Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Coffee

Episode Date: December 16, 2017

This week on Sawbones, we join you live from Seattle. Seeing as this town took place in the home of Starbucks, we took the opportunity to extoll the many medicinal virtues of coffee. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saw bones 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 All right. Tom is about to books. One, two, one,iscite Admedicine.

I'm your co-hostirl, McElroy. It's fun. How many people wish that we were doing an episode about practical hangover cures? That was a trick. I'm an arc. You're all going to jail. I'm not. Thank you all for coming to 10 a.m. on Sunday. I appreciate you.

We fully rolled up so late that we were walking with people that were coming to the show that were kind of looking at us like, well, wait a minute. A lot. We are not hungover, though, so full disclosure. I mean, I'm not. If you average us out and round down, I count as one and a half now, though, so.

One and three clums. He's got one of those aliens from Alien and Cyber. Basically. So in a way, said though, we are kind of talking about a hangover cure of a sword, if you think about it. That's very true. Whenever we do live shows, we try to connect them to the place we are, something that's relevant to the area, and it's 10 a.m. and many of you may be hungover. So what better topic to talk about in Seattle than coffee? Frazier. Frazier.

When I'm hungover, I like to wake up, but maybe I hear the blues a call and I said, go ahead. Melting away. Can you, can you theorize on the medical applications of Frazier throughout history, please? You learn a lot about psychiatry, because he's a psychiatrist. He annihils both. And,

John Malaney is not on that show. John Malaney is the other guy. John Mahoney, thank you, John. John, if you're here, I'm sorry. OK, coffee instead. Yeah, well done by coffee. That's fine. That's fine.

It's why we haven't done coffee before. I know. I thought it was strange, too. I was trying to think, what could I do, Seattle? Coffee, I've done that before. We haven't. And coffee you may not know has a long medical history as well as like we like to drink it. I feel really bad though. I am and I mean, it's very clear. I am drinking tea as I'm talking about coffee. So I I don't know if I have to apologize. I'm sorry.

No. Tease fine. I can only have 200 milligrams of caffeine a day right now, guys. You're fine. You're fine. Okay. So, thank you. So, coffee probably started out in Ethiopia as far back as a 1000 CE, so a long time ago.

Maybe even predates that. And there's a legend as to how we kind of discovered coffee. And it's one of those that is repeated a lot, but it is a legend. Nobody's really sure that it's true. So. I've heard this actually before said if I could step in someone checked in to a motel room and they looked over and plugged into the outlet was this small machine and they were like um Becky what is the story with this and there

were little toilet paper wrapped around dirt seem to be to them is what they thought and there was little pink and white and yellow packets. I don't honestly, Becky, I do not get any of this. What is happening over here. And then eventually, a few years later, after playing a trial and error with the machine, putting the dirt basically everywhere, eventually, they figured out how to make coffee.

That was the first thing. Thank Becky for coffee. Thank Becky for coffee. No, the legend is that there was a goat herder who noticed that his goats were eating these red berries off this plant and then they were dancing. And they seemed really happy. And he thought, well, I should check those out

because my goats seemed to like it. And so he also tried them and he felt very energized and felt great. And he took him back to the village and was like, everybody's gotta try these berries. They made me feel great. And everybody enjoyed them, especially the monks found that they could finally stay awake during prayer.

That guy must have been the, think about it. He was the only person on the planet on coffee, which is already so next level. And he started his morning watching happy dancing goats. Like, that dude, you do not step to him. And I should say, as I mentioned, this is a legend. I cannot verify that it's true. And it is incredibly similar to the story

of how we discovered horny goatweed. You can, you know, exchange the details as needed. All history is legend with varying degrees of documentation. Whoa. Think about it. Question everything. I thought you were gonna... Think about how far away the moon is. Do we have 15 minutes? Hold on.

As you can see, in 1963. I thought you were just gonna make a joke about goats. I don't know where that was going. Sorry. So... Goats went to the moon, I guess. LAUGHTER No, the truth is totally discoverable.

I just not right now in this case, maybe. So the Ethiopian Galatry would grind up coffee beans and mix them with animal fat once they started using them and they liked them. They would grind them up, mix them with animal fat, and then that would be like an energy snack, you know, fat and coffee. It's kind of like the butter coffee, right? Like this is my same idea.

Sure. Bulletproof, they call it. Yeah, exactly. Bulletproof coffee. Arab traders brought it back to Yemen along the Red Sea in 1100 and it began to grow there and then just kind of spread throughout that area. And they started, that was when we start to see like

taking the beans and instead of just like grinding them up and eating them or chewing on them, you start to see them boiling them and drinking the beverage. So the beginnings of coffee and it was called koa, which means energizing or stimulating. So because you, it was. The idea of actually roasting them and then grinding them up before brewing it

is still really old. It dates back to the 1200s. So we figured that out a really long time ago. And it was often given specifically, it was like this marital duty of a husband kind of that you should be able to prepare the beans and then make coffee and give it to your wife when she was on her period. So it was supposed to eat menstrual discomfort.

So anybody with a period could find relief from it, but specifically it was like this very like, and then I don't know if it's part of your vows and I promise that when you're on your period I will make the coffee. I will make the coffee and give it to you and it was like I mean that that would be grounds for I guess leaving your spells. Damn. If they didn't provide you with adequate coffee. Damn, that's a lot. You still like love. That's like lady from HR mousepad level of loving coffee, right?

Don't even talk to me until I've had. It really makes you question the decision to make me tea this morning. I asked you what you wanted. Hater? Sheesh asked you what you wanted. Hater? Cheese. You've really changed. In addition. If that wasn't incentive enough to make coffee,

it was also thought to be an aphrodisiac. So it was popular. So it was coffee. Ooh, coffee. So it was traded throughout Egypt and Turkey and North Africa. It was highly prized. It was used as currency in some situations. It was very valuable.

I mean, everybody was discovered. Imagine that as everyone tries coffee for the first time. I wish I could go back to that moment. What it's like to try coffee for the first time. And the first coffee shop actually opened all the way back in 1475 in Constantinople. It was called Kiva Han. What was it called? Kiva Han.

Okay. I thought it was going to be Starbucks. You thought what? It was just hoping it would be Starbucks. Not like the same one, but it'd be so funny. Wouldn't that have been funny? Or even so, I would have settled for sound I'd like Starbucks.

Yeah, well, we'll get them next time. It was very tightly regulated as to where it was grown. And if you could take the plant or cuttings from the plants outside of this region of the world because they were growing it and selling it and setting the price pretty high for it. It was very valuable. So the last thing you wanted was somebody smuggling it out somewhere else so that they could

grow it and they wouldn't have to buy it from you. But of course, that's exactly what happened in the 17th century. And that's when we see coffee spread to India. And this is one of the first times where you start to see this. It was already kind of, as I mentioned, being used somewhat medicinally. The stimulant thing is obvious. I mean, it's got caffeine. But it was also being used for menstrual disorders and such. But at this point, you see that in traditional Indian medicine or Ayurvedic medicine, it expands to all kinds of different illnesses.

So asthma and a lot of respiratory diseases, coffee was very popularly used for that. Specific things like whooping cough or the DTs. So if you're withdrawing from alcohol, maybe you just need some coffee. Some fake things like hysterical affections. It's like hysteria. It's not a real thing.

It's not a palpitations. Like when you can feel your heart beating really fast, that's probably not a good deal. Not a good moment for coffee. Of coffee. Collarah and diarrhea in general? Diarrhea, eh? Uh-huh. Mm, it should be quite the afternoon.

Yeah. Which is, that's always one of those things where I read that, and this is, this is not just in traditional Indian medicine. I'll mention this is using coffee for diarrhea was actually not uncommon. And I feel like the first time you tried it, you would go, well, no, that didn't work. Absolutely not.

Go figure. It was used as a diuretic, which it is somewhat, you know, it will make you pee. And specifically in something called dropsy, which could have meant throughout history dropsy could mean different afflictions, but largely we're probably talking about some sort of heart failure or heart disease. So we're talking specifically about heart failure where you accumulate too much fluid, and it's a diuretic that actually isn't too far off. All right, coffee, good job. And it was considered that if there was an outbreak of malaria in your region that you could

drink a cup of coffee and it would protect you. Oh, well that's good. That's malaria sorted. And it was also prescribed for migraine and... You didn't classify. I'm just spreading misinformation. Is that not protecting you from malaria, Sid? No, it doesn't.

Okay, good. Did I need to clarify? No, it doesn't. No. No, I mean, drink coffee. It's fine, but no. Quineine. What you need. Hey, look at you. It's from Out That Lies With Giller Book.

Seeking Sure Ball Things. Not from the episode that we did on malaria. LAUGHTER If I remember, that episode was based loosely on the book, Seeking Sure Ball Things by Let's Pick Up. It was sort of an adaptation. Hmm. No.

No. No. No, yeah, yeah, it was. No, it was kind of based on historical fact and medical fact. The novel, signature. Like a lot of research that I did. The story.

I love that book, too. She did research, too. Well, no, I'm sure she did. I know she did. It's a great book. She checked out, he'd pay book, too. She did research, too. Well, no, I'm sure she did. I know she did. It's a great book. You checked out Eat Pray Love, though. So as the use of coffee continued to spread, it was also the stimulant property of it,

made it highly associated with intellectuals and enhancing your intelligence in general and making you quick-witted. And so it became known as the milk of chess players and thinkers. It's weird to separate those into two groups. Coffee houses were sometimes called penny universities because you could go to a coffee house and pay a penny for a cup of coffee and then you would be a better thinker and more quick-witted

because you drank coffee. I thought it's because I've never been to a coffee shop where I haven't heard someone loudly expounding on something they learned in college recently. You just kind of get that second hand education. I think that still holds true because there are many times where we will go to like the coffee shop in town with the Starbucks.

We'll go Starbucks. I don't know why I'm like hiding the Starbucks. Some say this is the first one ever. Not in Huntington. We got the last one actually. Yeah, the last Starbucks open there. We got like the first one in West Virginia. That's true.

But it was the last one. But if you go there, it's still filled with, like, you can't find anywhere to sit, because of all the college students and the med students. Just do it at 10. So I can be mad at them and say, could you leave? I just want to sit down. So with all these coffee houses, it was spread.

Everybody was a place to gather and think and talk and debate and drink coffee. And it spread to India and Germany and France and the UK and eventually it gets to North America in the 1600s. And as it spreads I should note, everybody's kind of putting their own spin on it as far as how they prepare the coffee, which really doesn't matter from a medicinal standpoint, but that's why you get kind of different regional ways to prepare and brew coffee and that kind of thing. In the US, part of the reason coffee really caught on, because everybody's drinking tea when coffee got here, was a patriotic duty.

We're not going to drink tea anymore because we threw it in the harbor and we're mad. We lost all of it, we don't have any moon more. Does anybody have any good ideas? So instead, we all started drinking coffee. And there you go. Madness is for medicines that ask you make my coffee for the mouth. It got to another place, though, that it took big,

like had a big medicinal footprint was in China. In the late 1800s, it became, they started to grow it in China, and obviously there was already a very heavy tea drinking culture in China. But coffee began to be used in the traditional Chinese medicine system because it is an herb, so to speak, and it is an herb. And it began to be used as various things, especially for like your liver.

That was the biggest use of coffee in the traditional Chinese medical system was to kind of cleanse and purify your liver and allow things to flow through it better. That and then specifically your gall bladder, it was thought that coffee could prevent gallstones, so that was a good reason to drink it. It was also thought to fight constipation. Yeah.

Yeah. Which, again, we're now on the right side. And again, they noticed that it was good for a diuretic. Now, one thing that was noticed, that it was a tonic for the spleen, but this was like a point of contention because it was much tonic for the spleen, but this was like a point of contention because it was much better purifying the liver than it was being a tonic for the spleen.

So it could like cleanse and clean out your liver and allow all this stuff to flow from your liver through your spleen was the way there. This was their understanding of how everything moved. And then it would get to the spleen, but it wasn't a strong tonic for your spleen, so your spleen couldn't handle it, and then your tummy would get upset.

Which I think was the way I had it. So what do I do? If you drink a lot of coffee, your tummy gets upset. Oh, because of the spleen. Yes, but no. But that was kind of the theory, honestly. You had to be very careful. You had to have a lot of, this was,

you had to go to a practitioner and actually find out how strong is your liver, how strong is your spleen, how much tonic do I need, and how much do I need this detox fine agent. I mean, it was more complicated than just everybody drink coffee. Okay. Okay, so you're ready. I'm ready. I'm ready. I got it.

The thing that was one thing that's really interesting about coffee though is at this point and prior to that in history is that coffee and to some extent, you could make this same argument for tea and for chocolate, were really instrumental in helping to disrupt the humoral system of medicine. So at this point, it was very common to believe that our bodies have four humors. Black bile, yellow bile, flim, and blood. Blood. Hey. You listened to that episode. I listened to all the episodes, and I don't remember all, but.

So, at that point, it was very common to just think, if something was wrong, it was because your humor is were out of balance and you needed to do something to rebalance them, whether that was cut yourself and make loose and blood. And then you could balance out by losing blood or take something that would make you pee a lot or take something that would make you throw up.

And the reason that coffee helped to disrupt this is that first of all, in the humoral system, foods were part of how you balanced out your different humors. So instead of going and being prescribed bloodletting or something that would make you throw up, they would prescribe you a certain food and say, you need to take this because it's a hot food and you have too much of a cold humor or this is a dry food

and you have too much of wet humors. And so it would balance it back out. And the thing with coffee is that it kind of defied all these systems. You could make it taste different ways, though different ways you prepared it, different physicians would interpret it as a dry food or a wet food or a hot food or cold food, so it kind of broke the system. And everybody who drank it had certain reactions to it. Everybody got more awake. And that doesn't fit into the humoral system of medicine because it should be very specialized

to what your body needs in any given moment. And so it really started to disrupt the whole system of humor because it was used as a cure all. It's sort of like when I started playing baseball and football professionally, they were like, do we have, is he a baseball player, is he a football player? Maybe he's just an athlete. Maybe we're all just athletes. Not really knock down a lot of walls.

Don't feel like I get enough credit for it. I just want to bring it up. Well, now you're being recognized for it today, honey. Yeah. Hi. Please. Please. It was a lie, I made up. Please. I, it was a lie I made out, please.

I appreciate it, but you have to save your hands. You have a lot of clapping to do today. So it was really interesting, because this, obviously, the four-human system is wrong. And so, you know, coffee kind of, even though the uses for it maybe weren't actually true, even all the different things that they were using it to cure, it didn't really cure. That kind of application of it as a cure was part of why we got rid of the humor system

of medicine, which is interesting. Now, as I mentioned, since it can be considered an herb, it was very much loved by the developing herbalist community kind of at this point in history, especially in the early 1800s. And so let's move back to the US to talk about that. Samuel Thompson was an early herbalist who had a lot of followers in the early US and created kind of his own system, the Thomsonian system of medicine based on plant-based cures. That's some of these things worked.

Okay, go on. Thanks, Mark. Because some of it was pulling from kind of folk knowledge, people who lived in isolated communities in the U.S., who didn't have access to physicians, and so kind of had to figure things out. And some of the stuff worked, some of it obviously didn't. But he was pulling from that base of knowledge to create things out. And some of the stuff works, some of it obviously didn't. But he was pulling from that base of knowledge to create like a system of medicine for the people.

And again, there are pitfalls to that because none of it was being studied. None of it was really rigorously put to any scientific inquiry. But nothing was at this point, really. Yeah. It was a fun time. Everybody was just having a lot of fun. And one group that grew from this were the eclectics.

And we've talked a little bit about eclectic medicine, I think, on the show before. But it grew out of this use of Samuel Thompson's mainly use of herbal medicines, except the eclectics kind of, they drew from that, and then they drew a lot from early physical therapy principles and created this branch of medicine called eclectic medicine. And there were over a dozen universities of eclectic medicine throughout the US in the

1800s where you would be trained specifically in some of these like botanical and herbal medicine traditions, and then you would also learn these physical maneuvers. And this persisted until 1939. And it's a totally other system of medicine. It's not anything like what we teach today. So there's like osteopathic, alopathic, and eclectic? Would that be like, is it that different or?

Yes, yes. It was a completely other school of medicine. And there was some that would be like the New York School of Medicine, and then in parentheses, eclectic. Just in case, though. But sign up first. Come check us out before you figure it out. And they employed coffee in dozens of different ways.

Some things that weren't revolutionary, like I mentioned, like heart failure, the idea that it was a diuretic, so it could be for heart failure. They proposed that, you know what, I know throughout history, we've had this argument, is it good for diarrhea, is it good for constipation?

We say it's good for both. Good. Okay. Well, we'll just hedge our bets. They would say specifically for headaches, but also for any unpleasant sense of fullness in your head. Drink some coffee. If you have maybe some gangrene on your foot,

you could just prepare a dressing out of the grounds. It's wild, like for that, the diary is like, it's when you have gangrene and you want to be awake for every second of it. I don't want to miss a moment of this great gangrene. Again, some of the things like malaria, it was typhoid, it was prescribed for gout, rheumatoid arthritis, again, for alcohol withdrawal, and for hangovers.

I haven't mentioned that, but coffee was often prescribed for hangovers, which I think was just kind of like this old perky up, I mean, whatever. It works. Yeah. It's also a vasoconstrictor. Where are you going with this, honey? It's good for headaches.

It is used for headaches. Yes. Caffeine. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, yeah, it's used for headaches. And is used for headaches. Yes. Caffeine. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it's used for headaches. And it was back then, too. Depression, again, with the hysteria, which I say is fake, and I'm accepting that everybody knows that.

Hysteria was this kind of catch-all diagnosis that traditionally was applied to women throughout history, basically, because we weren't behaving in ways that men wanted us to, for some reason. Some of these, it probably was used to cover up actual medical diagnoses that were left undiagnosed and untreated, and then sometimes it was like, my wife will not do the cooking. I think she's hysterical. So that's hysteria.

I felt the need to clear it. Apologies to anyone who thought I may have stalled or become frozen during that segment. I find that my best play is just to remain perfectly still. There's very little I can add to discussions of Assyria. So I just try to kind of stay calm and hang in there. You see this persistence of its use in relation to the menstrual cycle or people with periods. So it was used for both amenorrhea, which means not having a period when we would expect

you to. And it was used for having too many periods or too heavy periods. So anything having to do with periods, basically. Just coffee up. Yeah. And also it was prescribed some time for postpartum bleeding. So if someone has had a baby and there's a lot of bleeding afterwards, give them a cup of coffee.

Again, for respiratory problems like asthma, hiccups. Sure. Why not? I don't know, way anyway. Aren't we reaching a certain point in history though, where if you were like, you should try coffee. The person was like, yeah, no joke. Like every day, right? Well, don't we all drink coffee all the time every day?

Um, kidney stones. Something called renal torpor? You got more, huh, Swirl? I got more. Okay. renal torpor, which meant like you're not peeing enough, so... I mean, okay, in a very literal sense, yes. Drinking additional liquid will help with that.

And then this one, which I'm not sure... Also, a Nestle Quick. I got one more. Anemic condition of the brain. I'm not sure what that was used to reference. I know what anemia is. I know what a brain is. I don't know how to put that together and do anemic condition of the brain specifically.

But yeah, you know, I'm not blood in your brain, I guess. That seems really bad. That can sometimes we call that a stroke. So you doctors in your fancy terminology. Now, when we think about the use of coffee as medicine, one thing that I immediately thought as I was putting this show together, I know I've got to talk about,

I know I've got to look into, is why people give themselves coffee enemas. When did that start? If you're not aware, that's a thing. So that's step one. If you are aware, you probably like me have always kind of known like like, somebody does that. I don't know why.

Who came up with that idea? It's for first-world coffee, and I think we all know, make sure everybody's done drinking coffee first. You don't want to take the last of the coffee, and somebody's got to make a whole other pot because you wanted to put the coffee in your butt. It's so rude. It had a several too, obviously.

You gotta let it cool off. Okay. You just made a face that makes you very excited for the next 30 seconds of my life. You joke about that. Indeed, and I shall continue to go on. Coffee and a man stayed day back to 1917. And it was introduced at this point.

Everybody just made a reaction. Like, what year would have been cool? 1917, ew. I-I assumed it was something that came out of the 70s. Yeah, I don't know why. But that was actually when it started to lose popularity. Now, people still do this today. This is still something...

Some of you may be doing it right now. If you're really good at retaining it, you could be. I don't know. I'm just saying. That's a special skill, I imagine. These people paid money to be here. They woke up at, they came here at 10 in the morning and you're doing this to them. They knew what they were in for.

You all knew. Yeah. There. So, the reason it got really popular is that it actually became kind of linked with a certain regimen for cancer treatment, which of course is not true. I'm going to be preface with that. It does not do anything to cure cancer. But this is why it took hold so strongly for a while. It was developed by Max Gerson, who was a German physician,

who came to the US. And he had a lot of different ideas about the way that we could use nutrition in medicine better, which is totally fair. We could. We could do a lot more with advising people with how they eat and not use, I don't mean using food as medicine as much as a healthy diet that would promote better health.

And that was a lot of what he focused on. Except for then, of course, we kind of go on this, we go, we take this curve. And he starts to develop this dietary-based treatment for cancer. So these are people who have already, this is not to prevent. These are people who have already been diagnosed with cancer. So these are people who have already, this is not to prevent, these are people who have already been diagnosed with cancer and instead of going to another traditional practitioner, he says, come to me. And I will tell you about this, this diet, it's largely like a, basically like a vegan diet that you should go on. Low sodium, take these organic juice, like supplements I've developed in things and you've taken like tablespoons of them every couple hours,

that kind of thing. And then up to six times a day, give yourself an enema with coffee, caster oil, or if you're really feeling it hydrogen peroxide. Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! To people with... But definitely the coffee. To people with... But definitely the coffee. To people with cancer. Yes. Max, if you're here, it'd be great if you came up on stage so I could ask your permission to spin Kikyu in the face. And the basis of this is that he actually

believe that most animals just go through the large intestine through the colon, and then they come back out. That's the idea. They come back out. But he didn't think that was true with coffee animals. His belief was that a coffee animal had the ability to travel all the way through the large intestine,

and then through your small intestine, and all the way up to the liver and clean out the liver. I don't, they don't do that, but that was what he thought they did. And so once they got there, he thought it would stimulate the liver to help detoxify the body, clear the liver of, clear the body of toxins.

And- There's another route to the liver, right? Yes. He could go like the expressway. Why is he taking the back roads? Yes, he'd go like the expressway. Why is he taking the back roads? So if you read a lot of kind of modern recommendations and like regimens of coffee enemas,

it's based on this guy's theories. Now, they have, it has changed over time. Like a lot of people tell you, six is a lot. So that's a lot of enomas in a day. We recommend four. Much more manageable. That seems like a better regimen of enomas. Now I've got time to go to the grocery store.

Thanks. There are also, I read, I was reading all these like, here's how to do your own DIY coffee enomas. And they were like, here's how to do your own DIY coffee enemas. And they were like, how about NOT? Make sure that you use a darker roast. What's nobody, nobody could give me a really good reason. Like there were a lot of kind of like,

traditional kind of medical, like, or I don't know, like folklore kind of reasons why, but there was no real good medical reason why the darker rose. No, just make sure you use a darker rose. They don't recommend a specific brand of coffee as far as I can tell. So I guess, Folgers is fine. Whatever you've got at home, you can, the original recipe, so to speak for these enomas, was like three to four tablespoons of coffee in the water, and now they say, mmm, now listen, you're gonna want to start out with two, and you might make it up to four,

and then there are some people who can use up to six but start with two and see how you do with that. And then like I said, only do about four a day. And if you're, I'm kind of taking for granted everybody knows how like how many. You put coffee in your butt, right? With a tube? Yeah, yeah. You take a tube and you fill the two up, somebody blows on the other end.

No, no, no, no, no. How does it get in there then? Yeah, you take a tube and you top it. You fill the two up, somebody blows on the other end. No, no, no, no, no. How does it get in there then? You just hook up to back, you? Well, I mean, once it gets past this fincter, it's like a gravity. Like you just lay on your back and you lift the bag. Who lifts the bag?

I mean, a close dear friend or yourself or a particularly well-trained dog. You can do these on your own. I mean people do in them as at home. Usually not coffee but but who lifts the bag? Well I mean honey you can. You have hands. They're not busy. I'm on the ground. I'm on the floor. Face, dare with my eyes closed.

And probably a white noise machine running, or something. With like candles, like anything. Like, reruns of arrow on TV. I'm like, said, just trying to focus on very loud. Whisper your way, Stephen Amel. I'm putting coffee in my butt hole. I'm like, it's obvious how I'm gonna do this coffee animal. The all-forged position is popular among some,

but most prefer laying on their back. Wait a minute. Okay, you may be a doctor, but I know where my blood is. That dog won't hunt. Oh, it... Okay. Do I need to get through all your diagrams?

It's gonna get... There's a high probability of kinking with the system you've described. The tube's gonna kink. Then what? Then what's your grand plan? I don't even think you thought, they're, are you gonna give me this coffee? I don't have a Sydney. I don't think we've been married long enough for that.

There may be some day, but I don't know. So wait, I'm on my back. OK, hold on, actually. We're here. Okay, hold on, actually, we're here. Okay, hold on, hold on. Where? Oh! Oh!

Oh! Okay, so I'm on my back like this. So where is the tube? Do you understand the prop? Come over here. I kind of need a lift. Come over here. Just come over here.

They can't too shot us. So you got a cut. You should bring your microphone for the podcast. Okay. I did not predict this. Okay. Lift your legs. Like, okay.

Like this. Like really? Oh, there's no way, unless it takes like 10 seconds. There's no way I'm sustaining that. Like I'm not in enough discomfort. I'm gonna raise my legs. I'm gonna do yoga. What are you talking about?

Come on back. Okay, so like this? Yeah. Okay. Wait, do I have, okay. And you're, now who's holding my legs up? Am I having to,

I'm gonna get a crib. You're just in that position. How long? The bag and the bags here. Is the bag hanging off my feet? I mean, if you, I bet I could do that. I bet I could put a pipe in that position. How long? Back and the bags here. Is the bag hanging off my feet? I mean, if you want to. I bet I could do that. I bet I could put a pipe in between them

and hang the bag off of it. Yeah. Then it's a balance exercise. Too I do that in Taikwondo sometimes. There you go. Now, how long am I? I just take a long time. Like how?

It just goes in. Here's, it's already been too long. So unless it's about this long. And once it's all in, in, you lie here for, I'm assuming a good amount of time. No, no. Because the last thing we want is for all that to be not. Once it's all in, then you can take the tube out

and you gotta hold it. So how long? 15 to 20 minutes. Oh my God. So I clench up now. Very carefully. Very carefully. Very carefully. It's recommended that you put down some towels.

No kidding. That sounds like an amateur move. I'm a professional coffee putter in my butt. I don't need towels. Lay down the napkin like you get on an airplane. That's plenty for me. And then you could either have, sometimes you could have like a bed pan

or you could go to the bathroom. Or I could go to the bathroom for what? I don't want to do that good stuff out. Do you know how much work it was to get it in? No, I mean, you have to expel it. Nobody said anything to me about expeling it. This is the first I've heard Honey things eventually come out there

That's true, but I thought my body was absorbent because it needed it so bad what It's absorbing all the good coffee stuff and then and then you let it go Okay Let it go. Right. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah is still based on this idea that we're detoxifying ourselves, which... No. Your liver does that for you. Your kidneys help with that. You don't need to do this to detoxify yourself or any of the things that detox. Really thing, anything. You have organs for that.

Yeah, we have organs that are really good at detox finest. But it does that. That's the idea. That's what they think it does. It's supposed to help eliminate any parasites that might be creeping around in there that you don't know about. I buy mechanical means, I think.

It just flushes them back out. It's supposed to get rid of a lot of kind of generalized symptoms. Like I keep saying it mentioned as any type of pain. To any pain. So that's nice. And then everything from arthritis it's used for. Or like I said, there are still people who recommend it for cancer.

You can still find these Gerson institutes, not in the US. I think they have been banned here. But you can still find them other places recommending these treatments for cancer specifically. And then at the same time, it's supposed to help with other things more generally if you're not using them. Even people who say this doesn't help with cancer,

this will help with things like tension or... Absolutely not. That one I can guarantee. That it's supposed to increase your energy and your mental clarity and that kind of things. So like stuff that you would associate with coffee if you just drank it. I know some people hate the flavor of coffee, but you got to really hate the flavor of coffee to stoop to this. Well, one thing that I saw specifically is it increases joy and happiness and reduces anger.

Also untrue. Now, why shouldn't you do this? Well, there are lots of reasons, but there are side effects that are very serious. If this goes wrong, if you, let's say that as you're introducing that, sometimes they have little plastic tips on the end of the enema tube that are not very soft.

And if you puncture something, that's very bad. So, like, perforation has occurred. Infections, people have become septic from this. That's very bad. So, like, perforation has occurred, infections, people have become septic from this. You can cause severe electrolyte imbalances from doing this, especially very frequently. You can get low sodium or low potassium. Your electrolytes can get a lot of whack,

which will make you feel really bad and sometimes make your heartbeat wrong and then you can die. It... I'm not a very religious person, but I'm assuming that... like, can you imagine a higher power of any sort stumbling upon you in the middle of this procedure

and they're like, you got it. I made the coffee and I made you and I made plastic tubes and I didn't think you're gonna figure it out, but that's exactly it. That's exactly it. I thought you all were gonna be thrown off by the roasting. Yeah, you almost tricked me.

I thought we did. Yeah. I thought we were gonna fool you with the roasting and grinding and the brewing in, but this is exactly what I intended. Thank you for finding my grand design. Probably not. There have been cases of burns from people who

did not cool the coffee prior to using it as an enema. And then there have been. Good. No. What? Not good. Not good. Not good. Not good.

Now you're going to feel bad. When I say this next thing, there have been three deaths that have been in part attributed to the use of too many coffee animals. So this is my warning. Don't do this. You've been very serious now. So that's my plea. Please do not give yourself coffee enemas. I don't know that they do anything.

I'm so glad we got to you in time before you started putting coffee in your boat. You would be surprised. Oh, I'm not. It's 2017. You're not going to surprise me. I have not looked. But I have done a lot of research. Oh, my best not to watch. I've done a lot of research on Goop in the past. Goinith Paltrow's Lifestyle and Medical website.

Oh, I just assumed it was a byproduct of the coffee animals. No. No. It's not that far off, honest. Like the re-goup. I feel like this is something she's probably tried in the past. This is all a guess. I don't know that to be true.

But I feel like if I looked, I'd find it. Seems goopy. I have one more interesting note about coffee before we finish. Okay. I had never heard of civic coffee. Have you heard of civic coffee? No. So Taylor, my sister, actually mentioned this and I thought she was making it up and messing

with me because she wasn't. And then my dad said, no, I heard that's true, and then I thought, well, now they're definitely making it up. But I read about it, so, civet coffee is a specific, it's not a type of coffee, it is a process of coffee, where the civet, which is an animal, small animal, eats coffee berries, and then poops out these like lumps of partially digested coffee beans.

They're like in a big collection of them. And it is used to, these partially digest, because they're partially fermented, is the reason they're thought to be good for you, because fermentation is associated with health in a lot of kind of alternative medicine circles. So they're partially fermented beans, and they're used to brew coffee,

which is the world's most expensive coffee. 100 bucks a cup, I just heard. And it is, like I said, it's not any specific kind of bean or anything. It's just the process of bean digested partially through a sieve that makes it so expensive. This was kind of accidentally found by people in Sumatra and Java who were collecting these beans because it was all they had access to because they were selling everything else so that we could drink it. But that was part of why the Dutch India T company saw them using them and trading them

and said, oh, we're going to sell those and tell everybody that they're really great for you and that they're very expensive. And now, the unfortunate part is that there are like Farms of civets where they try to force feed them these berries. Yeah to collect their poo. Oh, you all didn't see that copy And then to make it worse they've done tests to see is this coffee better? Do you know people who test coffee are called cupbers? No coffee better. Do you know people who test coffee are called cupbers? No. I didn't mean to be doing that. What were you holding in there in your mind, Ty? Two cups of coffee in my mind. You were weighing between them. One of these is more delicious. And cupbers say

that it's not only is it not better, it's actually worse than most coffees. That is that according to coffee experts, I don't know, because I guess it has a less body and less flavor, because it's partially digested by an animal. So there's, well what's it like in my butt? In case you're wondering, is coffee good for you? It feels like every couple years we come out with a new study that says yes or no. And we all keep drinking it because we're addicted to it. So I don't think it really, it's not going to change anything, right?

Like, why do we keep doing this? We're all going to keep drinking it. We're all addicted now. But there was, if this comforts you, there have been a couple large studies that have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2012, and then won just this year that said that there is not only is there no increased risk of mortality with coffee drinking, there's actually a decreased risk

of mortality associated. Yeah! How do you think that? Drinking off of it, you'll never die. So currently, we think it's fine. We may change our minds in five years. I can't guarantee that, but currently, we think coffee is A-OK. All right.

All right. Radical. In your mouth. Again, that's so important. And that goes for just assume we're saying in your mouth for pretty much any pill that we're talking about here, unless otherwise directed. Excuse me.

Uh, that is gonna do it for us. Thank you so much to you for watching. Yeah. Thank you to PodCon for having us here. This has been so much fun. We've had it so great weekend. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Thank you all for coming. Thank you to the taxpayers for the us here. This has been so much fun. We've had it since a great weekend. Thank you. This has been wonderful. Thank you all for coming.

Thank you to the taxpayers for the use of their song Medicines is the intro and outro of our program. We're part of a network called Maximum Fun. There's a lot of great shows that you can check out on that network MaximumFun.org. And excuse me, Giles. No? Oh, thanks so.

Thank you all. Thanks for coming. But that is going to do it for us for this week. So until next time, my name is Justin McAroy. And, uh, swimming else? No? Oh, thanks, so thank you all. Thanks for coming. But that is going to do it for us for this week, so... Until next time, my name is Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright!