Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Flow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas, and
Speaker 1: we are continuing our journey through the digestive system. In
Speaker 1: our last episode, we dealt with smelling food, tasting food,
Speaker 1: chewing food, getting food all wet and gross in your
Speaker 1: mouth so it may continue the journey, and so in
Speaker 1: this episode, we are in fact continuing the journey. Um.
Speaker 1: You know some of our series we tell you, oh,
Speaker 1: make sure you're back and listen to part one and
Speaker 1: listen to part to this one. You can probably mix
Speaker 1: it up a little bit. Yeah, I think everyone knows that, yes,
Speaker 1: food needs to go through your mouth before it goes
Speaker 1: into your esophagus and stomach. Yeah. But what's so cool
Speaker 1: about that episode is that we learned about how your
Speaker 1: tongue is bathed in saliva, and the saliva really brings
Speaker 1: all those flavors to you, and that so much of
Speaker 1: our ability to smells something or detective flavor has to
Speaker 1: do with the tongue, and that there's our receptors in
Speaker 1: the back of our throat that are actually detecting that smell,
Speaker 1: So I actually just gave it away. But there's a
Speaker 1: lot of really cool stuff in the episode. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you've gone through that episode hopefully with us, and you
Speaker 1: were about to plunge down the gullet, yes, and splunk inside.
Speaker 1: And and like last time, we were inspired to do
Speaker 1: this one a little bit by Mary Roach's new book, Gulp,
Speaker 1: which highly recommend everyone pick that up if you're at
Speaker 1: all into science, if you're at all into food and digestion,
Speaker 1: into laughing or learning. It's a great book. We're really
Speaker 1: enjoying it. And also check out our interview with Mary Roach,
Speaker 1: which will have published by this time. Yeah, it's it
Speaker 1: is great as usual, she has so many interesting things
Speaker 1: to say. Um, so, yeah, let's talk about this journey
Speaker 1: into the stomach. And uh, let's think about previously previously
Speaker 1: on nose detail, Yes, previous smell to haggas we tasted hags.
Speaker 1: We put hags in our mouth. The haggis is the
Speaker 1: chewed as as much as you can chew chewed up.
Speaker 1: We get salive on there, we get various enzymes and
Speaker 1: we have formed a what what is this cargo? Bullets
Speaker 1: bullets And just as a reminder, hags is essentially like
Speaker 1: a tur ducan of organ meat uh, encased in sheep's stomach. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: so all of that gets you know, chewed up in
Speaker 1: her mouth and as you say, it becomes the bullets haggas,
Speaker 1: it's like a gross muca see foodie football that's about
Speaker 1: to be passed to the rest of the digestive system.
Speaker 1: That's right. What happens is that you get the swallow
Speaker 1: reflex and it's activated and the larn x elevates and
Speaker 1: closes to avoid portions of the food bullus bulls haggis
Speaker 1: entering the trachea. Yeah, because that's bad. That's joking, that's
Speaker 1: that's not being able to breathe. Big ball of organs
Speaker 1: trying to go down your wimpipe bad bad news. And
Speaker 1: as Mary Roach points out to the bad ones to
Speaker 1: to actually get down there. Of course, with the grape
Speaker 1: and the hot dog, both just the right size to
Speaker 1: to block your windpipe, perfect circumference to mimic the circumference
Speaker 1: of your windpipe. So yes, that is why actually they
Speaker 1: say with with kids toddlers to you know, always cut
Speaker 1: up a hot dog or grapes. That's the very reason. Alright.
Speaker 1: So the police is entering this esophagus, and the esophagus
Speaker 1: I think is wonderful because it really is the beginning
Speaker 1: of this long tube of your digestive system. Because if
Speaker 1: you think about this, it really is a tube from
Speaker 1: your mouth to your anus. It's just in different types
Speaker 1: of sculptures along the way. Yeah, it's like one long
Speaker 1: winding hallway through a house. The decorations change, the carpeting changes,
Speaker 1: but but ultimately it's the same pathway, right. And from
Speaker 1: this pathway it's a pretty straight shoot. We're talking about
Speaker 1: eight inches here, um. And it does have two parts.
Speaker 1: There's the or esophagal spin sphincter, that's the U S
Speaker 1: and that is under our conscious control, right, So that
Speaker 1: is helping us to eat, to breathe the belch, and
Speaker 1: to even vomit when we need to. And it is
Speaker 1: essentially keeping food from going down the wrong pipe. Right.
Speaker 1: That the upper part of our esophagus. Now, the lower
Speaker 1: part is involuntary, and it's muscles are kind of like
Speaker 1: the dormant to the stomach, making sure that acid and
Speaker 1: food don't travel backwards into the esophagus. That's bad though.
Speaker 1: That does happen, of course, and it's sometimes it's important
Speaker 1: that it happens in the case of regurgitation, It's true. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But the cool thing about the esophagus, this is essentially
Speaker 1: made up of these muscles that are easing the food downward,
Speaker 1: especially in the process of paristalsis. Yes, peristalsis. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like I can't help but think of like a
Speaker 1: snake eating something, or or when you when you have
Speaker 1: accidentally put your hoodie in the washer and dryer without
Speaker 1: h eyeing up the cords and the cord comes out
Speaker 1: and you have to carefully like work it through the
Speaker 1: hood again. It's that kind of like gradual process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's smooth muscle movement and it is sort of like
Speaker 1: you think about a worm or snake sort of sort
Speaker 1: of moving along. And now para salsas begins in the
Speaker 1: esophagus and it goes all the way to the anus, right,
Speaker 1: So this is a movement um that really does kind
Speaker 1: of usher your food from one station to another. And
Speaker 1: when we talk about the esophagus, the movement is initiated
Speaker 1: by circular smooth muscles contracting behind the chewed food, and
Speaker 1: then it's followed by a contraction of longitudinal smooth muscles
Speaker 1: which pushes the digested food forward or down. So you
Speaker 1: could do a cartwheel and you can be digesting and
Speaker 1: it would still move your food in the correct direction,
Speaker 1: because it is it is those muscles that are really
Speaker 1: making sure that food is going down, uh, not necessarily gravity.
Speaker 1: Right now, we're still in the upper esophagus at this point, right,
Speaker 1: and now this is a This is the area where
Speaker 1: everything is still under conscious control. For the most part.
Speaker 1: We're still more or less in charge of the food movement.
Speaker 1: But when we get into the lower esophagus, that's where
Speaker 1: it becomes more of a subconscious movement. It's no longer
Speaker 1: really our affair what's going on with the food. It's
Speaker 1: it's been passed on to a different division. That's right. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean it's all in preparation for shooting it into
Speaker 1: the stomach, right to the big vat of acid. And
Speaker 1: I did want to interject something here that when it does,
Speaker 1: when that bollus lands in that big vat of acid,
Speaker 1: we get these noises gurgling from our stomach. Yes, and
Speaker 1: there's an actual name for these noises. This was new
Speaker 1: to me. This was a surprise. Yeah. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a bit of on a monopea going on. The word
Speaker 1: is Warbaraghini, because it sounds exactly like what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it down. It sounds like we both like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you slow it down, it's a war. War. Doesn't that
Speaker 1: sound like my stomach just it does sound like like
Speaker 1: stomach systic, the kind of gurgly noise that that generally
Speaker 1: makes itself heard during the quiet parts of movies or
Speaker 1: on dates or in waiting rooms anywhere where it's nice
Speaker 1: and quiet, and your digestive system is reminding you that
Speaker 1: even though you were taking it easy, it's it's work times,
Speaker 1: that is exactly. It's kind of like the digestive systems
Speaker 1: work song, like whistle your while you work song. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is going on, but we're wearing to me or
Speaker 1: something like that. The cat sits on my shoulder the
Speaker 1: other day. She was doing and I could hear the
Speaker 1: sound of her digestion. It was just like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard my cats as well. And you know he's
Speaker 1: he's a giant cat, by the way, and he eats
Speaker 1: a lot um. He's a twenty six pound cats, so
Speaker 1: you can really hear his digestion. And he snores too,
Speaker 1: and sneezes um. So the interesting thing about the bogaragimi
Speaker 1: is that it's the gas in the air that's trapped
Speaker 1: in what we are now calling come formerly the bullets. Okay,
Speaker 1: now it's like now that this the slurry ball has
Speaker 1: become just this slurry highway of good called the kind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the time is just we've changed the names here because
Speaker 1: we've put more additives in it, right. We we have
Speaker 1: added some gastard juices to the mix. And so it's
Speaker 1: that that gas and air that's trapped in the time
Speaker 1: that is making those noises. And if your stomach or
Speaker 1: your small intestine is relatively empty, uh, it's going to
Speaker 1: make louder noises. So Jessica Toothman has a great article
Speaker 1: on our website about this, and she likened it to
Speaker 1: when you put shoes in a dryer and you can
Speaker 1: hear because there's just one thing, right, the shoes and
Speaker 1: a dryer, and it's all around in the dryer. But
Speaker 1: if you put a bunch of towels in there, then
Speaker 1: it would muffle this sound. So that is why sometimes
Speaker 1: your proper righimi is louder than other times. It all
Speaker 1: comes back around the washing machines. It really does. Right.
Speaker 1: We talked about this last time, about how the salava
Speaker 1: is essentially a detergent the enzymes in it. All right,
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break. We have we have delivered
Speaker 1: you to the stomach, and there's a lot more to
Speaker 1: come as we discuss what actually goes on in the stomach.
Speaker 1: This is kind of the main stage really, so of
Speaker 1: course we're going to talk some more about the stomach activity,
Speaker 1: but first a quick break and then we're back. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back, and we are in the belly of the beast.
Speaker 1: We are in the belly um And again, I just
Speaker 1: anytime I think about like stomach activity, I always go
Speaker 1: back to the movie Interspace, the climactic battle in Martin
Speaker 1: Short stomach between the the the bad guy inside of
Speaker 1: a little robot submarine dude, and then the good guy
Speaker 1: who was who was it, uh, Dennis Quaid, and they're
Speaker 1: like duking it out, and then the bad guy gets
Speaker 1: out of his he like his submarine gets partially destroyed,
Speaker 1: so he's like trying to drill into Dennis quaid submarine
Speaker 1: and then all the stomach acid comes up and just
Speaker 1: dissolves him down to a skeleton. There on the on
Speaker 1: the on the front of the submarine. You know, you
Speaker 1: have just described really this Steve theory. Yeah, that we'll
Speaker 1: get to in a moment, and it's about beneficial bacteria
Speaker 1: and the bad guys and allow the good guys like
Speaker 1: like Dennis Quaid to potentially continue the journey through the
Speaker 1: body man. That totally should have been in the paper
Speaker 1: that was published about Steve theory. Um. But yeah, let's
Speaker 1: talk about how this PLoP of time enters into the
Speaker 1: stomach chamber. And there is another set of digestive glands
Speaker 1: in the stomach lining the first one that we met
Speaker 1: in the mouth. Right, you've got either saliva there um
Speaker 1: this next set of digestive glances producing stomach acid and
Speaker 1: enzymes that further break this stuff down. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: is more hardcore for sure. Now I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's dissolving bodies to skeleton in a matter of seconds. Um. Powerful,
Speaker 1: Because there's a part in merriy Roaches book Gulp where
Speaker 1: she actually has some some some stomach acid put on
Speaker 1: her skin because it wants to feel what it might
Speaker 1: be like. And it's it's a very it's not an
Speaker 1: immediate um burning sensation. It doesn't like eat through her
Speaker 1: arm like xenomorph blood or thing. It's it's it's not
Speaker 1: at that potent. Now it's potent. It's acid, but but
Speaker 1: there's nothing just crazy about it. It's not like sulfuric
Speaker 1: acid or something. Yeah, but it's a It should be
Speaker 1: noted that the major components of gastard juices are mucus,
Speaker 1: pepsin and hydrochloric acid. And on the pH scale, humans
Speaker 1: actually have an acid level of two. Now, the lower
Speaker 1: the level than the higher that the actual acid um
Speaker 1: of the stomach. So that's pretty acidic. It's pretty a
Speaker 1: sitting but not but but again not like crazy sci
Speaker 1: fi movie acidic necessarily, Yes, you're that's right, that's right,
Speaker 1: but it does the job. And so it's especially when
Speaker 1: you come to something like the CV theory, and the
Speaker 1: idea is that the stomach isn't just there as a
Speaker 1: holding pattern for your food and to make it a
Speaker 1: little bit mushier and to get it even more further
Speaker 1: broken down. Although it does that, the theory is that
Speaker 1: the stomach is also there to weed out the good
Speaker 1: microbes versus the bad microbes. And scientific American blogger Rob
Speaker 1: Dunn actually found an interesting study from nineteen forty eight
Speaker 1: by Dr Orla Jensen. She was a retired professor from
Speaker 1: the Royal Danish Technical College, and in the study, or
Speaker 1: Ly Gensen deposits that the stomach um isn't just that blender,
Speaker 1: but it really is doing this job of weeding out
Speaker 1: the bacteria. Because again, as we've discussed in past podcasts,
Speaker 1: the body is loaded with microbes. We are, it is
Speaker 1: a big hotel full of things, and and and in
Speaker 1: the microbe living in my body aren't exactly the same.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same population as you have, as
Speaker 1: the next person has. But that being said, uh, there's
Speaker 1: there's some an order here and not everyone that lives
Speaker 1: on the tenth and eleventh floor are allowed to go
Speaker 1: up to the penthouse or down to the penthouse in
Speaker 1: this environment. It's true, it's true. And then you have
Speaker 1: to consider something like our friend the vulture, which we've
Speaker 1: talked about before, and it's pH level because we've talked
Speaker 1: about pathogens like anthrax actually being present in the feces
Speaker 1: of this bird. In this idea that that stomach acid
Speaker 1: could actually render it harmless. Yeah, because they're eating some
Speaker 1: pretty nasty stuff. And and again it's it's all right.
Speaker 1: It comes into the mouth, find it comes in the
Speaker 1: esophague is fine. But in the stomach, that's where this
Speaker 1: is what where it is, that's where it has to
Speaker 1: be nullified to continue now or le Jansen knew that
Speaker 1: the human stomach um the pH levels in it, actually
Speaker 1: increases with age, meaning it becomes less acidic, and she
Speaker 1: also noted that this effect is really acute in people
Speaker 1: who are over seventy years of age. So she predicted
Speaker 1: that the stomach's effectiveness as a killer of bad microbes
Speaker 1: might be compromised as we get older, and this is
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that diseases take us over at
Speaker 1: at older ages, right, So she tested this by culturing
Speaker 1: bacteria that her and her team had collected from fecal
Speaker 1: samples of ninety humans, one third of whom we're between
Speaker 1: the ages of third and forty, and two thirds who
Speaker 1: were over the age of seventy. They then compare the
Speaker 1: microbes found in examples from these different age groups. So
Speaker 1: let me just kind of go through what they found here,
Speaker 1: because it really is interesting. Nine percent of the individuals
Speaker 1: over seventy had more than a million cells of bad
Speaker 1: news clusterythm bacteria program of theces we've talked about that before.
Speaker 1: That is a real can be a permanent game changer
Speaker 1: for people in terms of the quality of life and
Speaker 1: sometimes the length of their life. None of the thirty
Speaker 1: to four year olds had this. Okay, what was more,
Speaker 1: a third of the individuals over seventy had more than
Speaker 1: a billion cells program of feces of the oral bacteria
Speaker 1: strip to Caccus salivarius, and again none of the thirty
Speaker 1: to forty year olds did so. Donne says, well, were
Speaker 1: these pathanogenic in oral bacteria doing well enough to actually
Speaker 1: compromise the success of good bacteria in the gut? Yes,
Speaker 1: this is true. It did, while all the thirty to
Speaker 1: four year olds had at least a million cells of
Speaker 1: the good bacteria, uh, less than half of the individuals
Speaker 1: over so, but this is painting. The story is that
Speaker 1: our health is directly related to the microbes in our gut.
Speaker 1: In our stomach is maintaining this community of bacteria. The
Speaker 1: older you get, the less able you are to sort
Speaker 1: it to see it. And that's where this this idea
Speaker 1: of microbes seve theory comes into play. That's interesting because
Speaker 1: essentially the older stomach, uh is is less scrutinizing when
Speaker 1: it comes to who should be led into the trust
Speaker 1: zone of the of the intestines and uh and it
Speaker 1: it kind of parallels these studies you see about how
Speaker 1: how older individuals are more likely to be taken by
Speaker 1: a comment because there because it there's a certain amount
Speaker 1: of trust that's that's greater in so many of these
Speaker 1: older individuess. You know what's really interesting about that analogy
Speaker 1: is that the guts of those people who are seventy
Speaker 1: year olds and had dementia were actually in worse shape
Speaker 1: than any of the participants. So it's a little bit
Speaker 1: like you wonder if the if the dementia is at
Speaker 1: play here in terms of communicating with the body to
Speaker 1: try to we doubt there's microbes. That's a fascinating idea.
Speaker 1: I'd never never really thought about that dementia not only
Speaker 1: of the the conscious mind, but of subconscious processes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it makes me think again of the bearded one.
Speaker 1: Are we degray and this ability to get to the
Speaker 1: disease before it happens? So do we alter our pH
Speaker 1: levels in our stomach as we get older? Can we
Speaker 1: do that? Yeah? I say, go for it. That's a
Speaker 1: good bit of information I think to consider, because again,
Speaker 1: it's his whole thing is let's figure out. But we
Speaker 1: can't defeat death itself his self herself. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's too intimidating. But if you break it down into
Speaker 1: a whole list of individual achievable goals, then maybe you
Speaker 1: can do something right, Like Okay, let's here's the stomach.
Speaker 1: Let's let's try to battle it this way. Because the
Speaker 1: idea here is that the human body is like a car,
Speaker 1: and it has all these parts, certain parts to give
Speaker 1: out and then the recent point where a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of parts are giving out and then the thing just
Speaker 1: falls apart in the highway. But if we can maintain
Speaker 1: these various parts, then then maybe the car will hold
Speaker 1: up longer than it has been indeed, And I think
Speaker 1: that this study that Rob Dunn brought up in the
Speaker 1: Scientific American article is just really interesting because it's kind
Speaker 1: of hit its time in it was sort of sitting
Speaker 1: there and it's an interesting bit of information. But now
Speaker 1: that we have the understanding that we have of microbes,
Speaker 1: it's sort of poised to to change the landscape of
Speaker 1: how we deal with microbes good and bad. Now back
Speaker 1: to the car analogy for a second. You know, I
Speaker 1: I do not know much about cars. So when I
Speaker 1: opened the hood of a car, I look in there
Speaker 1: and I tend to trust that everything in there is
Speaker 1: important and that I shouldn't just go in and rip
Speaker 1: something out and expect the car to work fine. Likewise,
Speaker 1: I I know a little more about well, I know
Speaker 1: a bit more about the human body than about the
Speaker 1: inside of the car. And I still generally ascribe to
Speaker 1: the notion that if it's in there, it probably needs
Speaker 1: to be UM and if it doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: in there any longer than my body may let me
Speaker 1: know about it. But as we're about to discuss UM,
Speaker 1: sometimes things things can disappear from the body and and
Speaker 1: the body will continue to work just fine. And I
Speaker 1: mean that's a bit of an overstatement of the obvious. Obviously,
Speaker 1: people UM in many cases have had have lost an
Speaker 1: organ or two. They've had it replaced with the with
Speaker 1: an artificial, with a transplant, et cetera. But I really
Speaker 1: had not thought long and hard about that. The fact
Speaker 1: that you can remove the stomach from a human being,
Speaker 1: fix them back up, and the body can more or
Speaker 1: less adapt just fine, right, which is I think it's
Speaker 1: surprised because the gut seems so central to the food
Speaker 1: processing part. Right. But what we have found is that
Speaker 1: there's something called a gas wrecked on me. And this
Speaker 1: is a medical procedure that involves surgically removing all a
Speaker 1: part of the stomach. So if you remove pretty much
Speaker 1: all the stomach, then you would just really make the
Speaker 1: cut in the abdomen and then you would reconnect it
Speaker 1: essentially to the esophagus. So your esophagus and then you're
Speaker 1: small intestine need each other. Say hello, And as I'm reading,
Speaker 1: and I should, I should know that. You know, first
Speaker 1: of all, I don't. I don't have any personal connection
Speaker 1: anyone who has received this this procedure, and I know
Speaker 1: from the research that it can it can be a
Speaker 1: huge adjustment to be to make in your life. Years long, yeah,
Speaker 1: years long. And it's no you know, it's nothing to
Speaker 1: nothing to to giggle at, it's nothing to take lightly. Uh.
Speaker 1: But that being said, the procedure itself, like in a
Speaker 1: detached way, is is just very fascinating because there's something
Speaker 1: kind of almost do it yourself issue about the idea
Speaker 1: of taking something as complex as the human body and
Speaker 1: saying like, all right, part A connects to part B
Speaker 1: connects to part C. If I take part B out,
Speaker 1: can't I just connect A and C and everything will
Speaker 1: work just fine. And if you you've presented that to me,
Speaker 1: I would say, god, no, don't, don't connect A and C.
Speaker 1: But but seeing this and I TA directions. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's like you wouldn't do that with Ikea and expect
Speaker 1: your bookcase to to hold up. But the body is
Speaker 1: a surprise, surprise, far more durable than an Ikea bookshelf. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you have gastric cancer and you don't have
Speaker 1: many options in front of you that you're going to
Speaker 1: opt for the surgery, or if you are someone who
Speaker 1: tests positive for carrying the e caterine gene, which is
Speaker 1: a rare gastric cancer, it's a way of heading off
Speaker 1: the disease at the past, right, Because if you have
Speaker 1: five people in your family who have this rare type
Speaker 1: of gastric cancer and you think that and you've tested
Speaker 1: positive for the gene, you think you might be next, well,
Speaker 1: then you might take, as you say, things into your
Speaker 1: own hands and make this decision. Yes, they'll get someone
Speaker 1: else to do the surgery. Yeah, that part so essentially
Speaker 1: in the in the case of like a full stomach removal,
Speaker 1: you're talking about the esophagus being connected directly to the
Speaker 1: small bowl. So an entire and a shortcut, if you will,
Speaker 1: an entire road of the highway has been removed and
Speaker 1: then hooked up right, And it has parallels to gastric
Speaker 1: bypassed right, which is when you take a bit of
Speaker 1: the stomach and you tie it off and you make
Speaker 1: the stomach smaller so that the person is able or
Speaker 1: not able to digest as much food and therefore lose weight.
Speaker 1: And it's really something that's very helpful for obesity. But
Speaker 1: it's the same idea is that you adapt to it
Speaker 1: and eventually, you know, those teaspoons of food that you
Speaker 1: have become a little bit fuller. Now, someone who has
Speaker 1: gastric bypass or I guess rocktomy, they're not necessarily gonna
Speaker 1: be able to eat like, you know, a whole pizza. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna it's my understanding, It's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: more like smaller meals as throughout the day. But the
Speaker 1: body is gonna adapt and be able to absorb nutrients
Speaker 1: pretty steadily. The about the only the only thing that's
Speaker 1: only stand out, um here is is when it comes
Speaker 1: to be twelve. The stomach controls the absorption of vitamin
Speaker 1: B twelve, so regular injections of that particular vitamin are
Speaker 1: are going to be necessary. And then there's a question too,
Speaker 1: I suppose, um, longer down the road is what what
Speaker 1: does your microbe colony look like with the absence of
Speaker 1: the stomach doing the sorting? How much of that matters
Speaker 1: before it actually gets to the true digestive process and
Speaker 1: the small intestines and the large intestine. Now, of course
Speaker 1: you your diet's gonna change also in other ways. For instance, Um,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna eat most normal foods, but there
Speaker 1: are some things like like sweet corn, for instance, they
Speaker 1: need additional softening by acids in the stomach, and you
Speaker 1: know it's leant. Know, even that's not necessarily enough to
Speaker 1: get the job done. So if you have had your
Speaker 1: stomach removed, you may need to skip those particular foods. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then this was extra fascinating as well. Um read
Speaker 1: the end time pouch actually forms in the small intestines,
Speaker 1: that is essentially for food storage. A little longer as
Speaker 1: it continues on this journey. So isn't it amazing? So
Speaker 1: it creates it still creates a little refrigerator in there
Speaker 1: to try to store your food. It's almost like your
Speaker 1: body saying, oh, I see what you did there here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just put some extra room here. Can you
Speaker 1: a mini fridge? Yeah? Yeah, So it's again, it's just
Speaker 1: it's a testament to the durability of the human body
Speaker 1: and uh and its ability to cope with really catastrophic
Speaker 1: changes to its to its systems. So we we were
Speaker 1: hearing about the stomach and how wondrous it is, and
Speaker 1: then you start to think about hydrochloric acid, yes, and
Speaker 1: all of these wonderful ingredients that are corrosive. Right, So
Speaker 1: the question, of course that comes up, and that was
Speaker 1: covered in gulp by Mary Roaches. Well, why doesn't the
Speaker 1: stomach digest itself anyway? It's got all the ingredients right,
Speaker 1: Yes it does. And as a stomach versus stomach, what's happening? Well,
Speaker 1: as she as she I believe pointed out in our interview,
Speaker 1: the thing is that your your stomach is digesting itself
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, like it's not like you oh,
Speaker 1: here's your You know, your stomach is constantly reconstituting itself.
Speaker 1: It's constantly rebuilding itself, just like our bodies are constantly
Speaker 1: wearing away and rebuilding. That's right, dead cells or replace
Speaker 1: by new cells. Yeah. Yeah, every time you go at
Speaker 1: the grocery store, as I said before, you were buying
Speaker 1: the things you're gonna build your new body out of. So, yes,
Speaker 1: the the the acid and the stomach is breaking down
Speaker 1: the lining, but then it is it is building back up.
Speaker 1: And as as Meritork points ouer book, what happens when
Speaker 1: everything shuts down, well, then the stomach does digest itself
Speaker 1: with it well, and that's that's the only time truly
Speaker 1: that the stomach would digest itself. Right. So, if you
Speaker 1: were eating that hag us, right, and the body shut
Speaker 1: itself down, and it also shut down this ability to
Speaker 1: line the cells of the stomach with mucus, which is
Speaker 1: protecting the stomach from the acid, that function stops. But
Speaker 1: the acid is still there, right, the pH level is
Speaker 1: still there, the hags is there. It's just gonna keep
Speaker 1: doing it, gonna continue to eat the haggas it's in
Speaker 1: and it's gonna continue to eat the stomach lining without
Speaker 1: it being built back up again, about any kind of
Speaker 1: renewal going on. So that's cheery. Yeah, but I mean really,
Speaker 1: I mean once the body shuts down, everything's going to
Speaker 1: pot anyway. So that's true. So what else you got?
Speaker 1: What else you got on the stomach? I mean, clearly
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot. We could probably go all day
Speaker 1: with various tidbits. Well, you're probably wondering what foods that
Speaker 1: I eat on a regular basis turn into poop at
Speaker 1: what rate? Yeah? Right? Because you want it to turn
Speaker 1: into poop because if you you know, you don't want
Speaker 1: to see the meal come out as it was because
Speaker 1: it's a bad sign. No, Yeah, that really is a
Speaker 1: bad sign. Yeah. And and it ultimately means you didn't
Speaker 1: get your money's worth out of the food. We should
Speaker 1: take that back to the restaurant. Yeah, get a refund.
Speaker 1: Get a refund and all undigested portions of the meal.
Speaker 1: All right. I crib this from how digestion Works on
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and bananas four hours four
Speaker 1: hours four minus t to poop time and bowl of
Speaker 1: cereal again four hours, hot dog only seven hours, red
Speaker 1: meat twelve hours, and trick question, gum, what do you
Speaker 1: think it is? Um? I heard that it lasts forever
Speaker 1: inside you in a ball of accumulating gum. That's right.
Speaker 1: It's never really yeah, well not not not accumulating. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't get digested. It just kind of it just
Speaker 1: comes out with the rest of that stuff. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't follow your com there's just no I mean,
Speaker 1: they'll fit it somewhere. But and I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: you could say that the kids as as a way
Speaker 1: to deter them from it, but then they'll just be like,
Speaker 1: that's so cool. I would love to see that come out. Hoop.
Speaker 1: That's right. They love So there's a scoop on the poop.
Speaker 1: Scoop on the poop. Yeah, Now, Mary roaches book Gold.
Speaker 1: It spends a lot of time with the stomach, and
Speaker 1: there are a number of tidbits. One of the ones
Speaker 1: that that that I keep coming back to, and I'm
Speaker 1: probably stealing from the podcast we're gonna record next, but
Speaker 1: they are regurgitation artists who would swallow a live frog
Speaker 1: with a certain amount of water and then uh, you know,
Speaker 1: within the right before the act, right before they went
Speaker 1: on stage, and then when they're when they're on stage,
Speaker 1: they they make themselves throw up and will and behold
Speaker 1: outcomes a bunch of water and a live frog. I
Speaker 1: found that amazing because the frog breathe through its skin
Speaker 1: if it didn't breathe through the water. So you're you're
Speaker 1: you're giving it just enough survival equipment to last a
Speaker 1: little bit inside the stomach. So there you go. Uh, kids,
Speaker 1: don't try that home. I don't try that. Adults. There's
Speaker 1: your next cocktail party trick. Yes, let's start with the
Speaker 1: smallest frog you know, that's sensible, but not one that's
Speaker 1: brightly colored. Yes, don't don't go for the bright No,
Speaker 1: not the talibus. That's probably a most potently poisonous frog
Speaker 1: out there. All right, Well, on that note, let's call
Speaker 1: over the robot and get a little bit of listener now,
Speaker 1: all right, this one comes to us from Michael. Michael
Speaker 1: right soon and says, I was just listening to the
Speaker 1: Lucid Dreaming episode and Robert mentioned that he had dreamed
Speaker 1: up a really cool game. He's referring to the fact
Speaker 1: that I've had a dream in which I was playing
Speaker 1: a card game that did not exist. Um, And he says,
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you had ever heard of game Craft.
Speaker 1: It is a print on demand service for board games,
Speaker 1: so you could have them made up for you. There
Speaker 1: you go, and and he adds Anyway, I'm a pretty
Speaker 1: new fan of the show, and I've been listening to
Speaker 1: the episodes this past week. I love it because it
Speaker 1: has the fun of chatting with friends in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, with the added bonus that you guys
Speaker 1: really know what you're talking about. Thanks Michael. He doesn't
Speaker 1: even know. That's so cool. He doesn't even know that
Speaker 1: we do this in a tent with a flashlight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but no, No, I love what he's he's saying there
Speaker 1: because it does like some of the topics we cover,
Speaker 1: and you know, it reminds me of of like being
Speaker 1: in middle school and younger going to Scout camp and
Speaker 1: you know, we're sitting there in our tents, it's night,
Speaker 1: the lights are out, and we're talking about like the cosmos,
Speaker 1: are talking about something, you know, getting into that sort
Speaker 1: of middle school area of you know, cosmology and psychology
Speaker 1: and philosophy, you know, ultimately like going up to the
Speaker 1: edge of human understanding as we perceived it in those
Speaker 1: days and trying to figure out what exists beyond us
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, you hear me exactly,
Speaker 1: so cool. Thanks for sharing that. Michael um Well out
Speaker 1: in another one here from the about the basket. Oh
Speaker 1: he has a basket now, but today he has a basket.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know what's going on there, if
Speaker 1: something's broken or nobody's just being silent. I think he
Speaker 1: he wove that basket. Yeah, yeah, it's it's very very seasonal.
Speaker 1: All right. We heard from Jared Jared Writson and says,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to your podcast on multitasking, and I always
Speaker 1: thought that drummers were multitasking as they played, playing four
Speaker 1: different beats at the same time and making them all
Speaker 1: sound good together while keeping a steady time signature and
Speaker 1: making sure you're playing along with other members in the band.
Speaker 1: Seems like doing multiple things at once. Would you say
Speaker 1: that it's more likely that drummers are really good at
Speaker 1: switching focus quickly and relying on muscle memory for the
Speaker 1: rest um. I've also read that playing a drum set
Speaker 1: forces you to use both hemispheres of your brain at
Speaker 1: the same time. Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated.
Speaker 1: I've always been extremely curious about what happens in the
Speaker 1: brain during this particular task, because not only is it
Speaker 1: is it a lot of fun, great cardio and a
Speaker 1: great attractor of the of the female persuasion, but it's
Speaker 1: it really has been therapeutic through out some of the
Speaker 1: more stressful times in my life. Thanks Jared. Well, that's
Speaker 1: an interesting thought. They about drummers as multitaskers. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we have some some other drummers out there are listening,
Speaker 1: so I would love to hear um hear their feedback
Speaker 1: on it, because yeah, there's a there's a lot going on,
Speaker 1: especially when you look at the big like crazy drum
Speaker 1: sets where there's just you know, there's like a gong
Speaker 1: and there, you know, all sorts of stuff going on there. Now,
Speaker 1: my brothers in a band and he says he claims
Speaker 1: that all drummers are eccentrics and extroverts. Now, it was
Speaker 1: totally unscientific in the back, yes, right, an anecdotal. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of flair going on with the sticks.
Speaker 1: There is. There's a lot of a lot of movement,
Speaker 1: a lot of just you know, waving your hands about.
Speaker 1: And you you do think about some of the more
Speaker 1: famous drummers, and they do kind of seem like wild
Speaker 1: men larger than life. You know, Nick Fleetwood comes to mind,
Speaker 1: is you know just you know Tommy Lee. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had to say a name like that. Uh So, anyway,
Speaker 1: any drummers out there, please let us know if that
Speaker 1: is true or not, although it still remains anecdotal unscientific. Well,
Speaker 1: here's another one that someone comes to us from Eric
Speaker 1: and uh he is responding to our episode on objects
Speaker 1: and our love of objects and lucky charms and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and he says, I love the Lucky Charms podcast. When
Speaker 1: I was in high school, a basketball player got into
Speaker 1: his head that his socks were lucky. He refused to
Speaker 1: watch them, and by the end of the season they
Speaker 1: were very rancid. With his help, the team made the
Speaker 1: state championships. I don't know if it was in a
Speaker 1: playoff game or the last game of the season, but
Speaker 1: near the end he developed a blister his dirty socks.
Speaker 1: The blister festered and he developed blood poisoning. He spent
Speaker 1: the championship game in the hospital near death, and with
Speaker 1: the doctor's arguing whether to amputate or not. He did
Speaker 1: keep his leg and made a full recovery fortunately, but
Speaker 1: he missed the big game. After that, the coach forced
Speaker 1: all the boys to wash their socks. Wow, that's a
Speaker 1: dark turn for the lucky socks there. I wonder if
Speaker 1: they were destroyed, if they were or they were like
Speaker 1: put away like in that name storage facility where they
Speaker 1: put the ark of the Covenant, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: a potent lucky charm, but it's too dangerous for human use,
Speaker 1: right And if it were to be excavated and the
Speaker 1: container opened, then all like high school basketball teams would
Speaker 1: suddenly fail. Yeah, like the reek of the sock would emanate.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if the rest of you have something
Speaker 1: you would like to add about rancid socks, about lucky charms,
Speaker 1: about drummers who are multitasking, or more to the point
Speaker 1: of this podcast, about the stomach, about the esophagus. Do
Speaker 1: you have any crazy tales of loud what is it?
Speaker 1: Burber GiB If you have stories of this and uh
Speaker 1: and in times when your stomach has been talking to
Speaker 1: you when you would rather it remain silent, we would
Speaker 1: love to hear about it. And certainly, if anyone has
Speaker 1: experience with gastric bypass or or any type of stomach
Speaker 1: surgery and would like to share that either credited or anonymously,
Speaker 1: or if you just want to share it with us
Speaker 1: and just you know, tell us, don't you know, read
Speaker 1: it on the air or whatever. We we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear your perspective on all of this because, like I said,
Speaker 1: it's fascinating for us, but it's always interesting to hear
Speaker 1: what you guys and gals have to share about your
Speaker 1: personal experiences with the things we talk about. So you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, well, there are
Speaker 1: many ways to do it. You can find us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: you can find us on tumbler. We are stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind on both of those. Um we have
Speaker 1: a Twitter account, blow the Mind uh, and also you
Speaker 1: can find us at our very own website www. Dot
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's right where
Speaker 1: we are also putting out some videos on some related topics,
Speaker 1: so check that out and you can always send us
Speaker 1: a line at blow the Mind at discovery dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because
Speaker 1: it how stuff works. Dot com