode that was
Speaker 1: one of them where only people who are actually interested
Speaker 1: in talking about nose picking and who are likely to
Speaker 1: pick their noses then would have been the ones who responded.
Speaker 1: So that would skew the results, but still is pretty significant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and say it. I picked my nose
Speaker 1: here and there if I'm in a situation where it
Speaker 1: calls for it. Sure, if I if I got a
Speaker 1: boogie up there and there's no tissue at hand, just
Speaker 1: get that thing out of there. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: that gross. I mean, boogers are kind of gross looking,
Speaker 1: but it's not you know, it's not like picking poop
Speaker 1: out of your butt. No, no, it's not at all.
Speaker 1: Did I just say that you did? Okay? Uh? For
Speaker 1: these respondents, I guess on one of the two fifty four,
Speaker 1: they were like you, I'll fill this thing out right,
Speaker 1: I'm a proud nose picker. Uh. For two percent of
Speaker 1: the subjects in this survey, which is not many, UM,
Speaker 1: it actually like and I think these are people who
Speaker 1: sort of obsessively pick. It actually interfered with their daily functioning. Uh.
Speaker 1: And people responded with how much time? Some people responded
Speaker 1: fifteen thirty minutes. There was one person that said they
Speaker 1: spend over two hours a day picking their nose and
Speaker 1: it caused various medical problems from uh, perforation of the
Speaker 1: septum um to this one lady. I think it was
Speaker 1: a different case study, but um, she perforated her septum
Speaker 1: and carved a hole in her sinuses from obsessively nose picking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you imagine. No. So, the these researchers UM concluded
Speaker 1: that nose picking is probably universal among adults at least,
Speaker 1: so it should not be con sidered a mental disorder
Speaker 1: alongside something like a trick to lamannia, where you pull
Speaker 1: your hair out. Um. And there's actually a name like
Speaker 1: that for nose picking, or at least compulsive nose picking,
Speaker 1: rhino to lexomania. Um. And they said we should get
Speaker 1: rid of rhino to lexo mania. It's ruined enough lives
Speaker 1: as a label. So let's just say everybody picks their
Speaker 1: nose instead rhino. How did you pronounce that, rhino to lexomnia?
Speaker 1: I don't think that's right. Are rhino till x? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a right. Oh well what am I looking at? Then?
Speaker 1: What is rhino trick to lemnia? Oh? So there's a one.
Speaker 1: There was a documented case of somebody who compulsively picked
Speaker 1: their nose and pulled their hair. So they've dubbed it
Speaker 1: that I didn't know if those nose here, because because
Speaker 1: getting after that nose here can be a problem too, man,
Speaker 1: that's stuff. Do you ever do that, pull out your
Speaker 1: nose hair? I do? Uh, it's very painful. But what
Speaker 1: I try to do is get in there with my Um.
Speaker 1: I've got I've got some really nice hair cutting scissors,
Speaker 1: which is just to say they cut very well and
Speaker 1: very precisely. So I try to because you know you
Speaker 1: can older, you get hair in your nose and your
Speaker 1: ears like you never had before. And you don't want
Speaker 1: to be that guy with like the crazy eyebrows and
Speaker 1: nose hair everywhere. It just busts out all over. You
Speaker 1: turn into like a cheea pet basically. So I try
Speaker 1: to take care of this stuff. So I get in
Speaker 1: there with the scissors. Um, when I'm thinking about it now,
Speaker 1: I'll trim the eyebrows, and I'll trim up the nose
Speaker 1: hair and then the ear hair. I don't want to
Speaker 1: stick scissors in there, so I'll just feel around in
Speaker 1: there and I'll pluck those and those are pretty painful
Speaker 1: to you should just get one of those little buzzer
Speaker 1: things do work really well for nose hair, and you're here.
Speaker 1: I used to have one of those. Oh I went analog?
Speaker 1: That was fine. Are you like analog, you hipster? No?
Speaker 1: I mean I literally just kind of lost it over
Speaker 1: the years and then never placed it. But a dynamic
Speaker 1: against it it was fine. So there are some other
Speaker 1: researchers to that did a follow up study in two
Speaker 1: thousand in Bangalore, India. Um, I remember our friend Van
Speaker 1: Nostrian's band was named the Bangalore's That's right. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to mention that. And their their hypothesis was that,
Speaker 1: um uh, something like nose picking, that kind of habit
Speaker 1: finds its like origin in childhood and it just carries
Speaker 1: over into adulthood. That does not seem to be the case.
Speaker 1: Apparently nose picking becomes much more um appealing to you
Speaker 1: as you age. Because only seven point six percent of respondents,
Speaker 1: and of these teenagers who were surveyed said that they
Speaker 1: picked their nose. I'm guessing that they were given anonymity
Speaker 1: because it's a pretty self conscious question for a teenager. Um,
Speaker 1: but apparently it's it's an adult phenomenon more than a
Speaker 1: childhood phenomena. Yeah, I'm glad to know it was anonymous,
Speaker 1: because at first I was like, come on, I'm sure
Speaker 1: these teenagers were just like, well, I don't pick my nose.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm guessing it was anonymous, because that would
Speaker 1: have been a terrible study design if it wasn't. Okay,
Speaker 1: I got you, you know what I'm saying. Sure, I'm
Speaker 1: curious about all these numbers, so any this is just
Speaker 1: a tough thing to really quantify any survey, where you're
Speaker 1: asking people to admit doing something that may not be
Speaker 1: socially acceptable is pretty tough, totally. And socially acceptable is
Speaker 1: right because depending on where you are in the world, uh,
Speaker 1: it may or may not be frowned upon. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think in the US, Uh, if you're not egregiously just
Speaker 1: digging in there going for gold, as I say, then
Speaker 1: you can get away with a quick little nose pick
Speaker 1: and you know, just sort of do one of those
Speaker 1: and people won't be think you're like a monster. No,
Speaker 1: they'll look the other way. Yeah. In the cars when
Speaker 1: you always see people in traffic, I always say, pick
Speaker 1: a winner, buddy, Well you're honking. I don't yell that
Speaker 1: that might just say it to myself. Um, in Japan,
Speaker 1: actually it's not. They don't really celebrate public nose picking,
Speaker 1: but um, by comparison, blowing your nose in public is
Speaker 1: way worse of a social faux pa for sure, which
Speaker 1: makes tough. It makes sense though, because um, they're very
Speaker 1: germ conscious in Japan. I mean they've they've been wearing
Speaker 1: masks since way before the pandemic. They're old school with
Speaker 1: that stuff. So I could totally see that being a
Speaker 1: big social taboo there. Yeah, blowing your nose in public.
Speaker 1: In public is one thing, but like in a restaurant,
Speaker 1: I'm always like, what do I do? I always feel
Speaker 1: like I should get up and excuse myself to blow
Speaker 1: my nose, and I try to unless it's kind of
Speaker 1: a you know what I'm saying, I want to get
Speaker 1: too gross here. But if it's like a quick little thing,
Speaker 1: it's not that big of a deal. But if it's
Speaker 1: something that sounds gross, like if you're really like releasing
Speaker 1: a lot of snot and you can hear that, then
Speaker 1: I think you should probably like excuse yourself. That's for
Speaker 1: the bathroom. And then China, apparently I saw there's a
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal article where, um, the author moved to
Speaker 1: China and started picking their nose because they said that, um,
Speaker 1: nose picking in China is quote a way of life.
Speaker 1: Interesting but you're like, Okay, that's weird China. But apparently
Speaker 1: the author kind of choked it up to all of
Speaker 1: the soot that's in the air and some some of
Speaker 1: the major cities there that you just have to It's
Speaker 1: like every time we go to New York. At the
Speaker 1: end of the day, I picked my nose because I'm
Speaker 1: just getting all the crowd out of there. I can
Speaker 1: only imagine, you know, visiting Beijing, and of course you're
Speaker 1: going to pick your nose. Of course you got anything else. Nope,
Speaker 1: it's away life. It is chuck. Hats off to you
Speaker 1: for admitting you pick your nose. I'll admit it to see.
Speaker 1: Everyone picks her nose a little bit. It's a big deal.
Speaker 1: It feels good, man. Uh, it feels good to say.
Speaker 1: I mean also it can feel good to pick your
Speaker 1: nose too. That first nose blow the morning, too, is
Speaker 1: very rewarding. So I think short stuff is out, don't you.
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