Speaker 1: Hello there, it's me Josh, and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: let you know, people living in Minneapolis or with access
Speaker 1: to Minneapolis, I'm going to be in your city doing
Speaker 1: my solo show, The End of the World or How
Speaker 1: I Learned to Start Worrying and Love Humanity. It's a
Speaker 1: gas and it's pretty interesting too. So in June I'll
Speaker 1: be at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and the next
Speaker 1: night I'll be at the Miracle Theater in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: So come see me. Go to the Miracle Theater dot
Speaker 1: com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm justus Chuck. There's Jerry Stuff you should know. You
Speaker 1: Jerk brad Oh, Jerry's back from vacation. Hello, Jerry, welcome back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Miss Rolling. You don't look any different. You're
Speaker 1: rolling your eyes at Josh. That means everything is normal. Normal.
Speaker 1: I thought you might be sun kissed, but she's nodding
Speaker 1: though she just wrote down helped me on the side.
Speaker 1: I saw that. I'm sure everybody heard the paper. Russell too,
Speaker 1: I have an announcement real quick if you don't mind.
Speaker 1: The Bryant's are back in the Cat Game. Got two kittens.
Speaker 1: Oh congratulations, thanks The cat Game. Yeah, the kiddie game
Speaker 1: where the cats name uh Luna and leave on and
Speaker 1: they You know, we've been planning this for a while
Speaker 1: since we lost our cats, but we had the house renovation.
Speaker 1: It was like, that makes no sense to get two
Speaker 1: cats in a rental house and move them. So then
Speaker 1: we waited, and then we were like, well, we're going
Speaker 1: out of town on vacation for Memorial Day, so let's
Speaker 1: wait after that. And we did. And I woke up
Speaker 1: on Sunday and looked at the calendar and I said,
Speaker 1: it's a cat day. Cat Day. So I went to
Speaker 1: the Humane Society. But Anna got to eight month old kittens. Siblings, Oh,
Speaker 1: matching cats. Boy and a girl wants a Luna is
Speaker 1: a girl and she's black and uh Levin is black
Speaker 1: and white, both short hair, which we're gonna try and
Speaker 1: recreate Lauren and the Wizard a little bit, you know
Speaker 1: that whole thing. Well rules that you have established, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get a Tabby and another main coon because
Speaker 1: we really love those. But you're in a different direction.
Speaker 1: That's just like, you know what, you know, these are kittens,
Speaker 1: they're great, they need a home. Let's take them home. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, dude, congratulations, thanks, it's been a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Best wishes to the best of lifetime with
Speaker 1: Luna and LEVI. Well, you start at my age with cats.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, this maybe one of the
Speaker 1: last bears. And Emily was like, stop, I know, I
Speaker 1: think it's don't even go there, stop doing mass you mean.
Speaker 1: And I have a friend who's a neighbor and she
Speaker 1: was like, you know, we're like, hold your dog. And
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, she's like three, so we'll probably pass.
Speaker 1: Said about the same time. I was like, why why
Speaker 1: would you say that out loud? Well, if these cats
Speaker 1: live a nice, healthy, longish life, they will see me
Speaker 1: into my mid sixties and see Ruby through high school.
Speaker 1: That's cute. That is that parts cute? So si um,
Speaker 1: so it's good that you're getting these kiddies for Ruby.
Speaker 1: In part for Ruby, I'm sure it's largely for you
Speaker 1: guys too. Yeah, it's for all of us. But she's
Speaker 1: going to run around growing up being exposed to cats.
Speaker 1: Are they going to be indoor outdoor cats. No, strictly indoor.
Speaker 1: Strictly indoor, they live longer. Still not judging, but no,
Speaker 1: it's fine, keep your cats. They kill fewer birds too, yes, um,
Speaker 1: but the fact that she's going to be exposed to
Speaker 1: cats is a big leg up for her. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the fact that she was being licked in the mouth
Speaker 1: by dogs from the moment she was born. Yep, that's
Speaker 1: true too. But dogs cats different animals, true, which means yes,
Speaker 1: veried microbe, varied spit. And we're gonna get into why
Speaker 1: we're saying all this stuff soon enough. Just hold your horses, everybody,
Speaker 1: But um, what we're talking about is the hygiene hypothesis today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is sort of the then diagram of several
Speaker 1: past episodes, including are some really good ones on allergies,
Speaker 1: the the immune system? Did we do one on the
Speaker 1: immune system? Either that or just the microbiome? Like, we
Speaker 1: definitely did that, but they may have been three, but
Speaker 1: if not, at least those two. And the hookworms episode, sure,
Speaker 1: yeah Southerners lazy and dumb right, Nope, it was hookworm. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: we did do some good ones, but this is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the stuff you should know A way is
Speaker 1: where we talk about all the stuff that has to
Speaker 1: do with the larger issue before we ever do larger issue. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you listen to the show for a long time,
Speaker 1: you're you're getting a pretty robust education. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: lot of silliness. Yeah. So um, let's stop the silliness here.
Speaker 1: So uh, if you didn't realize, it's already prepared to
Speaker 1: have your socks knocked off. But we in the developed
Speaker 1: and rapidly developing world, right, Um, I'm just scanning my memory.
Speaker 1: That's the right term, correct, I think? So Okay, um
Speaker 1: our suffering what's known as an immunity crisis, like a
Speaker 1: massive one, the likes of which has probably never been
Speaker 1: seen before in human history. And it's happening at the
Speaker 1: snap of a finger, the blink of an eye, the
Speaker 1: pop of a spit bubble, right like that fast in
Speaker 1: evolutionary terms. To be fair, Josh just said that because
Speaker 1: I popped the spit bubble in his mouth while he
Speaker 1: was talking. That's sort of one of my chores. I
Speaker 1: got some stats between ninety and the year two thousand
Speaker 1: rates of hay fever, eczema, asthma, and type one diabetes,
Speaker 1: and he's all have to do with immune dysfunction, uh
Speaker 1: sort of three D and developed and developing countries since
Speaker 1: nineteen yep, between fifty and two thousand, and children born
Speaker 1: in the UK in nineteen seventy were twice as likely
Speaker 1: to get XIMA than those born in nineteen and there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are tons of stats we could keep reading,
Speaker 1: but all of this flies in the face of what
Speaker 1: you would think would be happening, which is, as we
Speaker 1: get you know, more medically advanced and our world gets
Speaker 1: more sanitized, sure like everything, people should be getting sick
Speaker 1: less and have more robust immune systems, and the complete
Speaker 1: opposite is happening. Yeah, and it really has been confounding
Speaker 1: people because there's a couple of factors, or there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things here that this evidence is screaming. Number
Speaker 1: one is happening really fast. Number two is happening in
Speaker 1: a distinct part of the world, right, the developed world. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's also happening over time too, in the same places. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the first one is hapening so fast that rules
Speaker 1: out genetics because genetics doesn't operate that fast. No, no,
Speaker 1: and um, so it's clearly environmental. That's what everybody's settled
Speaker 1: on and um again, it was confounding everybody for a
Speaker 1: very long time. And then in nine there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who tried to explain this. And in
Speaker 1: ninety nine there was an British epidemiologist named I think
Speaker 1: you pronounced his last name is Strahan? Oh, really Strachen Stratching,
Speaker 1: the Kraaken name, or Michael Strahan, one of the two,
Speaker 1: one of those or Michael Shannon. Let's throw him in
Speaker 1: the mix. Two. Man, he's good. So David Stratching, I'm
Speaker 1: just going with that, um he. He and some colleagues
Speaker 1: released a very short paper in the British Medical Journal
Speaker 1: in nine and it said, we think we might actually
Speaker 1: have this figured out. What's going on beyond behind this
Speaker 1: confounding immune of the crisis, Why everyone's bodies are turning
Speaker 1: on themselves, whether immune systems are going haywire and crazy. Um,
Speaker 1: we think it's because things are too clean actually right.
Speaker 1: And he didn't actually use the term, but the word
Speaker 1: hygiene was in the title of the paper. But right
Speaker 1: after that people said, I like the way you're thinking.
Speaker 1: We're gonna call what you're talking about the hygiene hypothesis,
Speaker 1: but first explain to us what you're talking about stretching, right,
Speaker 1: I mean basically he was saying that if you're a
Speaker 1: little baby that's born and raised up through your early
Speaker 1: very important uh immunity developing years to about age four
Speaker 1: the most important. Yeah. So, uh, if if you were
Speaker 1: cleaning everything too much and slathering everything in hand sanitizer
Speaker 1: and keeping your child inside in a in a protective,
Speaker 1: clean play place, then they are not being exposed to
Speaker 1: the they're too clean, not being exposed to the germs
Speaker 1: that they need to develop a robust immune system. Right.
Speaker 1: That was his interpretation of some evidence. The actual study
Speaker 1: that the paper was based on. It was a study
Speaker 1: he carried out of I think seventeen thousand British households
Speaker 1: kids in particular. Yeah, and he found that kids born
Speaker 1: into smaller families had a higher chance of developing allergies
Speaker 1: as they grew older compared to kids born into larger families. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is supported his theory, right, which is that because
Speaker 1: there's more people in a family, there are more people
Speaker 1: bringing germs into the home, exposing the little kid to
Speaker 1: the germs um more frequently at an earlier age, and
Speaker 1: that those germs somehow protect us from developing allergies later on.
Speaker 1: That's that was the basis of we have to say
Speaker 1: the original hygiene hypothesis because a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: know it, but it's changed dramatically since then. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: people got on board. It made sense. Um, still kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense in some ways. And uh, it made
Speaker 1: a lot of news, and people really kind of got
Speaker 1: on this train of let's not have any kids or
Speaker 1: just have one, sure, and let's let them roll around
Speaker 1: a dog poop. Right, it did get translated really quickly
Speaker 1: into let's all stop washing our hands because initially the
Speaker 1: thing that was identified was infections. That kids develop infections
Speaker 1: from infectious pathogens, and that being exposed to infections early
Speaker 1: on actually trains the immune system and makes it basically
Speaker 1: bulk up. It makes it gives you a beefy immune
Speaker 1: system later on, and more to the point, a smart one.
Speaker 1: And really we should probably talk about what the immune
Speaker 1: system does to really get home what's stratch And and
Speaker 1: all of his colleagues and everybody in the world was thinking.
Speaker 1: Was actually going on, Yeah, should we take a break
Speaker 1: and talk about a little do a little allergy recap
Speaker 1: all right, so you can refer to our allergy episode
Speaker 1: for the full picture. But um, but here's sort of
Speaker 1: an assessment, an overview, if you will. And that is,
Speaker 1: and I remember when we said this in the initial episode,
Speaker 1: an allergy is basically a mistake. It's a yeah, like,
Speaker 1: there's nothing inherently wrong with dust or pollen. Those things
Speaker 1: are great. They're not actually foreign invaders that are going
Speaker 1: to harm your body. No, there's nothing wrong with dust.
Speaker 1: People avoid dust because they're allergic to it. But it's
Speaker 1: not like dust has some inherent property that gets in
Speaker 1: your nose and makes you sick. You're allergic, Well, it
Speaker 1: makes you allergic, it does, but it doesn't make you sick.
Speaker 1: But it's not the dust's fall, I think, is what
Speaker 1: you're trying to say. It's your stupid immune system's fault. No,
Speaker 1: your immune system says this is a harmful invader, even
Speaker 1: though it's really not. It's pollen or dust or something,
Speaker 1: and let's mount a defense against this. And that is
Speaker 1: what triggers this allergic response, which is, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: govern that in detail, but everyone knows what that is.
Speaker 1: It's in the case of dust and pollen, it's you know,
Speaker 1: sneezing and inflammation in the nose. Yeah, scratchy throat redness,
Speaker 1: maybe a rash, depending on what kind of allergen you're
Speaker 1: talking about. But it's all just a big mistake. Do
Speaker 1: you just made It's really serious, but it's okay. So
Speaker 1: it is a mistake, and this this is why mistakes
Speaker 1: like allergies happen. Okay. The immune system. You're born with
Speaker 1: an immune system that says I'm ready to learn, I'm
Speaker 1: thirsty for knowledge. It's remarkable, right, it actually trains and
Speaker 1: like we said earlier, that first four years are really important.
Speaker 1: It's basically when your immune system learns to recognize what's
Speaker 1: a actual for an invader that I need to defend against,
Speaker 1: a mountain immune response against. And what's just a normal,
Speaker 1: harmless or maybe even friendly microbe in the environment like
Speaker 1: dust or pollen. Such a friendly microbe, right, it really
Speaker 1: has a good personality as far as cat hair it goes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what happens is when that immune system meets uh,
Speaker 1: something harmful, truly harmful, it creates an antibody and it's
Speaker 1: very customized. It's not like you said earlier. It's a
Speaker 1: very smart system. It's not just a one size fits
Speaker 1: all deal. Because your body is trying to get very
Speaker 1: specific with how it's going to deal with these invaders
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life. Right. Um, So, when
Speaker 1: when a foreign microbe, friendly or harmful or totally neutral,
Speaker 1: comes into your body, you have a multi layered system
Speaker 1: immune system. It's actually really two layers to tell you
Speaker 1: the truth. There's the innate immune system and then you
Speaker 1: have the adaptive immune system them. And the innate immune
Speaker 1: system is basically that's what you're born with. It's the
Speaker 1: Blaster from Master Blaster okay, okay, which was Blaster. I
Speaker 1: think Blaster was the big like like crushed skull guy
Speaker 1: of course, and then Master was the master the road
Speaker 1: on his shoulders. So Blaster gets his meaty paws on
Speaker 1: a microbe what seems to be a foreign invader, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what it is, Blaster does the same
Speaker 1: thing to it. He crushes them up and eats them
Speaker 1: and digests them and then poops out the the the
Speaker 1: parts of that invader, that microbe that make that microbe
Speaker 1: that microbe um the proteins on the outside of the
Speaker 1: microbe called antigen's okay, and it says, look at this,
Speaker 1: and it shows the adeptive immune system what it's got. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that innate immunity you're you're born with it, and
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of like, h like mom is going
Speaker 1: to pass on some like cobra coverage almost right, You
Speaker 1: get this like temporary verry insurance that that mom is
Speaker 1: kind enough to pass on, and that covers you for
Speaker 1: a little while while your body is sort of learning
Speaker 1: how to do it on its own. With Master. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Blaster sort of leading the way at first. So where
Speaker 1: you left off was it presents it to Master and says, here,
Speaker 1: uh do with this? What you will start learning? Right?
Speaker 1: What is this that I just chewed up? That's two
Speaker 1: John Travoltas in one episode you know that was vide
Speaker 1: Barbarino and what's the other one? I just regular John?
Speaker 1: Why you swee so um? When Blaster spits out these antigens, says,
Speaker 1: what is this? Check it out? Master's job now, Master
Speaker 1: is the adaptive immune system. The second part, This is
Speaker 1: a more nuanced, smarter um selective or supposedly selective part
Speaker 1: of your immune system where it looks at this stuff
Speaker 1: and somehow, some way, I don't understand exactly how it
Speaker 1: does it. Maybe we touched upon it in our immunity episode,
Speaker 1: but the adaptive immune system Master says, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: actually not harmful at all. Don't worry about building in anybody.
Speaker 1: You can forget about that. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: don't forget about it. But the next time you see
Speaker 1: this thing, just let him on through. He's the friendliest
Speaker 1: cat hair you're ever going to meet. Don't kill him
Speaker 1: next time. Yeah, Or if it's an if it's an
Speaker 1: actual foreign invader and everything is going smoothly and correctly,
Speaker 1: then the adaptive immune system is going to say, well, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: this is a really dangerous thing you've just presented me with.
Speaker 1: We're going to study its weaknesses and we're going to
Speaker 1: build a molecule that is designed to kill this thing
Speaker 1: with extreme prejudice. Yeah, it turns into Clint Eastwood all
Speaker 1: of a sudden. Yes. Um. While this is going on
Speaker 1: in the background, we should mention that uh blaster has
Speaker 1: already set off the He's basically walled things off with
Speaker 1: an inflammatory response. Yeah, and not like something you know,
Speaker 1: mean that he said to Master, Not that kind of
Speaker 1: inflammatory response, but why are you so short? But regular
Speaker 1: A regular inflammatory response is sort of the big dumb
Speaker 1: guy's way to deal with something. It's like, all right,
Speaker 1: while you figure this out, just let me puff up
Speaker 1: and let me cause a rash or give give you
Speaker 1: a fever or you know. There's all sorts of inflammatory responses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: blasters responsible for what you think of when you think
Speaker 1: of uh an infection. Yeah, you're fighting out like me
Speaker 1: last week. Now, I had that weird virus. Yeah it's gone,
Speaker 1: it's gone. Great, that is weird. It is weird. Um,
Speaker 1: but I had we had Emily and I both had
Speaker 1: all sorts of things weird bumps and lumps and rashes
Speaker 1: and fever. Yeah it was. It was not good. But um,
Speaker 1: so that's the inflammatory response is going on while Master
Speaker 1: is working on his plan rights sort of like a
Speaker 1: first line of defense almost. So we have to so
Speaker 1: Julia Layton put this one together and like we have
Speaker 1: to go or the four the four key components of
Speaker 1: the inflammation response. Okay, okay, you've got calor, dolor, rub or,
Speaker 1: and two more. It sounds like Game of Thrones or something.
Speaker 1: It does. It's heat, pain, redness, and swelling. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: when you put them all together, you're like, yeah, of
Speaker 1: course it's analogy. That's an infection. That's what happens when
Speaker 1: something tries to get my body. Blaster goes and and
Speaker 1: brings this on. Right. Yeah, and man, every time we
Speaker 1: study the immune system, it just blows me away. I
Speaker 1: love it. It's just amazing that humans can do this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know so, um yeah, we're not even trying. No,
Speaker 1: we're just sitting around watching Well I'm not watching Thrones.
Speaker 1: But do you watch that? No? Did you? I watched
Speaker 1: the first few seasons and dropped off. Yeah. Apparently you
Speaker 1: pulled out just in time. M according to Reddit, Well,
Speaker 1: I know everyone said one through seven was great. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you did in foresaw seven? Now I saw like
Speaker 1: one through three and then just got confused and went
Speaker 1: to sleep. It was using, Oh yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, you have to keep up with the
Speaker 1: characters and storylines, and it just got too too much.
Speaker 1: I was just like, yeah, okay, I'm gonna go back
Speaker 1: and watch uh Company again. Right. I can't wait for that.
Speaker 1: I watched um Berry, have you been watching Barry? Now?
Speaker 1: I need I watched a few episodes on a plane
Speaker 1: I started. Yeah, I need to get Emily on the
Speaker 1: on the Berry train. It's very good. It is good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good show and VP. Of course I need
Speaker 1: to watch the last season of V I'm not on
Speaker 1: that same here, okay, So anyway, slight digression, Keller, Dolor,
Speaker 1: rub Or, and two more Um and Blaster. The innate
Speaker 1: um immune system is basically creating this to to keep
Speaker 1: the infection localized. Wow, the adaptive system Master is figuring
Speaker 1: out what to do and building the anybody. So once
Speaker 1: all this happens, that anybody is released, it goes in
Speaker 1: and destroys the whatever remaining microbes of that foreign invader
Speaker 1: are still around, and the body is saved. And even better,
Speaker 1: somehow your immune system remembers this. Yeah, that's the important part, right,
Speaker 1: so that the next time Blaster comes along and comes
Speaker 1: back with that same that same micro but the same
Speaker 1: kind of microbe. Master says, I know just the thing
Speaker 1: for this guy. We've met him before. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: this anybody over here, and it's going to destroy them
Speaker 1: and the body will just keep coming along with the
Speaker 1: immune system mounting normal um appropriate responses, and your body,
Speaker 1: all your cells are just screaming. Two men enter, one
Speaker 1: man leave the whole time. It's very uh, it's kind
Speaker 1: of disturbing actually under a microscope. Should we talk about
Speaker 1: T cells? Yeah, didn't you say we're quickly going to
Speaker 1: go over the immune system. I mean, we don't have
Speaker 1: to talk about T cells. No, No, I'm just saying
Speaker 1: we've talked about different being quick we talked about them
Speaker 1: a lot in the past. Yeah, but not to this
Speaker 1: this degree, and they actually are pretty important in this
Speaker 1: all right, Well, so remember that blaster the innate immunity.
Speaker 1: Uh dude, Remember any microbe it gets his hands on,
Speaker 1: it does the same thing to Too bad for the microbe.
Speaker 1: So he's going to present that that microbe's antigens to
Speaker 1: these t Helper cells T cells that we've talked about before,
Speaker 1: and they are part of Master's smarter system. And like
Speaker 1: earlier when he said he presents it, what he's really
Speaker 1: doing is presenting to those T helper cells. Right, So
Speaker 1: there's T helper cells that are undifferentiated. There's kind of
Speaker 1: floating a long waiting to be told what to become.
Speaker 1: And then Master says, you turn into some th h
Speaker 1: one cells. Because this is a bacterial or a viral infection.
Speaker 1: Th H one cells are are um specialized to combat
Speaker 1: that kind of microbe or if say it's a hookworm
Speaker 1: infection um they would turn into th H two cells,
Speaker 1: or if it's an allergy or an allergic response, it
Speaker 1: means th H two cells are involved too. And this
Speaker 1: is here the key to the original interpretation of the
Speaker 1: hygiene hypothesis. Yeah, and the th H one it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of a they do a lot of things, but
Speaker 1: th H one generally work on the inside of cells
Speaker 1: and th H two generally work on the outside of cells.
Speaker 1: They sort of split up and they sort of balance
Speaker 1: each other out too. That's a big, big key to Yeah,
Speaker 1: like if there are more th H one cells, there
Speaker 1: will be less th H two and the other way around. Right,
Speaker 1: they kind of regulate one another, or more like more
Speaker 1: to the point, t T regulator cells regulate th H
Speaker 1: one and th H two cells. Yeah, the T REGs,
Speaker 1: which we didn't find out about until like the two
Speaker 1: thousand's right, But if there are this is the point here.
Speaker 1: If there are a lot of th H two cells,
Speaker 1: there's not going to be very many th H one cells,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. And so the original interpretation of the
Speaker 1: hygiene hypothesis was that kids who are not exposed to
Speaker 1: bacterial or viral infecttions early on in life, do not
Speaker 1: have a chance for their immune system to learn what's
Speaker 1: good what's bad. And since their th H one cells
Speaker 1: aren't activated because they're not exposed to pathogens, um, they're
Speaker 1: th H two cells, the ones that are responsible for
Speaker 1: allergic reactions, get to go into hyper drive and being
Speaker 1: responsible for allergic reaction th H two cells kind of
Speaker 1: like a hammer into a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Speaker 1: So to the th H two cells, everything looks like
Speaker 1: a foreign invader, and so an allergic response is mounted.
Speaker 1: So because the kids th H one cells weren't active enough,
Speaker 1: the th H two cells were overactive, they weren't exposed
Speaker 1: to infections, they developed allergies later in life. That's what
Speaker 1: they thought was the crux of the hygiene hypothesis, and
Speaker 1: that it was all because we're we were living in
Speaker 1: a world as far too clean for our own good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, there are more studies that they did
Speaker 1: that really seem to support this in the in the nineties, UM,
Speaker 1: really interesting one in the Germany's UH in the early
Speaker 1: nineties they did in a study of allergy rates of
Speaker 1: East and West German kids pre unification. Obviously, and this
Speaker 1: was a really great idea, because what you had was
Speaker 1: two populations that were genetically identical, basically just living in
Speaker 1: two drastically different environments. Obviously, East Germany was very polluted,
Speaker 1: it was generally more poor, um much more industrialized, and
Speaker 1: in the West it was you know, cleaner probably and
Speaker 1: cleaner but cleaner for sure, and kind of all the
Speaker 1: way around. And so they hypothesize. There was a researcher
Speaker 1: named Edeka von Mutious that's good enough. I think that's
Speaker 1: exactly right. And she basically, you know, said, well, clearly,
Speaker 1: the children from the West will be healthier and less allergic,
Speaker 1: and she found the exact opposite again, so it was
Speaker 1: just another s of some more compelling evidence that this
Speaker 1: hygiene hypothesis kind of carried a lot of weight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the fact that she was expecting the opposite was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting too. But she was like, whoa, I
Speaker 1: just accidentally proved this hygiene hypothesis because it doesn't again,
Speaker 1: it makes zero sense that the cleaner the environment, the
Speaker 1: more likely your immune system is to malfunction later in life. Right,
Speaker 1: should we take a break? Yeah, all right, we'll take
Speaker 1: a break and we'll talk about sort of where this
Speaker 1: is now in the new understanding that hasn't gotten nearly
Speaker 1: enough press. Right. Okay, so the world really clamped onto
Speaker 1: a hygiene hypothesis because I mean it makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense, Like it's very appealing. It's like, yeah, just
Speaker 1: go be dirty, you don't have to worry about all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And yeah, pesticides are are terrible for us,
Speaker 1: so as antibacterial soap, and you know, just everything you
Speaker 1: can think of. Um. The idea of it was was
Speaker 1: really or really just kind of appealing to the world,
Speaker 1: especially in the nineties because that's when people started caring
Speaker 1: about like herbs and supplements and like organic food and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So the timing was really good. And
Speaker 1: the idea of looking at all these chemicals we're using
Speaker 1: to sanitize our world is actually harmful rather than beneficial
Speaker 1: appealed to a lot of people. But it also appealed
Speaker 1: to people in the sense that now we had an
Speaker 1: explanation for this mysterious massive explosion in in allergic um
Speaker 1: reactions and immuno messed up function. Right. Sure, did you
Speaker 1: know type one diabetes is a um um an immuno
Speaker 1: efficiency Just from this, Yeah, me too. I had no
Speaker 1: idea was like why did they keep talking about diabetes,
Speaker 1: and then I realize your body has mistaken the beta
Speaker 1: cells that produce insulin and your pancreas as a foreign
Speaker 1: invader and attacks them. That's why you don't have insulin
Speaker 1: enough insulin, because your body is turned on it. Very interesting,
Speaker 1: same with like crones and um uh, any kind of
Speaker 1: autoimmune disorder. Really, yeah, your body is mistaking the cells
Speaker 1: of your own body as a foreign invader. But again,
Speaker 1: these the incidents of these these kinds of disease just
Speaker 1: exploded over you know a handful of decades and by
Speaker 1: the nineties and about two thousand people had said it
Speaker 1: was because we're overly clean. We're killing off the pathogens
Speaker 1: that we actually need to infect our kids so that
Speaker 1: their bodies can recognize a good invader from a bad
Speaker 1: invader and they won't develop allergic reactions later on. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: today we now know that the hygiene hypothesis wasn't quite right.
Speaker 1: It's been It's not like they threw it all out,
Speaker 1: but it's been revised and and it's a lot smarter now,
Speaker 1: and they're the basic theory now is is that what's
Speaker 1: missing it's not necessarily a hygiene thing, but it's nature.
Speaker 1: And they have a name for it, which is very cute,
Speaker 1: the old Friends theory, and this is introduced by a
Speaker 1: fellow name Graham Rook in his Colleagues and two thousand three,
Speaker 1: and this basically theorizes that exposure to these harmless microbes,
Speaker 1: not the pathogens or what's going to protect you from
Speaker 1: allergy sensitization. So, uh, kids playing in the dirt and
Speaker 1: kids getting looked in the face by a dog in
Speaker 1: the years one through three and four is actually a
Speaker 1: really good thing. Doesn't mean you shouldn't wash your hands
Speaker 1: after you poop or just let that chicken, pull that
Speaker 1: raw chicken off the counter and don't sweat it. You
Speaker 1: should still practice um basic hygienes. But kids being inside
Speaker 1: all the time and not being exposed to nature like
Speaker 1: they were for hundreds of thousands of years is the
Speaker 1: sort of the problem, right, And it's part of the problem.
Speaker 1: Why this is why why it was easy before and
Speaker 1: not now, is because they're saying, um, yes, do wash
Speaker 1: your hands, but not all the time. So what they've
Speaker 1: identified is those pathogens that they originally thought we were killing,
Speaker 1: and um, it was having a detrimental effect on us.
Speaker 1: The opposite is true. They found that we really should
Speaker 1: keep washing our hands and killing off things like the
Speaker 1: stuff you get from chicken juice, raw chicken and coop
Speaker 1: and like infectious disease. We need to keep fighting that
Speaker 1: like we are. It's actually a huge benefit we need
Speaker 1: to keep, like getting vaccinated. We need to um defend
Speaker 1: against colds and the flu and all this stuff like
Speaker 1: that is something we want to keep it pay not
Speaker 1: exposed kids to that. We found the opposite is true. Actually,
Speaker 1: exposure to things like colds and flues and measles in
Speaker 1: childhood actually increases the likelihood of developing allergies later in life,
Speaker 1: which is the opposite of the original hygiene hypothesis. But
Speaker 1: what they found is so we need to keep defending
Speaker 1: against those infectious pathogens, but we need to up our
Speaker 1: exposure to those friendly microbes, the ones friends, the ones
Speaker 1: we the old friends that our bodies co evolved with
Speaker 1: over these hundreds of thousands or millions of years, and
Speaker 1: that we've realized now just beginning to realize, uh, make
Speaker 1: up a symbiotic relationship with us, or at the very
Speaker 1: least some sort of relationship. We depend on them, and
Speaker 1: by not being exposed to as many microbes as we
Speaker 1: were in decades past before everybody got obsessed with being clean. Um,
Speaker 1: we are. Immune systems are not functioning properly, whether it's
Speaker 1: they're not being trained early on enough or they're just
Speaker 1: not being exposed to the right kind of microbes that
Speaker 1: form colonies like in our gut or on our bodies somewhere. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And what's really, um, sort of the newest uh concern
Speaker 1: as the rise in food allergies. Um, it's really like
Speaker 1: you grew up in the seventies and eighties, do you
Speaker 1: ever remember peanut allergies being a thing? Zero? I knew
Speaker 1: zero kids who had peanut Yeah. I mean we just
Speaker 1: like slathered ourselves in peanut butter growing up constantly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a trend. Yeah, it exploded in the West
Speaker 1: in the in the nineties and it continues to rise.
Speaker 1: They're calling it the second wave of allergy, the second epidemic. Basically,
Speaker 1: one in ten kids in the developed world have food allergies.
Speaker 1: That is nuts. And that's just in the developed world.
Speaker 1: I think in America. It's in America, it's yeah, one
Speaker 1: in five has a food allergy in America. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like serious allergy sometimes like I have a friend whose
Speaker 1: sisters son is. I mean, this kid's allergic to everything
Speaker 1: you could imagine. And it's not like that's the outlier.
Speaker 1: Like you hear about more and more cases like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one in five kids has a food allergy G And
Speaker 1: like again, in the eighties, there was no such thing
Speaker 1: as a peanut allergy basically, I mean, they were, but
Speaker 1: it was just vanishingly rare. Yeah, And it's not like
Speaker 1: we didn't we just didn't know what to call it
Speaker 1: back then. A kid would peanut and drop dead. We
Speaker 1: call the balloon faced syndrome. God, that's terrible, but uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a real thing that's happening. Food allergies are just
Speaker 1: off the charts now compared to how they used to be. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that, like you said, that's the second wave of this.
Speaker 1: And what what they're thinking is going on is kids
Speaker 1: are less exposed to the microbes that we used to
Speaker 1: be more exposed to because we're spending more time inside
Speaker 1: because we're using way more disinfectants. And it's good we're
Speaker 1: using the disinfectants because they do kill the pathogens that
Speaker 1: we do want to keep at bay, but they kill indiscriminately,
Speaker 1: so they also kill all the friendly microbes that actually
Speaker 1: perform wonderful benefits for like the healthy functioning of our
Speaker 1: immune system. Yeah, the harmless bacteria that that children need
Speaker 1: to be exposed to and adults. Right, although they do
Speaker 1: think that when you are exposing kids to microbes, or
Speaker 1: when you are being exposed to microbes like you and I, um,
Speaker 1: it's probably not doing a lot for us. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: our immune systems are already developed. It really counts for kids,
Speaker 1: like from birth up to about four years of age,
Speaker 1: because again, that's when your immune system is being trained,
Speaker 1: and if it's being trained by a bunch of friendly
Speaker 1: microbes saying that's okay, blaster, you can kill me, just
Speaker 1: make sure you don't kill any of anyone else like
Speaker 1: me because I'm fine, I'm not gonna do anything to you.
Speaker 1: Then then that is what's creating the healthier immune system
Speaker 1: and lowering the risk of allergies later on. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they recommend you know, getting your kids out in nature,
Speaker 1: let them play in the dirt. Uh. If you can breastfeed,
Speaker 1: then that helps. If you can have a vaginal birth,
Speaker 1: that helps. Although I saw a study that's that showed
Speaker 1: um children born from c set shin were swabbed in
Speaker 1: um vaginal fluid from their mother's birth canal to give
Speaker 1: them like this coating of micrubs like they would have
Speaker 1: gotten from a vaginal birth. So they do that. They
Speaker 1: did it to like four kids in this one study
Speaker 1: and the results were mixed. And then another study found
Speaker 1: six weeks after birth. They this study didn't find any
Speaker 1: difference in um microbial makeup between kids who were born
Speaker 1: vaginally and kids who were born through c section, So
Speaker 1: it might not be as big of an issue as
Speaker 1: we thought. Well, they definitely say to practice target what
Speaker 1: they called targeted hygiene, which, like you were saying, it's
Speaker 1: not like you don't clean up after the raw chickens
Speaker 1: on the counter or wash your hands after you poop,
Speaker 1: but um, get rid of the snotty tissues and wash
Speaker 1: your hands after you do those things and blow your
Speaker 1: nose right, wash your hands after you use the bathroom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but start washing your hands again. Everybody is the key.
Speaker 1: But get out there and play in the dirt too.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's like a kid. Kids should be in nature. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yes, playing the dirt, go out in the woods,
Speaker 1: go for a hike, get your kid a dog, or
Speaker 1: a cat, ye, and let them hug and kiss take
Speaker 1: them to a petting zoo. Like that's like you don't
Speaker 1: have to This is the point. You don't have to
Speaker 1: like attack your kid with the antibacterial spray on their
Speaker 1: hands after they pet goat at the petting zoo. It's
Speaker 1: actually what they're finding is that it's healthy for the
Speaker 1: kid to pet the goat and then eat a sandwich afterward. Seriously, No,
Speaker 1: I know, this is uh, it's all making sense now
Speaker 1: because we have ten goats that live across the street.
Speaker 1: Always had two dogs and two cats in the house,
Speaker 1: except for the brief period where we didn't have the cats,
Speaker 1: and we were very lazy parents and still don't bathe
Speaker 1: our daughter with much regularity every every week or three. No,
Speaker 1: but she uh, she's she's been like take her to
Speaker 1: the doctor sick four times. Yeah. Well, and then hopefully
Speaker 1: it will also mean that as she gets older, she
Speaker 1: is going to be less far less likely to have
Speaker 1: allergies because their immune system so trained. Like Dwayne Wade
Speaker 1: and Gabrielle Union put together, that's a super couple. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've seen their kids, theirs, the oldest son that's about
Speaker 1: to start playing basketball, Brownie. They're transferring to the same
Speaker 1: high school. So Lebron's son and Dwayne Waite cent are
Speaker 1: gonna play basketball. And he looks just like Dwayne Wade,
Speaker 1: does he really? Yeah, has her sleepy eyes. It's like,
Speaker 1: no mistaking whose kid that is. That's very cool. It's
Speaker 1: not the Milkman. No, it's Dwayne Waite unless the milkman
Speaker 1: had sleepy eyes. Who was a basketball player? That was
Speaker 1: the mailman Clive Drexler, Karl Malone. No, Karl Malone was
Speaker 1: a mailman. Clyde Drexler was the glade. That's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. He also is on the just for main commercials.
Speaker 1: Are you watching the finals? Oh yeah, pulling for Toronto
Speaker 1: pretty hard? Who's not. Did you see that map of
Speaker 1: the US and who's pulling for Golden State? And who's pulling?
Speaker 1: Just like the Bay Area and nowhere else. It was
Speaker 1: California and Hawaii and then the rest of the country
Speaker 1: was pulling, pulling for another country. Yeah exactly. Wow, So
Speaker 1: go raptors, That's what I say. If you want to
Speaker 1: know more about the hygiene hypothesis, go back and listen
Speaker 1: to this episode again, because there's real nuance there, and
Speaker 1: I hope we got it all. Maybe we should re
Speaker 1: record this again. Yeah, it's like now, okay, okay, anyway, Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll see what version comes out. And in the meantime,
Speaker 1: it's time for what Chuck Administrating Details. So if you
Speaker 1: don't know what this segment is, if you're new to
Speaker 1: the show, this is the time every few months, let's
Speaker 1: say quarterly, where we give thanks, where we give thanks
Speaker 1: uh to people who have sent as kind gifts over
Speaker 1: the past few months. And for some reason we named
Speaker 1: it administrative Details. I don't even remember any longer. But
Speaker 1: that's that's a pretty good assessment of what we're doing
Speaker 1: right now. Yes, it's a very cold name for a
Speaker 1: very warm segment. So you want to start, Chuck, Sure,
Speaker 1: I'll start it off with a gift of wine. Jeremy
Speaker 1: Nelson sent us wine from Baron Moore. Very nice. Speaking
Speaker 1: of wine, big ups to our buddy Addison Rex dude
Speaker 1: for not just the wine. He once gave me homemade
Speaker 1: olive oil too. Yes, so Addison and Cat live in
Speaker 1: uh California, and Emily and I went and UH had
Speaker 1: a very personal wine to her experience. He has you
Speaker 1: a lot about your life, your fears. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: sent a lot about wine and how it's made. And
Speaker 1: then not only that, but when we went to the
Speaker 1: next wineries, they went with us and we end up
Speaker 1: hanging out all day and they're just great. They're awesome,
Speaker 1: and we have new pals and we're going to see
Speaker 1: him again. And then he went, after a long day
Speaker 1: of that, drove into town. Drove into town to see
Speaker 1: you do End of the World Live, yep. And we
Speaker 1: hung out for a little while after. Didn't go in
Speaker 1: any winery or anything. But he's he is now a
Speaker 1: friend too, And if you want to find out he's
Speaker 1: got I did me cat, but I'm going to take
Speaker 1: your word for it. But if you want to find
Speaker 1: out about the wines we're talking about, his label is
Speaker 1: Jurassic Wines because his name is Addison Rex, so he
Speaker 1: sounds like a dinosaur, but Jurassic like the movie. Yes,
Speaker 1: minus the park plus wine. That's right, Jurassic Wine. Thanks guys, yep,
Speaker 1: you're the best. Can't wait to see you again. So
Speaker 1: Julie Mullins from The Onion, remember back in the day
Speaker 1: we had our o G Onion pals. We used to
Speaker 1: be big time at The Onion did. They moved to
Speaker 1: Chicago and we have new Onion pals now, Julie Mullins
Speaker 1: and this the Onion Daily Counter Counter Daily Calendar and
Speaker 1: she is an mg f X artist at the Onion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot um. How about this? This one is
Speaker 1: a long time coming. Do you remember our Phoenix show
Speaker 1: like fifty years ago? I quite enjoyed that October maybe
Speaker 1: one of the two. Yeah, well, at that show or
Speaker 1: maybe the same as Salt Lake City show. I think
Speaker 1: it was Sally one of those two shows. U our
Speaker 1: friend Kathy Cathy with Kay Tosh gave us each alasso.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right, like a real bona fide get
Speaker 1: over here cow that was. I'm pretty sure I think
Speaker 1: it was Salt Lake City. I can't remember for life me. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Kathy right in and let us know how you're doing
Speaker 1: and what show it was. But thank you for the last.
Speaker 1: She also said, yeah, just go on to YouTube and
Speaker 1: you can learn how to do it, which I have
Speaker 1: yet to do. But I haven't either, but it's hanging
Speaker 1: in my closet. It looks very cool there, doesn't It
Speaker 1: does look very cool? Yeah? Thanks Kathy with the Kay
Speaker 1: so our friend at Joe Barrett sent us his book
Speaker 1: and it's called Managed Care. I have been able to
Speaker 1: read it yet, but it's on the it's on the
Speaker 1: stack on the desk, so check out he Managed Care
Speaker 1: by Joe Barrett. Speaking of books, there's a guy named
Speaker 1: Thomas ramj Ram g great last name, looks wise, but
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it. He wrote
Speaker 1: a book called Who's Afraid of a I, which I
Speaker 1: cannot wait to read. Yes it is, and it's like
Speaker 1: cooking it up and it just says Josh, it says
Speaker 1: you in Yeah, it's got just a picture of a
Speaker 1: robot holding my hand. Um, but thanks a lot Thomas
Speaker 1: Ram's book, Who's Afraid of a I go check it out,
Speaker 1: earl pal Dustin Bowens. And it's a three D printing
Speaker 1: of our stuff you should know logo, which sits atop
Speaker 1: my desk right now. Very awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Huge,
Speaker 1: huge thanks to our old pal Don Kubi for the
Speaker 1: floral photography canvases and um yeah Kube's photography is just
Speaker 1: out of this world. Yeah she's really talented. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: almost nay, exactly as good as Aaron Cooper's photography and
Speaker 1: um she sells her stuff on her site don kubi
Speaker 1: k d A W N k U b I E
Speaker 1: dot com. You know, before I did the We Know
Speaker 1: His parenting live in Brooklyn recently and Emily and I
Speaker 1: both went for a little quick in New York trip.
Speaker 1: We went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and the Freed
Speaker 1: to Calo exhibit at the Museum m We're walking around
Speaker 1: Batanica cill Gardens. Who wanders up but don Koby, Oh
Speaker 1: really yep. She's like, Oh, I just happened to be falling.
Speaker 1: I mean I just happened to be here as well.
Speaker 1: Now we had a nice little chat. She was taking
Speaker 1: photos and she came to the We Know show, That's
Speaker 1: why she was there. She's great, She's very easy to
Speaker 1: talk to. Serendipity. Who else Sheina and Ben send us
Speaker 1: a wedding invitation their wedding in Burbank, And we've gotten
Speaker 1: a few of these lately, along with invitations to officiate.
Speaker 1: But they've all lined up against either live shows, butted
Speaker 1: up against live shows or other travel plans, so I
Speaker 1: have not been able to do that. No, Plus, we'd
Speaker 1: have to get ordained. Are you ordained? No? Okay, but
Speaker 1: I'll do that in five minutes. Week. Um Brad Topless
Speaker 1: sent us a box of Runes r O n s
Speaker 1: which is short for macarons, which his wife makes Runes
Speaker 1: as his wife's company. And they're amazing. I can attest
Speaker 1: and you can get them at eat Runes dot com.
Speaker 1: E a t r o o n s com alright,
Speaker 1: ar Old pal Steven Brightman send us poopy pockets for
Speaker 1: our dogs. Uh this cool little invention. It's a two
Speaker 1: in one poop bag dispenser and poop a pocket for
Speaker 1: the poop and it's a veteran owned business. So big
Speaker 1: thanks to Stephen Brightman for the poopy pockets. Nice going, Stephen.
Speaker 1: Um Mark Kicks sent us you know those Simpson theme
Speaker 1: journals and drawn Simpson's journals. Those are from Mark Kicks.
Speaker 1: And thank you very much, Mark, because I think we
Speaker 1: forgot to thank him last time and he he wrote
Speaker 1: it was like dude, I was like, I'm sorry. Ar
Speaker 1: Old pal Itan Newton from Baltimore, the Baltimore Spirits Company
Speaker 1: send us their shot tower barrel gin and their bat lamarrow,
Speaker 1: which is what does that explain with tomorrow? Ye oh man,
Speaker 1: it's so good. Good, Yes, heat to it. Everything that
Speaker 1: they make is really really good. Yeah, I can't remember
Speaker 1: the name of it. He's all also send us like
Speaker 1: mescal made from smoked apples. It's just the bomb. What
Speaker 1: kind of black magic are they doing in Baltimore. They're
Speaker 1: doing some good stuff up there, all right, support the
Speaker 1: Baltimore Spirits Company and eating it and everyone. They're getting
Speaker 1: creative with their spirits. So that's we're We're going to
Speaker 1: leave it at that. We'll do the rest next episode
Speaker 1: about that. It sounds great. Well, thanks a lot for
Speaker 1: joining us. If you want to send us something, we're
Speaker 1: always down with that, you can find us on social
Speaker 1: Just go to stuff you Should Know dot com and
Speaker 1: you'll find all of our links there, and you can
Speaker 1: also send us an email to stuff podcast at I
Speaker 1: heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.