Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Can I Use My Own Tears as Saline?

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

We're bringing the heat with listeners' weird medical questions! Are the hot parts of the body the only Sweaty parts? Is spicy food spicier some days more than others? Is there any benefits to extra things in glasses lenses? And if your stomach can expand, why not your bladder?Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/Immigrant Defenders Law Center: https://www.immdef.org/

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, this one is about some books. One, two, one, of misguided medicine. For the mouth. Oh, he's been.

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Sawbones, marital tour of Misguided Medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. And I'm so excited to be back with you. Apologies for missing and not being with you last week. Hello, I'm here. He's back.

As everybody, you know, people, honey, if they can't get their Justin fix for even a few days, they go absolutely gaga. I feel that way. Well, that's kind of you, sweetheart. Thank you. I'm very sad when we're apart. Me too, but not right now.

We're happy, we're together, and we are answering your medical questions. It's one of my favorite kinds of episodes. So Sydney, I have these questions our listeners have sent in. If you ever have a medical query that you'd like us to take a crack at in a non-binding way,

in a for entertainment purposes only way. Yeah, this is just for infotainment. Infotainment. This is for fun. Pop side. I'm not giving. It's just pop side. I don't give medical advice and I try to stay away if it's like a very specific like diagnose me question,

I probably won't tackle that because I might do a bad job and that would be terrible for both of us. All right, here is a question from Mark. Good one, good one to start out with. If you're only hot on one part of your body, do you sweat only on that part of the body or do you sweat all over?

Now, Mark, I will say this. You probably could've gotten an answer to this with some testing and then reported your findings to us. To save us the trouble, you could've conducted this science on your own. But I will ask Sydney what the community says. While I may have- We were awarded self-experimentation

with exposure on this show all the time, Sydney. Yeah, but no, I do it myself or you do it. I don't encourage. No, I mean, historically speaking too. We've celebrated lots of heroes that have used, donated their bodies to science. Mark, maybe just get part of your, just get one of your pits hot, Mark.

And see what happens. See what happens. I do not encourage self experimentation. I may celebrate it and I might do it, but I do not encourage it. We need a new Salmon's t-shirt that says, celebration is not encouragement. Some people have learned some great things about science

through self-experimentation, but that doesn't mean I'm telling you to. I will say it seems like a fairly harmless experiment if you're just like, I don't know, it's hot outside, so I'm going to stand in the doorway and just stick my arm out until my arm's hot and then see what sweats. So you're going to sweat. See what sweats?

See what sweats. You're going to sweat all over if you're hot. I mean, if you're hot enough that your body needs to employ the mechanism of sweating for thermoregulation, then you just sweat. Not from the part that's hot, because it's a brain thing, right? Your brain is triggering this reaction because it's a way of regulating your temperature, yeah. Because all that water gets on your skin,

sweat's mostly water, gets on your skin, and then it evaporates and it cools you. So it's a cooling technique that your body is using. I thought this was very relevant because we just did outdoor theater and people were generating so much sweat that it was shorting out the mics. Yeah, yes.

Did you know that was possible? I didn't know that was possible. We were generating a lot of people liquid at that theater. Like you could have juiced them like a violet Beauregard. It made me on a side note, do you know the maximum sweat rate of an adult? No, gosh I wouldn't even know what the metric would be for that the maximum sweat rate of an adult is up to a gallon per hour That's not that's not nothing. That's two. It's four liters

For everyone outside of the US you think about that and then you wonder how much sap is in a tree That's that can be up to 14 liters or 3.5 gallons a day. Now, okay, I will say- I'm not saying like that's how much everyone sweats, but it could be up to that much sweat in a day. Can I make an anecdotal point? Yes. If you are in a situation where part of your body

is getting hotter, right, and the other part isn't, like is not, that part of your body is also not exposed to air, it is trapped, right? So you probably have much, you would probably from an experiential standpoint have much more of a sense of that part of your body being wet, because the other part of your body would be able to evaporate. So like that, you can't do the cooling thing

that you're talking about with the sweat evaporating,. So like, you can't do the cooling thing that you're talking about with the sweat evaporating, cooling your body. You can't do that when it's trapped, right? So that's why, like your pits, for example, part of the reason that's so notable is because that sweat can't get anywhere, right? That's true.

So in a hotter part of your body, like you're lying on the side of the bed or whatever, it is gonna be sweatier just because it can't evaporate. I guess, so I guess like observationally, it would seem like only that part's sweating. Yeah, I'm saying, yeah, it might seem like that. It may seem like sweatier, but because it can't. Yeah, even though sweating is just, yeah.

It's an all over. And I mean, obviously we all have, everybody has different like, I don't know, densities of sweat glands in different places maybe, and so some people sweat more in their armpits or I don't know, like running down their face. You know, I mean, we're all different. Everybody's different. Some people sweat more than others.

I'm not a particularly big sweater myself. Now, Sydney, the second question here, thank you, Mark. And the second question here, I think there might be a typographical error in the first sentence because it says, why am I more tolerant to some days but not others? And Max, can I just say, I hear you. Can I say, Max, I am with you. I don't know what your question is actually about, but I am more tolerant to some days, but not others 100%. Has to do with spicy food. Okay. Yeah, capsaicin is what we're getting to.

Max frequently gets the same ready-made chana masala, and sometimes it has me down for the count, and other times it's perfectly tolerable. So what I would say say I thought this was interesting because there there isn't necessarily Like a different You're not gonna have days where your cap stasis receptors would be necessarily like more of them or you'd be more sensitive You know what I mean? Like that that part doesn't change You can over time like sort of build up a tolerance.

There could also just be different amounts. Capsaicin in a specific pepper type is like, there's a predictable range, but there's not like, unless you test each individual pepper, you don't know exactly how much is in there, right? And so like, if we're talking about a certain kind of hot pepper that has capsaicin, which is the stuff that makes it spicy,

if you've got a serrano, there's a range of what that Scoville unit is gonna be, right? Not a definitive number. So it could just be that sometimes your chana masala is spicier than it is other times. Or maybe like shishitos, that's one of nature's favorite jokes. I love those, that's hysterical.

Like one out of every 30, right, is hot? That's great, that's so funny. That's great, I grow shishitos and we play shishito roulette here where we cook up a big thing of them and then collectively as a family we sit there eating shishitos. Oh my God, last night we made a spice bag

with some shishitos that Sydney had grown herself, and I made the chips in the fryer. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, this spice bag. I've been evolving my spice bag mix to now, I couldn't even replicate it if I wanted to. That's how down. It's so good though. And my curry sauce was good last night.

Oh gosh, it was a good curry sauce then anyway Well, what I was gonna say is I thought it was interesting. I was reading more about Eating spicy food there are other like how tolerant you are to spicy food. There's cultural factors There's psychological factors. There is like we build up a lot of Belief around spicy food too That's part of it like it's tied in with being like tough or risk taking sometimes. The idea that like people who are more risk taking,

they've actually studied this to see like, can you tie in eating spicy food with, you know, I like to jump out of airplanes. You know what I mean? Like is that sort of risk taking, adrenaline seeking and not necessarily, they said it's different. People who eat spicy foods are sensation seeking, which is a whole other kind of risk taking.

They just wanna feel. Yeah. They just wanna feel some. Well, and it doesn't necessarily tie in with like engaging in like dangerous sporting activities or something like that, I don't know. It's not like how you like wasabi, right? You just don't like how the hot hangs with you for so long.

Yes. And makes your tom tom hurt. And those are different receptors. I also don't know off the top of my head what these would be, but I also know that there are foods that can worsen the feeling of capsaicin. There's certain things that dull it, obviously, and I know there's other things that heighten it

I I have no I remember hearing like alcohol for one can be a bad choice for like a spicy food because it can make it Like which you know that might also answer the chauna masala question. Maybe What you're eating with the chauna masala may or drinking or whatever, you know Whatever other things you're putting in your body at that moment could change your sensitivity to it. But it is a multifactorial experience. It is not as simple as the capsaicin binds to the receptor and we have a predictable uniform response. Every human experiences it a little differently depending on your own sensation seeking kind

of ability. It can be tied to sort of like a kind of macho thing. Like there's, I think there's like a masculinity tied in some areas to eating spicy things. And so tolerance can be because you feel it has to be, you know, I mean, like it's a really, it's fascinating if you read about spicy food and humans. Or there's the observer. Let's not forget about the observer who in his senses, because of his presence from the other dimension,

his senses were different in our world, and he needed the extreme spicy flavors to even taste it, as played by Huntington's own Michael Cerveris. Hi, Michael. I'm sure he's a fan. That's fascinating. I'm sure he listens. I'm sure he does. I'm sure he does. P.S., do you want to get Nawab for lunch?

Because now I've been talking about Chana Masala so much that I'm sure he does. P.S., do you want to get Nawab for lunch? Because now I've been talking about Chana Masala so much that I definitely, definitely want Chana Masala from Nawab. Absolutely, absolutely I do. So Justin, the last interesting note I wanna make about capsaicin, there's only one other animal, other than the human animal, that seems to seek out like capsaicin.

What's that? That's a tree shrew, which has been observed to also eat increasingly spicy foods. Go figure. I know, us and tree shrews. All right, next up, my weird medical question is, if your stomach and intestines can expand and grow in capacity from chronic over stuffing and the like,

why doesn't the bladder do the same thing? Perhaps it does, and we're just unaware. I'd love to train my bladder volume to increase for the reasons you'd expect. Is the limiting factor that the sphincter holding in your pee would give in long before the actual bladder tissue starts stretching, or is it too restrained inside the pelvis?

Thanks from an increasingly frequent peer, not peer, peer and cautious hydrator. And that's K Wolf from Ireland. So you can train your bladder. That's actually what it's called, bladder training. Nice. You can, now, I mean, and I say this with like, there are definitely some people who have overactive bladder would be like the common term for it. Meaning that they pee more frequently than average humans do.

I don't want to brag, but I pee quite a bit. You do pee a lot. You can, there are techniques, and you can read about them. A number of medical websites can give you advice. Actually, I would probably talk to a provider if you're really interested in this, because there is a Too Far,

so if you hold it for too long, you can overstretch your bladder, and that can result in a loss of bladder tone, and that can result in like a loss of like bladder tone, and that can be hard to then empty, and we have to like fix that, like then we have to retrain your bladder to not be so stretched. It can get too stretched out and floppy, and then it doesn't empty properly after that. So it is not a good idea to just drink as much as you can, hold it for as long as you can, and see what happens.

That's not a good idea. The sphincter is not going to give out, but you can damage your bladder that way. So it's important that if you're trying to train your bladder, which is much less exciting than training your dragon, I feel like. It just is dangerous. If you wanna train your bladder, that you are trying to increase the length of time

between pees gradually, like drinks, don't go pee the second you feel it, but like give yourself another 10 minutes and then, you know what I mean? Like there are techniques like that. So I've been doing the opposite of this, I fear. I think that maybe I've trained my bladder to be hyper aware for any opportunity to use the bathroom.

My bladder has become hydrophobic to an extent that would rival diatomaceous clay. I mean, any scrap of moisture there is gonna send me right to the bathroom. I am on full alert at all times. I would say that if your concern is I pee too much and it's taking up too much of my time or it's inconvenient or you can't always find a bathroom

or whatever, and you are interested in increasing the length of time between your pees, or it's inconvenient or you can't always find a bathroom or whatever and you are interested in increasing the length of time between your P's, I would not recommend going to the bathroom. Even if you're like, I don't really have to go, but I'll try anyway. That's the, although ma'am, we say that to our kids every time we're at a gas station.

Here's my question for you. Why is a horrible rash an option as an immune response? I am super allergic to poison ivy. I know most people are, but I get it really easily for some reason. And the rash is a total nightmare every time. I understand the body's immune response to other things serves a purpose. So this is the question from Jasper here.

Why a rash? Why a rash? So it's interesting because it's part of the broader question that we still don't have a definitive answer to, which is why allergies? Why are allergies? There's a lot of theories,

we've talked about them before on the show, there's the hygiene hypothesis that allergies are increasing because we're too clean, but that doesn't really answer why we have allergies in the first place. There's a toxic kind of theory that like, it's to help us avoid toxins, this allergic thing we've developed.

There are theories that have to do with parasites that it stems from like, when we used to have parasites in us much more frequently, and this was our response. It's the same sort of pathway. The immune response to a parasite is very similar to an allergic response. So did it develop from how we used to always have parasites in us? We don't really know. There's lots of theories, there's evidence for different ones. But one way or the other, the reason we have the symptoms we have from an allergy, we believe, is to show us that there was something dangerous. So we want, your body is doing something that you will observe, that you will know is happening very clearly to tell you, ah, that was bad. Whatever you just put in me is bad.

Now, when it's an allergic response, it might not be bad, right? Like, cause you could have that response to a peanut and in me is bad. Now, when it's an allergic response, it might not be bad, right? Like, cause you could have that response to a peanut and that's not bad. Poison ivy isn't inherently bad, right? You're just reacting to it. So like an allergic response is not always helpful, but that is where it comes from is your body thinks

you have ingested or come in contact with a dangerous substance. And so it is sending you signs, watch out, danger. And you have to imagine from an evolutionary perspective, since we are social animals, it is helpful to other people if you have a rash. Because what it says is, I don't know what you just ate, but look at you. And so I'm not going to eat what you just ate because look but you. But look at you, and so I'm not gonna eat what you just ate, because look at you. You could also make the argument that if you have a top,

like a, not topical, that's not the term I'm thinking of, like a outside. Topical, that's on the skin. A topical reaction to something, you may save yourself from ingesting it. Mm-hmm. You know, like maybe if you eat the rash, Exactly.

And it's like, oh gosh, I shouldn't put that in my human body. Yeah, so that is the, it is to be demonstrable so that you know there's a problem, and perhaps so that creatures around you also know there's a problem. Yeah. Justin, I think before we tackle our next question,

we need to head to the billing department. Okay, well let's go. The medicines, the medicines that escalate my cough for the mouth. I've been getting the same $15 pair of glasses every time I update my script for my entire adult life. I'm not a bells and whistles person. I always thought all those little extras were just an excuse to upcharge you or to make you feel rich and fancy.

But are there any merits to glasses extras? Things like transition lenses, blue light blocking, or the new UV blocking. Do they work any better than regular sunglasses? Or infrared blocking, which sounds deeply fake. Am I taking worse care of my eyes by only buying two lenses in plastic and my base script and nothing else that's from blind possibilities in southeastern Ohio?

Now, Justin, I know you have very strong feelings on blue light blocking. I don't have strong feelings, I have science. There definitely are some benefits to different kinds of, I guess, fancy lenses, so to speak, just to kind of take them one at a time. And that doesn't mean that you necessarily need all these things, right?

It kind of depends on your lifestyles, your job, your habits, your everything else you do, right? Like, Justin wears blue light blocking glasses because he spends lots of time in front of screens I strain I used to get headaches a lot when I was looking at the screen, but now I Prevent some of that with with blue light blocking which there is science to support that if you are someone who spends a lot of Time looking at screens there can be damage to your eyes that results from that and so blue light blocking could be Beneficial to you now if you don't ever look at screens, I don't know what the point would be.

It's also why your screen does the sort of night shift mode or shifts into a different color spectrum because you do not want the blue light like before you're going to bed because it's not only is admitted by a smartphone or whatever it's the same spectrum is admitted by the sun. I don't do that because I don't like it. You say it again? My phone doesn't do that because I turned it all off. smartphone, whatever, it's the same, like spectrum is emitted by the sun. I don't do that, because I don't like it. You say again?

My phone doesn't do that, because I turned it all off. Yes, you turned it all off. But the other things, I will say like transition lenses, for instance, can be, I would say are more of a convenience, if you like the idea that if you wear your glasses a ton, and you like that they turn into sunglasses when you go outside, but not, you know what I mean? Like I wear contacts all the time, so for me it wouldn't necessarily be very helpful.

What else? UV blocking. So I had never been upsold on UV blocking, so I looked into it. If sunglasses are appropriately made, they do the same thing. So I mean, it's your glasses doing what sunglasses do. So if you're out in the sun, they will block your light from UV rays, just like sunglasses will, assuming that you're buying appropriate sunglasses.

So not necessarily better, just sort of like another option of that. The infrared blocking, man, I was really trying to dig into this. That's what Rowdy Roddy Popper wears and they live that lets him see all the zombies. It's the infrared blocking glasses. I was trying to think, I had this moment of like,

when am I coming into contact with a lot of infrared light? Other than like the sun, I mean, the sun is infrared radiation. But like, do we need infrared blocking? And listen, if you got to connect in your home, it's just blasting you with IR waves all the time. You're getting blasted with IR constantly. But not to a degree that it would be damaging to you. No, of course not. No, no, I didn't do that.

There are places where you might work in your job or industrial situations where you could come in contact with very strong infrared light, radiation. And then certainly, I imagine there's a lot of important gear to wear in those situations beyond glasses. But the sources of infrared light that we come into contact with just on a regular daily basis, I couldn't find good evidence that we need to be blocking them. Yeah, but the blue blocking ones you feel good about

and you think look cool. Yeah, I will say the next time I'm at my eye doctor, I'm gonna ask about the infrared, because that was a new one. I've heard of all this other stuff. I understand the value. And I mean, I think it's just a personal choice. Do you want this stuff or not, depending on your lifestyle?

But the infrared blocking, that was a weird one. And I couldn't find like a definitive answer from an actual ophthalmologist or optometrist or someone who would know online. So I'm gonna ask my eye doctor next time I go. Here's my question. If I dropped you Sydney into medieval Europe, what would you put in your first aid kit? That's from Pink Plague Nurse Club in Southeast Ohio.

Our second Southeast Ohio contribution in as many questions. You know what's tough is that as I thought about this question, because it's a fun exercise to think about, like am I being dropped like from out of time? No. Like, can I bring stuff from now? I think so, because I don't think it's realistic to expect you to know what medical technology you have on hand then,

because you wouldn't necessarily be better equipped. Like, if you had to fill a first aid kit, I mean, would it be any different? Well, I mean, I guess if I'm being dropped into medieval Europe, I would want to bring antibiotics that cure the plague, and then I would be like a hero. Then I could rule Europe basically, right? So you would go back with despotic intent.

No. You would wanna reshape the world of the European nations. No, I don't really wanna rule. what I mean is like everybody would like me Everybody already like so what's it? Time and abandon me. I mean if I was going back to that time period like stuff that would be the most impactful You know some like is it for my son and some penicillin? I'd cure everybody syphilis You have to know how do you have the know-how, do you have the know-how to say like,

all right, you medieval dumb-dumbs figured out booze production, take my hand, I'm going to walk you to antibacterial, like I'm gonna like take you there. Like the T.O.'s people did it during COVID, we're gonna figure it out. We're gonna make antibacterial Antibiotics, I don't know that I could make I mean I

Took chemistry classes, but I don't think I could formulate pharmaceuticals on my own. I was not trained to do that Would you you're not going back saying I'm taking I'm well, I'm going back in time. I'm gonna take it with me I'm gonna take all these antibiotics I'm gonna take a book about how to make more antibiotics is what I would recommend. What time exactly is it? Do we have microscopes yet? Because I could take back a microscope and really-

It's 8.30 in the morning, so you need coffee. I could really impress people. But I feel like the things that would make a major difference would be water purification tablets. If I could share the idea of clean water, of washing hands. Like those are the things that would transform medical care at that time is like sanitation.

For a week though, you gotta stop relying on these tablets and these kids. You gotta learn how to make like these things from bare essentials. You gotta figure out how to get, you're gonna use water purification tablets. They're gonna celebrate you as their new queen for a week.

And then they're gonna be like, purify some more water, oh, oh, witchress, you know, warlock, whatever. And you're like, didn't bring enough tabs, sorry. And they're like, did you bring a book about making more tabs? You're like, that would have made, actually. Dang it, yeah, shoot.

But that, I mean, those are the things like for first aid, I mean, I imagine there are lots of the similar, lots of injuries that we would face today. So if we're talking about like out in the field, first aid cuts and bruises and things, like. Okay, the number one thing that you should put in your. A tourniquet would be big, that would save a lot of lives. Here's what I'll tell you,

the number one thing you should put in your first aid kit, multi-tool. I'm serious, there's a lot of lives. Here's what I'll tell you. The number one thing you should put in your first aid kit, multi-tool. I'm serious. There's a lot of tools that we will not have developed for a century, if not millennia at this point, right? It'd be thousands of years before we come up with pliers. Tens of thousands, maybe. So if you have a multi-tool, you can go back

and you can really throw them on their head. You're gonna show them scissors, they're going to flip, you know what I mean? Like we're gonna- Do you know when scissors were invented? Like 150 years ago, like British people probably or something. You have no idea. Right, fine. No, I mean, I think like it's weird

because if you really wanted to make the biggest impact- They didn't have Phillips heads. You'd focus on sanitation. Those are the things we didn't have. But if you're talking like pie in the sky, can I bring on my antibiotic? Can I bring vaccines? They didn't have Phillips heads. You'd focus on sanitation. Those are the things we didn't have. But if you're talking like pie in the sky, can I bring on my antibiotic? Can I bring vaccines?

Can I show people vaccines in Middle Europe? Okay, they date back to, they okay, okay, okay. You know, like that would be very exciting. Okay, they date back to 1500 BC. But like Phillips heads. I figured scissors are pretty old. If you had pliers, like if you had a hex, if you had a hex nut driver. You go back in time.

Here's another question. So hi, Sydney and Justin. I got my ears pierced a few weeks ago. And one of the things to take care of my piercings is to clean them with saline, not disinfectant. I have two questions. One, why not disinfectant? And two, I cry a lot.

Would it be possible to use human tears as a saline solution, either for cleaning piercings or something else, assuming they didn't get gunky from running down your face? Thanks, D. D to completely normal question. The two most obvious questions that would spring to anyone's mind.

Why not disinfect it and can I use my tears? I chimed in with them. I'm sure. One of them were gothy mouse, thank you. So the why not disinfectant was a little easier. Generally speaking, I think we all tend to overuse things like hydrogen peroxide or even like antibiotic ointments over the counter. We all tend to use those constantly for any kind of open wound for fear of infection and to prevent infection.

And we probably don't need to, we talked about it on a recent episode with antibiotic ointment, there's some evidence that maybe even it's detrimental to constantly put that on wounds as opposed to just like a petroleum jelly. When it comes to other sorts of disinfectants, one of the things I always tell people

about hydrogen peroxide specifically, and I don't know exactly, but if it's an alcohol-based or hydrogen peroxide, something like that, that has a drying element to it, you're actually also damaging the good tissue. So you can slow down healing if you just keep dumping that on a wound day after day after day, whereas all you really need to do to prevent a wound from getting infected most of the time is keep it clean. And so that's why a plain saline solution to just keep it clean should be sufficient. Now certainly if for some reason you come in contact with you know something contaminated or dirty or you're worried that somehow bacteria has gotten into a wound then there may be

a role for a disinfectant. But generally speaking just keep it clean. So the question, could you use saline or could you use human tears as saline solution? I mean, definitely there's saline in there. But I think the other important thing to remember is that there's a lot of other stuff in tears and they're different depending on why you're crying. I love that about tears. So I mean, whether they are like, you're crying because you're sad or you're crying because you're constantly producing tears.

They're not always running down your face, but your eyeballs are wet, right? They should be. We hope. Or are they reflex tears because of something like spicy or something irritated your eye. So like, those are all made up of different things. They have other stuff in them along with,

I mean, the list of stuff that tears contain, mucin and lipids and enzymes and glucose and immunoglobulins and so they got all kinds of other stuff in there that you probably don't need. This is maybe the most important question that we've had on Sopans. I recently discovered fleshable wipes and like using them when I feel like my booty

could use a little cleanliness boost. However, after wrestling with a stomach bug, I'm wondering if there's a downside or even just a limit we should be aware of when using these suckers. Kind of like how we discovered we've overdone with antibiotics and now we have super germs. I'm more curious about the effects this could have on the vagina with all of its wonders and mysteries.

That's from Katie L. in New Hampshire. I think if you're talking about like a standard wipe, there's two things I wanna say. One, if we're talking about like just the regular wipes that don't have any sort of like disinfectants or, cause there are wipes out there specifically aimed at people with vaginas and their whole messaging is, this will make you smell better down there.

And that is not necessary. That is not necessary. The vagina cleans itself. You do not need to do something to it with a wipe to make it smell better or to clean it better. If you're talking about just like your standard flushable wipes, if it just makes you feel cleaner kind of like as a bidet substitute to wipe with something

that has some moisture to it, it's probably not inherently harmful. I mean, I'm assuming you're not inserting them. That would be a whole other thing. But you know, just to like wipe the external area with a wipe. I don't know of any real harm to it. Is it necessary? No, no, not necessarily.

No, I don't think you need to. Don't flush it. Don't flush your wipes. Please. I've been dying. They're not flushable. Don't flush flushable wipes people. It's the biggest lie that, that you've been sold by corporate America. Do't flush flushable wipes, people. It's the biggest lie that you've been sold

by corporate America. Do not flush these frigging wipes, guys. Use them and throw them in the trash can. Don't flush these wipes. And if you have them near the toilet, people are gonna be like, ooh la la, they're gonna use them and they're gonna flush them. Don't leave these bad boys.

I had these in a locked drawer. I had them in a drawer, not locked, I had them in a drawer so I could take them out, because only I knew where they were. Because if I had any in a locked drawer. I had them in a drawer, not locked, I had them in a drawer so I could take them out because only I knew where they were. Because if I had any little freshness, I know I'm not gonna flush it on the toilet. You know what I mean? But I can't have them in plain view.

Because people will flush them. Guys, these things don't flush. They're gonna get stuck in your pipes. They're gonna mess you up bad. I can't curse on saw bones. This is the most I've ever wanted to curse on saw bones. We've talked about it. They create fatbergs.

It's not just fatbergs. It's not just fatbergs. It's like literally in your pipes. Like they will just clog your pipes. Yes. Do not, I know they say they're flushable. They're not. They do not. They do not degrade at a rate

that makes them safe for plumbing. Don't flush flushable. It doesn't matter if you have a septic system. It does not matter. Like it doesn't matter. Nobody should be flushing these things. Like nobody. And anything that's ever like scented

or alcohol-based or drying in any way, I would be very careful using on a sensitive area like your genitalia, just because it could irritate your skin and feel bad. Okay, so we gotta hurry Sydney, but these are important. I recently saw an interview with a doctor who published a study that claims saffron is as effective at SSRIs for treating depression. That's from Sabrina.

I looked through that. I thought it was really interesting. This is an area of research where they are studying whether or not saffron at appropriate doses works as well. And like they've compared it to, I was looking through the different, they've compared it to fluoxetine, also known as Prozac. They've compared it to placebo. They've compared it to imipramine, also known as Prozac. They've compared it to placebo.

They've compared it to imipramine, it's another antidepressant. Anyway, and in some of the studies, they haven't really seen any difference between like the Saffron group or in one like the Sertraline, which is Zoloft group. So there are some out there that have, you know, maybe, maybe it's possible. These are not like the giant studies that you would need to say.

It could be the standard of care. If somebody wants to take saffron in addition to working with a healthcare professional on their mood. I don't see a downside other than the, the one thing that I wondered about all this is the cost of saffron. Yeah, y'all. It's probably cheaper to buy the pills.

Honestly. Well, that's really that was kind of where so saffron supplements. Hold on. I found the prices. There are online retailers who sell it for $120 per ounce, $26 per month is what that would come out to basically. And that's not crazy expensive, $26 per month I guess for a lot of people that, I mean, there are certainly medications out there that cost thousands and thousands of dollars.

So to say that in the pharmaceutical world, $26 a month is wildly outpriced is not fair. And like with anything that's high priced like saffron, people will, even if it's a luxury item, people can continue to charge increasingly insane amounts. They can charge more, it is not regulated the same way medications are, so you don't know if the saffron supplement contains saffron or how much saffron or if it's really, you know, so you can't control that the same way.

And the other thing is like, obviously, saffron is not gonna be covered by your insurance. So if you rely on your insurance to cover the price of your antidepressant, perhaps, you probably are paying less than $26 a month for your antidepressant. I mean, you might not be, but many people are. And so it still may be pricier than what

you're already getting. And if they're equal and you're not having a problem with your antidepressant, I think I would never use switching to a quote unquote natural alternative. It's like it's saffron. It's saffron though. It's like you could switch to a natural alternative that doesn't cost more than gold.

Like literally more than it's like an ounce costs more than an ounce of gold. And it's just, I mean, it is not inherently better because it's saffron. If it works for you, okay mean, it is not inherently better because it's saffron. If it works for you, okay, but it is not inherently better because it wasn't synthesized in a lab. And I think we really have to move away from that.

I recently came across this article, this is our last question. Recently came across this article about a connection between, it's like a 2.25X chance of developing Parkinson's, if you live in the area of a golf course as compared to those living more than six miles away. At first, it seems alarming.

And then I started noticing things like how their study was only 5,500 people in two states and how several variables weren't controlled. So here's my opinion. With studies like this where there seems to be a high association but not an updated proof of causation, how much weight do you put into that? Thanks Ross. So I think it's really important to, one, if you are so inclined to read the whole article

and find out what the authors, what conclusions they would draw from it, because a well-done study will point out its own limitations. It will say at the end, here are the reasons why we can't conclusively say anything. I found the study, they looked at 139 golf courses in southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. There were 419 cases of Parkinson's and 5113 controls, they matched them for age and sex and adjusted for some variables, income and whether the location of the golf course was urban or rural. But they say very clearly they cannot say causation.

Yes, there was this association. The hypothesis is that it has something to do with pesticide exposure from the golf courses. That's why they did this. Because my first question is like, why are they looking at golf courses in Parkinson's? Because they are worried that pesticide used on golf courses could contaminate local groundwater and then drinking water. And there are some links between certain pesticides and Parkinson's and so is a golf course a problem?

The study did not assess lots of other things. Occupation, so what other exposures might these people have? The amount of time they spend there at the golf course or around the golf course. Can you control for whether or not they live near the golf course because they want to play more golf or whether they live near a golf course just because? Just because. Because I think if you're just looking at people who live near a golf course, I bet

there's also a 2.25x chance of them watching blue bloods, you know what I mean? But I don't know we're going to get that in a study. They didn't assess genetic predisposition or other risk factors for Parkinson's. They didn't assess things like head trauma. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that is not included in like matching if you're going to match your control in your variable group that they didn't include. And so I would say we all need to be concerned about contaminated water from pesticides.

We all need to be concerned about- That is a concern. I don't know that golf courses right now would move to the top of the list. Yeah, but they're also an environmental nightmare. So if you're going to do bad science, at least do it in service of taking a swipe at golf courses. You know what I mean? I mean, I think that's fine. So that's a giant field of monoculture

that sucks up water and pesticides. Yeah. I know, I'm, man, we're gonna make golfers mad now. If everybody else is gonna do bad science, why can't we use bad science to get rid of golf courses? And the environmental science is good. The other stuff, I don't know. Hey, thank you so much for listening to our podcast.

We hope you've enjoyed yourself and you've learned a little something. Keep those medical questions coming again, solbones at maximumfund.org. And just put medical questions in the subject line because that's how I search for them. Thanks to the taxpayers for using their song, Medicines as the intro and outro of our program.

Thank you to the Max Fund Network for having us as a part of their extended podcasting family. You know, if you like that theme song, and you'd like to check out more of the taxpayers, you can go to the TaxpayersBand.com. They are out there. They're doing shows. July 29th, they're going to be in Sacramento with Walter Middie and his Make-Shift Orchestra. Wednesday the 30th, they're going to be in San Francisco. 31 30th, gonna be in San Francisco. 31st gonna be in San Jose. So if you check them out,

thetaxpayersband.com slash shows for tickets or whatever. Goodbye stuff, they're great. That's gonna do it for us until next time. My name is Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximum Fun, a workaround network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.