Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Why Don’t Americans get De-Wormed?

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

Shrug off that winter chill with a warm bowl of listener-submitted medical questions. Questions like: Am I giving away my immunity with a blood donation? Can antibiotics make colds worse? Can you cough while sleeping? Are we really new people every seven years? And is there any real health benefit to shaving my armpits?Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

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. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, a marital tour of Miss Guided Medicine. I'm not for the mouth. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Saul Bones, a marital tour of Miscite and Medicine. I'm your co-host Justin Mac. And I'm Sydney McElroy.

And I'm excited, Sid. It's another one of my favorite episodes, medical questions. These are your favorites. I love doing these, except for some time. I mean, there have been individual ones that I have really loved doing, but these are always a, and I feel like I learned a lot too. And it's nice to be able to feel like you're connecting with our listeners a little bit.

It's fun. It is fun. It's with social media, basically collapsing all around us. It's nice to hear the emails, you know, the listeners. Yeah. No, that's a great point. That was couched in some sadness there, but that was a good. There's nothing sad about social media.

A club, it's good. It's good that it's all going away. I think that it's better. Let's just all shake hands and write letters. Period. That's for those of you that don't know, that's punctuation. I learned it in school before social media ruined everything. I also feel the way I'm saying.

I was going to say, you're just on a whole social media thing. I'm just, some of those platforms aren't usable anymore, and I'm not missing them. I think it's a nuanced topic. And not really the purview of this show. No, it's not. Not either of our areas of expertise really. It's my area of expertise. No, no, no, know their network of time. This is a weird question episode.

I love our weird question episodes too. It's close though if we do a really gross one, I like those. I like really grody ones. I'm going to ask you some questions and then I just off the top of your head just a bit. The first answer that comes to your mind. Okay. Hello, I have a bunch of weird medical questions about blood and organ donation. If I donate blood, am I giving away the immunity I gained from getting vaccines?

Or does my body remember everything the vaccine taught about fighting COVID? I feel like even if I was giving away some of my immunity, it would still be worth it because someone sick enough to do blood transfusion would probably still need the help. It's pretty easy to finally listen to donate blood, but how would someone become an organ donor for an unknown stranger? I've heard that after someone donates part of their liver, the portion that was donated goes back. Does that mean that someone could be a liver donor more than once?

Wow. That's a lot. It is a lot. I guess we could have taken them one by one, but I thought that these were all important things to address. One, yes, you do have circulating antibody. So when you get a vaccine, your body makes antibodies against whatever antigen, whatever piece of a virus or bacteria has been introduced into your

body. And again, it is not the actual thing that can infect you and cause illness. It can't. It's just like a piece of it. Or like the remains of it somewhat living, but not living and can't cause infection. Anyway, the point is you make antibodies in response to that, antibody specific for this invader. Yes, if they're in there and you took blood straight out of somebody and put it straight into somebody else, and sometimes we can do things to eliminate things like antibodies. It depends on what you need from the blood, right? Sometimes we clean the blood, right? Sometimes we, and sometimes we just give certain pieces from the blood, right? Sometimes we clean the blood, right? Sometimes we just give certain pieces of the blood, right?

Yeah, these are centrifuge to separate the plasma from the junk. From the junk. From the cells? Sure. From the actual cells in there? Yeah, I don't know. But we can process blood to remove things like antibodies, certainly. But in a situation, which I've been in before, where blood was taken out of my body and then put directly into another person, I mean still warm. Then yeah, the antibodies

that are in my blood are going into the other person who's receiving that blood. That does happen. But yeah, got lots of them, not all the antibodies, right? I think if you're trying to come up with a theoretical situation, and also your body also has memory cells that will remember how to make those antibodies moving forward. So, but it wouldn't, with that, so. You're not going to lessen your immunity by donating blood. Would it temporarily help the other person and then stop helping? I would have to be strong enough to move the needle.

I think you're at a call. Yeah, you're talking about what is the tighter, meaning the amount of antibodies per whatever unit of blood. You know what I mean? I think it's a little bit theoretical. Certainly, if there were enough in there, some, that would help some. But the important point, the take-home point is you are not losing your immunity from a vaccine by donating blood.

So please, if you're able to donate blood, it is a great important thing to do. In terms of organ donation, a lot of people, especially, and I don't know if this is outside of the US thing, in the US when you get your driver's license. Yeah, you sign up for the thing. It's like a check-up box. Yeah, and then on your driver's license,

it says if you're an organ donor. You can also go to organdonor.gov and click on your state and they'll tell you exactly the process and how to sign up and register online. If you are an organ donor, you can always change it at the DMV, you know, in your area. So it is a different process to become an organ donor. in your area. So it is a different process to become an organ donor. And in terms of donating your liver more than once, very generous. Your body cells can regenerate for sure. We make more cells all the time. We're constantly. This is actually we're going to talk about that in a later question that we've got pairs well. But you couldn't continue to give away, not enough that you can continue to give away pieces of your liver indefinitely. I would not recommend it. It is a wonderful thing if you can do it and certainly you can do it safely. It's an okay thing. We have

ways of taking just enough to help someone else, but not too much to harm you. But it still is risky. So I would never recommend double donating from one organ. That's probably too much. All right. Here's another question. Dear Sydney and Justin, I was listening to one of the many podcasts of my rotation when an ad came on with a person talking about with a supposed doctor saying that they're cold sucked and they'd like some antibiotics.

The doctor said they antibiotics wouldn't help and might make it worse, which feels incorrect, but I'm a plebe with not knowledge. The doctor then suggested they should try over the counter medicines like musinx, which was highly suspicious since the ad was made for it by musinx. Regardless of any feelings about musinx, which I wouldn't mind hearing your opinions on,

I'm wondering if antibiotics actually do make colds worse. So that's from Kit. I antibiotics don't necessarily make colds worse. So, I, antibiotics don't necessarily make colds worse. It is true that if, and then this is really, so a lot of the kind of, IK that many of us might have right now this time of year, you know, cough, congestion, runny nose, sore throat, some, maybe some body aches, maybe some fevers and chills, all that stuff taken together, most of the time it's a virus and most of the time with the virus, although not always as we have learned in recent years, most of the time with the virus, it is a self-limiting illness, you will get sicker for a few days and then you'll get better and then that will be it. And some of them are longer, some of them are shorter.

Certainly, they can be more severe depending on your underlying health conditions. So I'm not saying viruses are never a big deal. But a lot of the time's supportive care is all we recommend, right? Chicken soup, fluids, over the counter medicines like mucinx are certainly, you know, can be helpful with the symptoms to help, you to help because it's no fun. Even if you're getting better, it still feels bad. So I would question if it's an ad for musinex, I don't know that I would ever take advice,

medical advice for that anyway. But as far as antibiotics making things worse, not typically, I mean, the bigger problem is that it's unnecessary. If you have a virus, an antibiotic by definition is working against a bacteria. So it's not going to make any difference. Now, there are some situations where even if we suspect it might be a virus, we might give an antibiotic, like COPD exacerbations, people who have a chronic lung disease and get flares of that.

Sometimes we do use antibiotics in certain situations. And there may be reasons why we'd be more likely to hedge our bets and give you an antibiotic just in case. Because it's really time that tells us the difference. It's not so much the symptoms. It's how long they go on and if they get better on their own. Because in the beginning, they can look pretty similar. Okay. But in terms of it making anything worse,

I mean, I think unless you have a reaction, like a rash, or it gives you some other thing, right? Like antibiotics can cause diarrhea even when they're working appropriately. So outside of those things, most of the time, antibiotics aren't gonna make things worse. Thank you. Hi, Sydney and Justin.

As a listener of your podcast, I'm fascinated by pseudoscience and this is reflected in my TikTok algorithm. One of the things that keeps popping up on my, uh, for you page is Vegas nerve regulation to lower cortisol and improve the body's general stress response. Usually the regulation happens through some kind of stretching, but another common approach seems to be sitting completely still and just staring to the left and right without moving your head to stretch your eye muscles. Are the claims about regulating the vagus nerve based in science are just so nice to move around

and stretch occasionally? This is one of those where it's like there's some truth underneath this and it's an emerging like it's an area where people are still researching and learning. Yeah. And so there are some elements of things that are scientific, but then I think maybe like TikTok users have taken it into that pseudoscientific wellness quote unquote space, where like we don't really know if it works, but this seems pretty harmless. And I think that's where a lot of that stuff starts to land.

So your vagus nerve just so you know, like you really do have that really is a real thing. Yeah, it's what you need at the craps table to make sure that you don't fold your cards at the craps table. You need your vagus nerve. It's going to be a... There's no cards in craps. I'm sorry. Vegas with an A. So you've got these bundles of nerve fibers that run on both sides of your body from your brain stem all the way down your neck, and they control lots of things. They're down into your torso, and they touch a lot of internal organs. They're part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which like if you think about your sympathetic

nervous system as like your fight or flight sort of thing, your parasympathetic is like all the more relaxing things like digestion. But anyway, it's part of that. And so it has a lot to do with picking up information from these organs and transmitting it back and forth to the brain. The ure vagus nerve is doing a lot of stuff that you have no control over. That's the important thing to know, right? It's not like a nerve that you're sending a signal from your brain to your finger to like, you know, flip somebody off. It's a nerve that's doing its own thing, right? Right. Okay.

The idea of one that it cannot have great tone, that is like a medically founded thing. There are times, okay, when they look at your heart rate, your heart rate should increase and decrease as you breathe in and out. And the more variability in that is actually a good sign of good vagal tone, and it's associated with good cardiovascular health. Whereas if there's not a lot of variability there, it's associated with poor cardiovascular health. So we know there is something to that, right? There is something to vagal tone. I think where you start to get into pseudoscience is some of the stuff that they're telling you to do. We don't really have any good evidence that those specific, like the stretching

and the moving your head and those sorts of things. There's no evidence right now that those necessarily are going to do something. Certainly, this is an area of research and we may at some point learn that, you know, your stress response and your cortisol that all this does play in together in a way that you can personally affect, right?

That's the big question. So yes, there's realness. It's realness, but it's like. It's stretching going to change it long term to affect your health or just make you feel better in the moment. I don't think we know that yet. I think it makes you feel better

than the moment go for it, right? I mean, but it does sound like, but it does sound like there's a lot of other ways to manage your stress. If you're gonna put energy towards something, that seems like maybe not the best application. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think that's where a lot of the doctors that I was reading a lot of

opinions on this and they're saying like it's an emerging area of research. Certainly, there's a lot to study. If stretching makes you feel better, it's hard to discourage people from doing something that is typically as benign as stretching. You never wanna say anything's 100%. I was told recently that the US is one of the only countries where people don't get dewormed regularly. And then in other places, it's just a standard part

of healthcare like an annual checkup. Should I be getting a dewormer doing this script? Or is there something OTC I can get? The person I heard from said this was backed up by people in the country she lives in, but also number having questionable information and opinions about things. So sit, dewarming.

So, I mean, I don't know that we always refer to it as dewarming necessarily. I mean, it is accurate. It is totally accurate. Because we typically use the word dewarming to talk about species other than human species. I don't know. So, yes, there have been campaigns to do this.

We have done this in different countries all over the world throughout history as like a way to try and alleviate. We know that a high percentage of this population probably does carry this parasite and so we'll just give everybody this dose of a medicine that would kill the parasite because the, it's not particularly risky, it's cheap, and this will eliminate, you know, the, I mean, there are places where it's, you know, 60% or more. And so the thought was, this was helpful. So certainly, I've seen this done routinely on some of the medical trips. I've been on a broad where everybody's just kind of given this medication. And I would not advocate for just doing I've seen this done routinely on some of the medical trips I've been on abroad, where

everybody's just kind of given this medication. And I would not advocate for just doing that, have hazardly ever. But health organizations across the globe have done this in areas where they know there's a big parasite burden. We don't currently do it in the US, although we did back in the early 1900s in the South because the American hookworm was a big problem. So we did do routine, quote unquote, deworming in the American South at one point.

And there was some evidence afterwards that maybe it improved like school performance and job performance and stuff like that because a lot of people were chronically ill, anemic, undernourished because of having a parasite. So we have some evidence that they're effective, there's conflicting evidence though, because there have been other places

where they've done these mass deworming campaigns, and afterwards it hasn't really changed the overall health necessarily. So it is a little bit controversial should we be doing it everywhere. We did it after the World Wars, people returning. So not always, but yeah, there were certain programs targeted to like deworm people. But so yes, this does happen.

Some places sometimes specifically targeted by a health organization who knows that there is a problem there. But no, you do not typically, I will speak generally, if you're living in the United States, we do not typically need to go seek routine deworming just as a precaution. If you're having stomach symptoms or any other symptoms that concern you, then please go get checked out. Got it. Okay, we'll do. Let's see here. I feel too weird asking anyone I know about this. So here it goes. That's why we are here. That is what we strive for. For context, I'm assigned female birth and don't have any medical conditions that cause facial

hair growth. Since puberty, I've always had one or two chin hairs, but since I've entered my 20s, they have increased both number and length to the point where they become noticeable to others and even seem to be growing. What is the reason for this? Is it hormonal? Thanks to you, both for a wonderful podcast. Take care, Jay. Now again, speaking generally because yes, there are specific reasons why you might have more hair growth, especially like facial hair growth, if you're a cis woman. There certainly are medical conditions that cause that. And as always, if you're concerned, you have symptoms, you please talk to your own healthcare provider. Generally speaking, I will say it is known

that just shifts in hormones throughout your lifetime will cause changes in hair growth and can definitely cause more terminal hair growth, meaning like the thicker, darker hairs that people sometimes won't remove from their face, right? So definitely hormonal shifts are responsible. If there's anything that creates higher levels of androgens, that class of sex hormone,

anything like that, we would start to see increase hair growth in that facial pattern. It's big shifts at puberty, big shifts, maybe around a pregnancy, big shifts at, in the mid-aposal time, because these are all time through your hormone levels are shifting. But it is something that is incredibly common and is often normal, although again, I don't want to say it's always normal because there are some of us out here who have PCOS,

Policies Took Avarian Syndrome, and that is also associated with increased facial hair growth. So. Hi Sydney and Justin, I'm in the parent articles in this one. I don't I don't love how that feels. Sorry about that. That's right. Can people sneeze while sleeping? Can we cough while sleeping and not wake up? Love the pod. Thanks Holland. Now I can say concretely about coughing. Yes, because we have heard our kids do it from their bedrooms, right? But are they asleep when that's happening?

That's a good question. No. No? You are a lot of times if you sneeze or cough in your sleep. So they're not asleep? You are, well, you wake up just barely enough to cough. You enter into the lightest, you know, you basically wake, you're in the lightest stage of sleep or just barely awake, basically.

And that kind of space, that liminal space, you exist for a moment and cough or sneeze and then go back to sleep. That's why you mean, like me, and trigonometry class. And you probably have no memory of that when you wake up the next morning. Most people don't, but yeah, you're waking up. Which is why, especially like coffee, I mean, I don't think most of us outside of specific kind of anomalous situations aren't sneezing all night. But if you have something acutely or chronically that makes you cough at night, it's so disruptive

because you're waking up a bunch of little times that you don't even know about. So you feel even worse the next day, right? Because you're really tired, because you never got to go through all those sleep cycles that you needed to. But no, you cannot cough while you are actually asleep. Did I have for sleeping? I'm assuming.

Did I first try sleeping? Yes, you cannot cough for sneeze while you are asleep. Hey, let's take a quick break. And then I have more questions for you. Do you mind? Can you? No, we need to head to the billing department anyway. Oh, okay, let's take a quick break and then I have more questions for you. D-D-Mine, can you? No, we need to head to the billing department anyway. Oh, okay, let's go. The medicines, the medicines, the escalate my car before the mouth.

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more seen. Black people of Paramore is now on the Maximum Fun Network. Check out the most recent episode featuring Shara Jacelle today. Throughout history, sirens have captured men's attention enticed men with their feminine wiles and fulfill men's primal needs. The sirens alert, they have not.

Unless the primal need is I need to be smashed on the rocks. Yeah, I've smashed me. Smashing my mom up. Smashing my mom up. Smashing my mom up. Smashing my mom up. Smashing my mom up.

Smashing my mom up. Smashing my mom up. Smashing my mom up. Smashing my mom up. S you, my mom. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy.

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I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be mommy. I said, just be of it. There's more of that. Okay, we're back. More questions. How do I tell my doctor? I went back to a previous prescription using leftovers

versus the one she changed me to. I know I'm going to get medical advice to drugs. I should have tossed, and I'm dreading a lecture or being removed as a patient for context. I'm transgender and switched by care to her roughly six months ago. I've been using estradiol. estradiol. estradiol.

estradiol. injections, but she switched me to patches to reduce the clotting risk three years before HRT. I had a pulmonary embolism. So this is very valid concern. I hate patches. I hate them. So when the insurance ran out from losing my job, I switched back to the injections as I have months of supplies left over. There's too much easier. My levels were stable and in range. I'm not accepting of the extra risk, but I have no idea how to explain this to my doctor.

And it takes months and months to get into a new gender care clinic. Thank you. Sorry for the long question, Stephanie. How can we help Stephanie here? What's up? I think that it's such a, the easy answer. And this is what I don't want to, I don't want to be. I think a lot of times in healthcare, we, even when we know how problematic and broken

our system is in this country is, which is the system I can speak of, and how difficult it is for certain populations of patients to get appropriate compassionate care and the trans community being one of the best examples of that limited access and all the barriers that are out of care. It's easy for me to say, we'll just be honest with your doctor, and it'll be okay.

And I don't want to be ignorant to those concerns because there are a lot of times where I know you are honest with your doctor and that backfires and you do get, I would say patronized is the best that you doctors fall into that like, well, you should know better and you shouldn't and you know, and treat you like a child. I think that's why it's really important to find a provider that you can have that honest relationship with and that you can trust. And that's really difficult when you're limited to how many

there may be, especially in your area. I speak from experience in this area. There are not very many of us who provide that sort of gender-forming care. I always advocate telling your doctor the truth. I will say most of the time, just being able to take better care of you is important. And if you have a provider who's already practicing gender, firm and care, you would hope that

they would be in that camp. Anytime I know that a patient is not maybe doing what we had agreed on before doing something different, the sooner I know that and I can help them troubleshoot whatever concerns come with that, the better care I can take of them. And then I feel like our next visit isn't a waste, because sometimes I worry that then they come in and I find out that what I thought we were doing isn't what we were doing.

And now it's like a groundhog day we're having the same visit all over again. And I wanna know, because if it's not working, I wanna know and I wanna help you. Yeah. And I would hope your provider would feel the same. I would hope that that honesty. And again, as long as you're an adult,

if you understand the risks and benefits and you've made an informed decision about what's best for your health care with the advice of your physician, then you should be able to do that. And I believe that especially the majority of us who practice gender-ferming care would say the same thing. So I would encourage you to be honest. I do think you will get better care in the long run if you're able to be honest. Is there any benefit to shaving slash not shaving your armpit hair? I know hair is designed to keep you warm or keep things like your eyelashes and nose hair, but I wouldn't think of your armpits as being a spot that will lose heat like the top of your head does. So what exactly does it help with?

And beyond societal reasons, are there any reasons for it? Like does it make you less smelly or does it do the opposite? That's from squeaky clean boy and not smelly at all I promise from Los Angeles. I thought this was a really interesting question because I couldn't come up with anything. After talking my head, now I don't know what any benefits would be to shaving. Honestly, outside of,

I mean, and this is an example of- Bifits of having the hair, not bifits of shaving, benefits, outside of, I mean, out, and this is an example of having the hair, not been the shaving, but the way it's shaving. Well, the benefit, I think what they're asking is, is there a benefit to the hair that the shaving gets rid of? Like, do we need the hair? Uh, again, outside of keeping you warm. No, I don't know any reason you need the hair. I will say that there are risks and benefits to both and the only risk to having hair

Really that I could find or think of is like a little freshness fairies that you get from the odorant Well, there's those you get the little I mean if you don't have hair you can't get lice Yeah, oh anywhere that's like that's, that's such a wild thing to say. Well, I was trying to think of a health benefit. If you don't have hair, like specifically like pubic hair, then you can't get general wise. And if a frog had wings, you would bump his belly out. I'm just saying, health benefit wise, that's about it.

My point is, but on the flip side, like what's the advantage of keeping the hair? I think it's that in the hair removal process, you can get razor burn or folliculitis, minor skin infections, that kind of thing. You can cut yourself, I don't know. You get dry skin. I know that when I shave my legs less, they're not so dry and when I shave them more,

they end up being drier. And that probably means we shouldn't. I don't know. Evolutionarily, should I be shaving in the first place? I don't know of any real benefit to keeping the hair, but I certainly don't know of any real benefit to getting rid of it either. I think it's really a societal, cultural,

your own preference, beauty thing. I don't know if this makes sense. I wouldn't put hygiene into it. Yeah, I don't know if this makes sense, but it's never stopped me from saying something before. You can maybe get argument. I wonder if it's not an argument.

It would be scientifically probable, but like people who shave their faces, you often read when you're like learning about shaving that you don't want to exfoliate at close to the same time as you shave. You don't want to do both on the areas that you shave because you are exfoliating with the razor. You are shaving right layer of dead skin cells and it's like that is exfoliation. I do wonder maybe if like by shaving your pits, you're removing dead skin cells that could trap moisture or odor by like exfoliating with the razor. Yeah. I mean, that's possible. Like, I wash my, I was going to say, I wash my armpits, whether I, whether I shave a day or not, I wash my armpits. Yeah. I'm absolutely operating like the theoretical field. I have no idea.

Well, and I think you could get in, I'll speak in generalities. I think generally shaving is purely A. I mean, it's what you're comfortable with, what you prefer. It's a cultural thing, certainly. But I don't off the top of my head. Now certainly, if you have, there are a lot of cases where we'll tell patients not to shave if they're more prone to infections, if they have more difficulty healing,

we may discourage you from shaving in specific instances. Generally speaking, I think it's okay to shave or not. Avery says, I've always heard this thing about how you're a whole new person every seven years because your body replaces cells. Is that true? If it is true, then why aren't transplanted organs turned into native organs? Thank you. I like that question because it was like a ship of thesesus kind of question.

It is like the ship of thesesus. Yeah. We're into semantics and philosophical territory. Yeah. No. I mean, okay. so your body cells do regenerate generally speaking. It's not on a seven year cycle. All of your cells regenerate at different rates. Some of our cells die and we grow new cells really quickly, fast growing cells, like everything that lines your mucus membranes, like from your mouth all the way down your GI tract. Those are faster growing cells or hair cells, certainly.

There are other parts of our body that regenerate much slower, like skeletal muscle, like the cells that make up our skeletal muscles. So hearts that don't at all. And there are parts that don't regenerate completely, and so then you get scarred areas of tissue where it can't fully regrow, right? We worry about that with damage to the heart, like from a heart attack, and certainly from strokes or any other damage to the brain. Now, we are learning every day that nerves can do things we didn't use to think they could

do. We used to say things like, you know, brain, the nerves in your brain that tissue neurons aren't going to regenerate at all. Well, we're learning that they do regenerate in a way that we didn't quite understand. But it's different in everybody's tissue. So yes, you're new. It's all new at different rates. You're losing skin cells constantly, not every seven years, every time you need.

I know what about bones. All the cells are, I mean, everything is regenerating or turning over at some rate. Yeah, very slowly in some situations and longer another. But all of our body cells are always. T-thar cells that. Not all of our body cells are always. T-thrink cells. Not all of our body cells. T-thrink cells, are they?

That cells make up everything, honey. Okay, cool. Well, no. Well, some are mineral complexes and there are cells. Okay, there are cells all through your body. Right. But then they're also like. I'm just saying if I get a cavity.

Oh, they're non-cellular molecules. If I get a molecules, I can't wait it out. No, you can't. It's not going to grow back. No, the tooth will erode away, I guess, if it's getting too much. What I'm getting at is a lot of dentists don't ask me about saying. Same bones, different blood. That's what I'm saying. Your body is regenerating slowly at different rates. But in organ. Sensorate skeleton, which is inside empowering the whole thing, and it is still worth and stays with you. No matter what, why is an organ not becoming you though? What? The organ won't become like like the other tissues in your body, like the other native

tissues. Yeah, nobody can be me. Well, do you know why? Because I'm an original because what's it reproducing from? The, the donor cells. The donor cells. The cells from the donor. That's why. So the organ will always be genetically the donor organ. We've had some friends that have had to do a woman friend who had to have an organ in a place where he's gonna be on therapy for his whole life because of that, right?

Because it's always gonna be a foreign organ. So that you don't reject it. Forgain. Yeah. Okay. We gotta move. Okay, listen,'t reject it. Forgan. Yeah. Okay. Wow. We got to move. Okay.

Listen. This is one I really need to know. I'm asking you to get ready. 12 questions, but I don't know the ramp time to do all 12 questions. Okay. Hi, Dr. Sydney and Justin. I have a weird medical question. Is gut health really a thing?

I see a lot of stuff marketed for it and it reminds me of things that are marketed to detoxify which we know is a scam. And it tends to research tend to just give me ads. That is a recurring problem I know that you have struggled with. Thank you for your service and destroying your algorithms for us. Love the show, Allison. Oh, gut health is such a tough concept because is it possible to, well, certainly, can we eat in ways that make it harder for us to maintain good gut health, meaning like we poop regularly and we don't, you know,

we don't get constipated. We're not having diarrhea. We're not vomiting. We're able to digest food at a typical rate. Like, I mean, when we heard gut health, that's what I'm thinking, right? Is it, can you eat in ways that will make that harder? Yeah, yeah, like you don't get in a fiber, for instance. So definitely-

And there is the health in the sense that like, if you have an antibiotic, you can wipe out your gut flora, right? For sure, for sure. And so there are definitely, and like when you travel and you become, you come into contact with different microbes that are native to different parts of the world. And then you can develop something like travelers diarrhea. That has to do with like different gut health, different gut flora, the bacteria that live in our guts and different depending on where we live and what we eat and who we live with

and all that stuff. Anyway, I think there is the function of the GI tract, which is a real thing that can be affected by a number of nutritional and activity-based things. Because a lot of this gets tied into exercise stuff too. If you're not getting up and moving enough, you'll get constipated. One of the ways that we fight constipation is by regular movement, body movement. If you want regular movements, regular movements. I have regular movements.

So, yes, all these things impact that. But then I think there's this other idea of gut health that gets into that, again, that pseudoscientific wellness space, where they're mainly they're selling you supplements, which is, again, red flags, if somebody's telling you to do or not to do something for your health so they can sell a product to you, what's their motivation? Yeah, why? You have to question that. And then when people start to just generally suggest you to eliminate different food groups for your gut health, I think gluten is a great

example of this. Dairy gets this too. Just eliminate it and your gut health will improve. These are suit of scientific claims. Nobody can just make that blanket statement that eliminating something will make you feel better without actually doing any sort of evaluation to see if that is a problem for you. So, I gut health is a real thing. And certainly if your gut isn't functioning well, diarrhea, constipation, can't eat, nauseous all the time, vomiting, any of those things, please go get checked out to have your gut health evaluated. But if everything's working fine, then that would tell me your gut health is probably doing okay, generally.

Yeah. Okay, just real quick, because you know what, you put these in, let's get them. I can be quick. I have been getting targeted at this for leggings that burn calories. That's from Van, Sydney, is that anything? No, the leggings can't burn calories. What they claim and what I think they're trying to get away with.

They have really tight areas, they have almost like resistant bands, I looked at these leggings. There's a bunch of different brands, by the way. And they're like, the resistance bands are built into the leggings. And so they squeeze certain areas super tightly. Just to make the everyday life just harder. Well, they're real inclusive. They'll make you sweat more there, probably. And so you'll have some more insensible water loss when you exercise or when you walk, like you'll lose more fluids through your skin. So if any change on the scale is happening, I would say it's because you're dehydrate. Like it's the same as like sweating out a bunch. You didn't really lose weight if you lost it through fluid.

If they do anything, it's that, but that's not what they're not burning calories. That's not true. Here's a good question from V. If I can catch the flu and other viruses by drinking from somebody else's glass, why can't I just take my vaccine as a pill? I thought this was a really great question to introduce the idea that it would be great if we had more pill vaccines, oral vaccines, right? When that be great, especially as a pair of two kids that are absolute maniacs when it comes to getting shots,

like different people, like I don't recognize them when they're getting shots. They are unhinged. Now this last round where they got their COVID boosters and their free shots, which all of us got our COVID boosters and our flu shots. Reminder folks. Yes.

It's not a time. I just called it a booster three times. You can't let me do. It's not a booster. What? It's the most recent COVID vaccine. It's not a booster. It's different.

Oh, really? The newest COVID vaccine. I thought it was a booster. No, it was not a booster. But a lot of people, it doesn't really matter. The point is get the get the new COVID vaccine. Get the flu shot. It's a good idea. Anyway, aside from that, why don't really matter. The point is get the new COVID vaccine, get the flu shot. It's a good idea.

Anyway, aside from that, why don't we have more oral vaccines? They're harder to make. That's a good question. It would be easier. It's easier to inject some of these substances in, you know, the way that we inject them into the muscle and deliver them slowly to trigger that immune response, because that's what you're doing, right? You're taking a piece of something and then making your immune system learn how to fight it.

It's a lot easier to do that if you just inject it into someone. Because your stomach and your acid is hardwired to like, oh, look at this, this isn't long here. Let's get rid of that. Like, we'll take care of this for you. No problem. You have a ton of defenses exactly built into your GI tract

so that once you put that in your stomach, one, our GI tract's job is in part to break things down. So it's going to start trying to destroy everything you just put in there. And two, you have a lot of infection barriers in your GI tract because we eat and drink that way. And so it needs to be a, the security system needs to be better in your GI tract, because that's a good way for invaders to get in.

So it would be, it's harder to make a vaccine that both will trigger an immune response, will get through those mucusal barriers in order to make your immune response happen. But also won't get eliminated by the immune function of your gut, by the immune function of your gut, by the digestive function of your gut, all that stuff. Is it nasal easier?

Because it affects the... Naisal is easier too. Naisal is easier too. Well, you're getting absorbed directly through those membranes into the bloodstream and you don't have all of the other properties you do in the GI tract. But it's harder. It's just a harder delivery method.

I think that that would be... I know. I found papers on that as an area of Exploration when can we do this more effectively? How do we how do we combat all that? Because it would be easier. We know we would get better compliance more people would take the vaccines if they were oral. I mean, there are some examples by the way. There are some oral vaccines out there the typhoid vaccine that I took in the past was an oral vaccine. So we can do it. It's just a lot harder to make that vaccine. And it's important to remember that's because,

even though you can get infected with viruses through the mouth as our listener pointed out, the job of a virus is to infect you, I guess, if a virus has a job. That's what it's trying to do. The job of a vaccine is not to infect you. If the vaccines could make you sick, the way a lot of people think like the flu shot

can give you the flu, it cannot, it cannot. If it could, if that's what you were trying to do, it would probably be a lot easier just to squirt it in your mouth. But we're not trying to give you the flu. We're trying to protect you from getting the flu in the future. So.

Hey folks, thank you so much for listening. Thanks to taxpayers for use. Their song medicines is the intro and outro program. Hey, listen, right now, I need you to head on over to bit.ly forward slash candle nights, 2023. That's where you can spend just five, just five bucks and be able to watch candlelights are virtual spectacular December 16th. And that's going to be at nine p.m. EST. We're going to have special guests. It's going to have songs.

It's going to have fun. It's going to have everything and all of the donations, all the money that we raised from this goes to Harmony House, which is, I don't know, can you help me out? Harmony House is a local day shelter for people experiencing homelessness here in Huntington, where I provide volunteer medical care. It's the hub of our coordination, of our continuum of care for people experiencing

homelessness in this area. It's where we provide housing services, food, clothes, hygiene, you know, access to a warm place to be, showers, all those things, and supportive services for a variety of other conditions. They've come to really rely on this fundraiser annually, and we're so appreciative to everybody that always kicks in. If you can get more than five bucks, that is so appreciated. And we really appreciate it. Bit.ly4th slash candle 9 night 2023. You don't just have to watch it

when it's live. It will go live at 9 p.m. But, um, it'll be on, uh, on demand for like two weeks afterwards. So you can continue to enjoy it. Um, thanks to taxpayers for the use of their some medicines as the intro natural recovery. I don't remember if I said that already, but that's twice for them. Good on them. Uh, and that's gonna do for us for this week. Until next time, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright!