Something You Should Know - Common Medical Practices You Should Stop Doing & What Happens if You Have No Will

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

Want to be more attractive? There has actually been some interesting research on what makes people appealing to others and this episode begins by exploring ways you can instantly make other people notice you – and like what they see. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-attract-the-opposite-sex-2013-7?op=1 It is conventional medical wisdom to take a pill to lower your fever or to put ice on a sprain or to be sure to take all your antibiotic pills even if you feel all better. Yet all those common practices and others, are bad medicine according to Dr. Paul Offit, a professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and author of the book Overkill: When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far (https://amzn.to/2RoRAUp). Listen and Dr. Offit offers an eye opening explanation of why we persist in doing these types of things and what we should be doing instead.   It is easy to let exercise slip, especially with gyms and parks being closed and all of us cooped up inside. Yet exercise is exactly what we need to help get us through. Listen as I explain some of the amazing benefits of exercise that you may not have heard before. http://www.businessinsider.com/psychological-benefits-of-exercise-2015-6 Are you prepared to die? What I mean by that is, do you have everything in order, or do you at least have a will? More than half the U.S. population does not yet every single one of those people will die someday. Chanel Reynolds’ husband didn’t have a will and when he was suddenly killed in a car crash, she had to navigate and figure out what to do since he left no instructions. She has since become an advocate to get people to plan for the inevitable. She wrote a book called What Matters Most (https://amzn.to/3aPU7P8) and she joins me to explain the importance of having a will and other legal documents ready as well as the nightmare it creates when you don’t.  Her website is www.ChanelReynolds.com  This Week's Sponsors -The Zebra. Compare and save money on car insurance. Go to www.TheZebra.com/sysk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, simple ways to make yourself more attractive. We'll be right back. Fever is good. Everything that can walk, fly, crawl or swim on the face of this planet can make fever and we do it because our immune system works better at a higher temperature. So when you give anti-fever medicines, you only prolong and worsen illness as it's

been shown in study again and again. Plus why it's important to exercise now more than ever. And bad things happen. Someday you will die, so you must have a will. The truth is it only takes a few hours to do it now rather than dozens or hundreds of hours if you die without one and your friends and family have to navigate probate court when you're at your worst. All this today on Something You Should Know. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like Something You Should Know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.

Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker.

Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know can use in your life.

Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, and welcome to Something You Should Know. I've lately been getting some emails from people, listeners, new listeners, people who haven't listened to the podcast before, but like so many of us, have a lot more time on their hands, so they found podcasting, and this podcast in particular. And so, welcome. Great to have new listeners to the podcast.

First up today, we're going to talk about making you more attractive. Here are some things that science says will make you more appealing. Women should wear red lipstick. A woman's lips are the most attractive part of her body, especially when colored with red lipstick, according to a study at Manchester University. The study revealed that men stared at women's lips for seven full seconds when they were colored red. In comparison, they spent just.95 seconds

looking at her eyes and.85 seconds gazing at her hair. Men should play hard to get. A study in psychological science found that women found a man more attractive when she wasn't exactly sure how strongly he felt about her as opposed to when she was certain he was interested. Men should wear a t-shirt with a big T on it. about her, as opposed to when she was certain he was interested. Men should wear a t-shirt with a big T on it.

Researchers at Nottingham Trent University found that when men wore white t-shirts with a large black T printed on the front, women found them 12% more attractive. The scientists suggested that the shirt creates an illusion that broadens the shoulders and slims the waist, producing a more V-shaped body that women found sexy. Men should brood more. Brooding and swaggering men are much more attractive than men who are smiling, according to a study from the University of British Columbia. And both women and men should keep their teeth looking good, or get them fixed if they're not.

A study confirmed that a white and evenly spaced set of teeth makes people seem more attractive. They're a sign of good health and good genetics. And that is something you should know. The coronavirus has probably gotten us more focused on and protective of our health and well-being than ever before. And it's interesting to me that so much of how we take care of our health, we do because, well, that's what we're supposed to do. That's what we've always heard. That's what your mom said.

Or even maybe that's what your doctor told you. But it turns out there are a lot of things we do regarding our health care that may not be so smart. For example, if you get a fever, you probably take something to bring the fever down, which actually may be a really bad idea. And there's a lot more to it than that. Dr. Paul Offit is a medical doctor and professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, and he is author of a book called Overkill, When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far. Hey, doctor, welcome. Thank you. So, briefly explain your premise here. What are you talking about specifically?

Those situations in modern medicine where there's abundant scientific evidence that we shouldn't be doing something, but we do it anyway. So, for example, treating fever, finishing an antibiotic course, knee arthroscopies, heart stents. There's a lot of evidence that we shouldn't be doing what we're doing, yet we still feel compelled to do it. Okay, so grab one of those things you just said, pick one, and dive into the details. I think the one that would be the most surprising is that we finished the antibiotic course. So, for example, if you have asthma, we treat people until their wheezing stops. If you have pain, you treat people until their pain stops.

If you have a kidney infection and you have bacteria in your urine or you have white cells in your urine and you have fever and back pain, once you give antibiotics for, say, several days and the fever is gone and the white blood cells in your urine are gone and the bacteria are gone, why do we continue to treat? And so there are now abundant studies showing that for virtually every bacterial infection, we don't need to treat as long as we have been treating. And there was recently a paper in The Lancet that was titled, Has the Antibiotic Course Had Its Day? And I think

it has. The argument has always been that you take the antibiotic until it's all gone because you don't want any of that bacteria to survive because then it can strengthen and become antibacterial resistant, or you could get sick again, that you really want to take it all to knock it all out. Yeah, so this was born of a time when we didn't have the proper doses of antibiotics decades ago. So the point is, is you're right. That's what people think. They think that if they don't continue to treat, that either the disease will come back or that we will create resistant bacteria. And now we're finding that in abundant studies that that's largely not true, that you can stop earlier.

One recent study in Spain was actually done looking at people in the intensive care unit with bacterial pneumonia. One group was treated for two days in which they no longer had fever. The other group was treated for 10 to 14 days, no difference in outcome. So I think, you know, now when we're moving to a time when antibiotics are becoming progressively less available as bacteria become more and more resistant. We are now in a time when at least several patients are being treated with bacteriophages, meaning viruses that kill bacteria because these people are infected with bacteria that are resistant to all commercially available antibiotics. The time is now more than ever to

save antibiotics for when we need them and certainly not to use them longer than we need them. So here's the thing that I don't understand. If these studies are readily available, and every doctor in the world can see them, probably should see them, why doesn't the recommendation change? There has to be a reason why a doctor would read that, hear that, and say, but I'm going to do it the old way anyway. So what's that reason? Well, first of all, the recommendations have changed.

I mean, so recommending bodies, whether the Infectious Disease Society of America or other recommending bodies have changed their recommendations in line with these current studies. So your question is a good one. Why is it that many physicians haven't changed? I think either, one, because of inertia, two, because they don't read the studies or don't read the recommendations, or three, it's sort of a more subtle reason. I think they believe that what they have been doing has always been good. I mean, doctors are in it to help their patients.

And the notion that what they have been doing hasn't been necessary, has been just a little bit of a hit, so it's hard to make changes. You know, it's hard to learn new tricks. Yeah, but isn't continuing to take an antibiotic and saying that's what we do because it seems to work like giving a well person antibiotics and say, see, you're not sick, so it works? No, exactly right. Well, I mean, I trained at a time when we used to treat bacterial meningitis until the patient's spinal fluid essentially was largely clear of white cells. I mean, that was a ridiculous idea. And we found out that we didn't need to treat nearly that long.

And so, you know, we learn as we go. There were a number of things that I learned during my residency in pediatrics in the late 1970s that are no longer done. So we do evolve. I think we should always question our assumptions. But again, it's a matter of supporting the statements that I'm making in this book with a wealth of studies. It really doesn't matter what I say. The only thing that matters is what the data show. And I think the data now clearly have shown that there are a number of things that we're doing in modern medicine that don't need to be done. So eventually, it's just a lag, then, you think? Maybe eventually things will catch up? Yes, well, there are also sort of financial incentives. I

mean, so for example, heart stents. I mean, you know, it makes sense, right? I mean, if you have a heart attack, and you then find that one of the two major arteries that supplies the heart muscle has a greater than 70% blockage, and that the area where the heart was damaged is right leading to beyond that blockage, wouldn't it make sense to have a stent that opens up the blockage? Sure, it makes theoretical sense. The problem is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether you do that or you just do standard medical therapy, meaning make sure that you exercise right, that you have a good diet, that you have a high level of cholesterol, that you reduce that, that if you have high blood

pressure, that you reduce that. And the reason is, the reason it doesn't work is that the smaller arteries that come from that larger artery are also blocked. And so you're not doing anything for them. So the way that that study was done, it was the definitive study, was they put in stents in half the patients, and then they pretended to put in was they put in stents in half the patients, and then they pretended to put in the stent in the other half of the patients. So that half who pretended to have the stent, they didn't know they didn't have a stent. They thought they did have a stent. And the people who were evaluating them thought they did have a stent. And you found that there was no difference in outcome. And so now there are a number of places in the United States that don't put in heart stents and that just go to medical therapy. But again, there are a number of places in the United States that don't put in heart stents and that

just go to medical therapy. But again, there is a financial incentive here, so it's harder to convince some people not to do it. Well, I would imagine, and this has always interested me, that there's also patient demand. Well, you have to do something. You've got to put in a stent because that's what you do, and we as the family, we as the patient, we demand that you do that. No, I think that's a perfectly valid point, especially with antibiotics. I mean, you know, you want to walk out with a prescription. You want to make sure something's being done, but sometimes doing nothing is doing something, and sometimes when you do something, it can have an adverse outcome that you didn't anticipate. So the point is to always follow the data, always follow the studies, and do what is the least invasive, least potentially destructive thing you can do to a

patient to make sure that they get better. Well, how many patients go to a doctor when they have, you know, a cold or some virus or something and demand an antibiotic, which from my understanding will do nothing. But they demand to get that Z-Pak because that's doing something. So that's exactly right. And in addition, physicians are often graded by their patients. And the physicians will grade higher if they're more willing to give an antibiotic, even in a situation where there's a viral infection and an antibiotic will do no good and will only do harm.

One, antibiotics do have side effects. Two, you can create resistant bacteria by treating with antibiotics. So you're doing harm, but you're right. In a sense, the tail wags the dog there. The doctor wants to be liked by the patient, and doing what the patient wants is more likely to make them liked. Well, that's ridiculous. I mean, that's turning the system on its head, or as you said, the tail wagging the dog. It doesn't make for good medicine.

Right. It makes for bad medicine. But I think the doctor's job is to help the patient through this sort of dense ticket of medical information to come to the best decision. I mean, you're a doctor in a hospital or a doctor in a clinic. You're not a waiter in a restaurant. I mean, your job isn't to just sort of say, look, here's a list of things we have. What would you like? Your job is to help them make the best, safest decision, even if it means spending more time with the patient trying to explain why it is that maybe doing nothing in a situation is better than doing something.

It seems that, and some of the examples in the book would be, well, you know, what harm can it do? What if you take a baby aspirin every day, and maybe it does and maybe it doesn't prevent a heart attack, but it isn't going to do any harm, or is it? Yes, so that was one of the surprising things, actually, for me. I mean, I'm a pediatrician, so we don't deal with this situation much. But if you've had a heart attack or a stroke, then taking baby aspirin lessens your chance of having a second heart attack or a second stroke, clearly.

Those data are clear. But if you're at risk of a heart attack or a stroke, so, for example, you have high blood pressure, or, for example, you have a high level of the bad cholesterol, the so-called low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, their studies show that if you take an aspirin, it actually is a greater risk to take the aspirin than not to take it, because what is the aspirin doing? What the aspirin is doing is making it less likely for your blood to clot so that you wouldn't have the stroke, you wouldn't have the heart attack, but that puts you at increased risk of bleeding, including severe bleeding, say, you know, between your skull and your brain and other places where bleeding can be dangerous and potentially fatal.

And those studies are clear, study after study. So now the recommendation is not to give baby aspirin to people who are at risk of a stroke or heart attack but haven't had one yet. Yet still many people still do that, even though that's not the recommendation by formal recommending bodies. It's hard to watch, actually, people continue to hold on to is that new studies are always coming down the road that contradict the last one. And so, yeah, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, because the data does change. You know, I think that's a great point. I mean, certainly I wouldn't be influenced by a single study because you're right once somebody puts out something especially that seems counterintuitive

to everything we've been doing you want to make sure that that other research groups continue to show the same thing in different areas you in different countries you know looking at different populations of people so i think i guess i think science stands on two pillars. The first pillar is peer review. You know, so you want to see that the study has been published in a good journal, but that's the weaker of the two. The stronger of the two is reproducibility. I think if you have a hypothesis and you're right, in this case, let's say heart stents don't prolong lives or don't even lessen the degree of heart pain, i.e. angina, then make sure that that study is repeated again and again and again. And then I think you can feel comfortable that a truth has emerged, because truths do emerge.

I mean, sometimes they take weeks, sometimes years, sometimes decades, but truths do emerge. There are truths, and I think what I try and go through in this book is those situations where I think a truth has clearly emerged, yet still we often ignore that truth. So what's your recommendation when a patient goes to a doctor and he says, well, you might be at risk for a heart attack, so I want you to take a baby aspirin? You just tell him, no, I'm not going to. Right. You say, look, here's baby aspirin. Like anything that has a positive effect can have a negative effect.

Here's what the negative effect is. Here's the instance of bleeding. Here's the instance of severe bleeding as compared to the chance that you would or would not have a future heart attack or stroke. Here are the numbers. Here are the data. You are much better off not taking this aspirin than taking it. And that is the recommendation now. It's not like I'm making these things up.

The data support it. The recommending body support it. Yet still often It's not like I'm making these things up. The data support it. The recommending body support it. Yet still, often, it's not done. Yeah. Well, okay, but that's a yes or no, do or don't, as opposed to take all your antibiotics rather than you decide, well, the symptoms are gone. I'm going to stop now. Right.

So that's a good question. I mean, how to do that? And I think that now we're finding that as people, for example, are better. They're feeling better. You know, their appendicitis now has gotten, well, let me take a less severe example, that their bladder infection, their cystitis, now they no longer have pain. They no longer have fever. They no longer have white cells or bacteria in their urine.

You can stop. And I think that with pneumonia, for example, even bacterial pneumonia, even severe bacterial pneumonia, if you have two afebrile days, two days without fever, you can stop. And I think that when your immune system, it's your immune system that causes the fever. When your immune system abates, what your immune system is saying to you, we're done. We've treated this infection, so believe it, and then stop taking the antibiotics, because at that point, bacterial replication is not an important part of that infection anymore. So stop. When do you stop because you're starting to feel better, or you stop because every last symptom is gone?

Right. And so, again, of the maybe 10 infections that I go through in this book, I go through each of those in terms of what the criteria are for stopping and what the recommending bodies now are arguing for. But for the most part, it's when you start to turn the corner, when you're starting to feel better, because what that's telling you is that your immune system is abating, and therefore your immune system is telling you, we think we're done here. I'm speaking with Dr. Paul Offit. He's an M.D. and professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, and he is author of the book Overkill, When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network.

At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know

are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics,

creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person

Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So, Doctor, I know you're concerned about sunscreen, and I've always found it interesting that, you know, in recent decades, the word is out and lots of people use sunscreen. It seems pretty common that if you go out in the sun or you go to the beach, you wear sunscreen. And yet the incidence of skin cancer continue to rise. So something's not right. What happens with sunscreen is people have a false sense of security. They think of the term, and I think the term that probably should never be used is sunblock.

If you want to block yourself from the sun, stay inside or wear protective clothing because there's nothing you're going to be able to put on your skin that will block the sun's harmful rays. It'll dramatically lessen it, but it won't block it. And I think, you know, as you get higher and higher levels of so-called SPF, sun protection factor, you have a lesser capacity than of those harmful cancer-causing UV rays, ultraviolet rays, to be able to penetrate into your skin. I think what happens then is people stay outside for long periods of time, and especially when the sun is at its most likely time to hurt you,

which is between 10 in the morning and 2 to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and they're thinking, I'm good, I've got on sunblock. Yet still what we now know from study after study is that that puts you at greater risk because it isn't a sunblock, because there is still some penetration, because now you're thinking, I'm good, I can sit here for hours when the most dangerous UV radiation is occurring, you're at risk. So again, I go through what the recommendations are now by dermatologists in terms of how to use sunscreen and sunblock and when to go outside

and when not to go outside. But you're right, skin cancer is common. What about icing a sprain? You say that that's not, but everybody does that. Right. And it's many, many ways for the same reason we treat fever. You feel better. So you're thinking, great, that must mean I am better. But the reason that it hurts when you sprain your ankle is because it's because there's inflammation, because there's increased blood flow to that area. Your body's doing that for a reason. It's doing it because it wants to send all the sort of factors, you know, the blood proteins that need to get there to help heal that damaged cartilage or ligament. But when you ice the sprain and decrease blood flow to the

area, although the pain decreases, those critical factors that need to get to that area aren't getting there. And therefore, you prolong the period of time during which it takes for you to really recover. And again, study after study has shown that, but we still feel compelled to ice things because we want to feel better. And the same thing is true of fever. I mean, you know, fever is something we all can do. Everything that can walk, fly, crawl, or swim on the face of this planet can make fever, and we do it because our immune system works better at a higher temperature. So when you give anti-fever medicines, so-called antipyretics, you only prolong and worsen illness, as has been shown in study again and again and again. And you see this coming up now with COVID-19. People are saying, you know, don't give NSAIDs,

which was based on really a non-study. It was mostly just a hypothesis. NSAIDs, like, you know, ibuprofen, don't give that, but you can give acetaminophen, which is Tylenol. Well, the real answer is don't give either. I mean, let your fever do what it's trying to do, which is increase your body's ability to rid yourself of that virus. Don't treat fever. And, you know, we go through many, many studies here that shows that there's no reason. There's never been a study, actually, in either experimental animals or in people showing that treating fever in any way lessens the duration of illness. Isn't there always a concern, though, that if your fever gets too high, that that in itself can cause, I don't know, brain damage or something? Right, and so that's it, right? But

we're going to fry the brain if we allow the fever to get too high. That's not true of physiological fevers, meaning the fevers that you make yourself in response to an infection. It is true with environmental fevers. So, in other words, hyperthermia. If you're an athlete or you're in the military and you're outside on a hot and humid day, wearing heavy clothing, not allowing yourself to sweat and therefore dissipate heat, that you then can have a fever that rises so high

that it causes so-called heat stroke, which can cause brain damage and can cause muscle damage and can cause death. You know, the child who's locked in the car on a hot, sunny day and the parents don't realize what they're doing, and then the child suffers a heat stroke, and people die every year from that. But that's not a physiological fever. Your body isn't going to hurt you, but the environmental fever can. Unless you're infected, obviously, with a virus or bacteria that infects the brain.

That's different, but that's not what we're talking about. See, that is so amazing, because you ask anybody. I mean, my wife is a nurse. I mean, my brother-in-law is a doctor. I bet if I went and asked them, if a patient comes to you with a high fever, what do you do? The answer is always to give them something to lower the fever. That is so embedded in every mother, every grandmother, every doctor, every nurse, it seems, except you, seems to believe that. You're right. There are, though, recommending groups. Barton Schmidt, I know, is one person who is a physician at the University of Colorado who is sort of a guru to many, and he actually doesn't recommend treating fever. So I think that it is

out there not to do it, you know, because as doctors and nurses and nurse practitioners and clinicians, we want people to feel better. And when you give them an antipyretic, an antifever medicine, they do feel better. And we confuse that to think that therefore they are better. But when you look at, for example, you know, concrete things like virus shedding, you know, or bacterial shedding or length of symptoms, you know, and degree of symptoms, you do worse by treating fever. The classic study, and this is years ago, was in children with chickenpox, right? So half the children with chickenpox were treated with Tylenol and the other half weren't. And what you found was the time that it took for those blisters

to heal was much longer in the children who were treated with the Tylenol. So you thought you were helping, but you were hurting. And there was an example actually in our hospital recently of a boy, a teenager who had hit his hip with a soccer ball. He developed this infection of the vessel, so-called thrombophlebitis, with the bacteria MRSA, right, which is a hard-to-treat bacteria. That bacteria then traveled to his lungs and caused abscesses in his lungs. It traveled to his brain and caused abscesses in his brain. It caused a bone infection, joint infection. He was bad off. We were treating him with the right antibiotic.

But day after day, he still had this bacteria in his bloodstream until finally we sat down with the medical staff. We sat down with the parents, and we sat down with the boy and said, look, let's stop treating your fever, because he had high-spiking fevers every day, and they were treating it every couple hours with either this rotating sort of either ibuprofen or Tylenol to try and keep his fever down. We said, let's just stop. Stop treating his fever. See what happens. And he was a brave kid. He said, okay, he'll see what he can take. And, you know, he had fever for a day or so. And then the bacteria in his bloodstream disappeared.

The parents were convinced it was because of what we did. And I think it probably was what we did, but it might not have been. But in any case, I think it was a dramatic example of how fever can work for you. Well, it makes all the sense in the world that the body tries to heal itself, and when you kill the fever, you're basically blocking the defense, right? Right. I mean, when you have fever, it's because your body wants you to have fever. I mean, when you're infected, you'll make these certain proteins, which then travel to the center of your brain in an area called the hypothalamus, that now reset your body temperature. Your body wants you to have a higher temperature, so you do that.

You shiver. You shunt blood from your arms and legs to your core. You get under the covers. You wear warm clothing. You feel cold, which is another way of saying your body wants you to feel cold so that you could then be warmer. When you're warmer, the neutrophils, the white blood cells that make up pus, they can travel to the site of infection better, they can ingest bacteria better, they can kill bacteria better at a higher temperature. That's been shown in the laboratory, it's been shown in people again and again and again, yet still

we choose to blunt this vital aspect of our immune system because we can. I know sometimes, I remember when I was a kid, I would get a high fever, even to the point where, not that I was hallucinating, but your mind starts to play tricks on you, and that's alarming. And I wonder, is that a time where maybe it's getting a little too high? Well, again, I guess it's a balance. And so, sure. I mean, if there's a question about delirium associated with fever, sure.

In any case, again, I think that on balance, fever is there to help us, not hurt us, and we shouldn't try and cripple a vital aspect of our immune system. And that's what Hippocrates said. Hippocrates, you know, back in 400 BC, saw fever as something that was curative, and he was right. I would imagine that when you talk and other doctors hear you, you must get some pushback, yes? Yes. And what is it that they say? What is the argument against what you're saying? Well, if you take the fever discussion is the argument against what you're saying? Well, if you take the fever discussion, they'll say, you're just not going to get people to buy that. It's just, you know, it's ingrained in our culture. You're not going to get people to do that.

And, you know, what's interesting is when we had that discussion with the boys' parents who suffered this massive infection with MRSA, they were really attentive to that. They wanted to do something that made sense to them and they wanted to. Now, they had a child who was severely ill, but, you know, they were willing to do that. And when it was better, they were converts. I mean, I think we should, you know, get those parents out there and let them tell their story because clearly the data support the notion that treating fever is bad. But you're right, I think it's, you know, people just like to feel better for the same reason that ice sprains. I think, you know, it would be hard to convince people not to do that because they want to feel better, even if it means it's going to take a longer time to recover. But just because people won't buy into it, that's a lousy art. I mean, we could be for centuries

hitting people with hammers to cure headaches, and now we know it doesn't work. Well, just because people want you to hit them with a hammer doesn't mean you should. I mean, that's a stupid argument. I agree. I think inertia is not a good argument. I think that if you're going to argue it, then show why. And also, you know, there are now population studies showing that, for example, people with influenza, when they treat their fever, they're much more likely to go outside, much more likely to infect other people, and much more likely to cause people to suffer and die from that infection. There was this population model that were done showing that.

And you could make the same argument now for COVID-19. I mean, when people treat their fever, they may feel better, feel like, okay, now they can walk outside thinking that they're better. But in fact, they're actually shedding more bacteria. I'm sorry, in the case of COVID-19, shedding more virus than they were from not treating their fever because the fever helps make a certain kind of white blood cell called cytotoxic T cell kill virus-infected cells and therefore make you less likely to shed. So treating fever cripples that part of your immune system so you feel better.

You feel like you can walk outside, but in fact, you're probably shedding more virus in that setting. You say that supplemental antioxidants increase the risk of cancer and heart disease. Nobody believes that. Everybody believes if you take antioxidants, that that will help prevent cancer because it gets those little things and kills them. Yeah, the thing is, and I use the same language that you use, it's not a belief system. It's an evidence-based system.

You don't have to believe this. All you have to do is look at the data. I mean, religion is a belief system, but this is not. It's an evidence-based system. And with antioxidants, it's clear. Your body has a balance, strikes a balance between oxidation and antioxidation. You need oxidation to do certain things. You need oxidation to kill cancer cells. You need oxidation to kill cancer cells.

You need oxidation to kill bacteria. You need oxidation to help clean out sort of clogged arteries, if you will. If you shift the bounce too far in the direction of anti-oxidation, you can hurt yourself. And that's been shown again and again and again in study after study. Now, if you look at people who eat sort of diets rich in fruits and vegetables, i.e. rich in antioxidants, they tend to live longer, have a lesser incidence of cancer, and a lesser incidence of heart disease. But that's not the same thing as taking supplemental antioxidants. I mean, the way that you're meant to take antioxidants is in food, not in a tablet that is manufactured by a company. I mean, if you take 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C, you would have to eat 14 oranges or 8 cantaloupes to get that level of vitamin C.

And you're not meant to eat 14 oranges or 8 cantaloupes at once. And so if you go too far in the direction of anti-oxidation, you can hurt yourself. I mean, there are probably five studies now showing that people who take these sort of megadoses of vitamin E increase their risk of prostate cancer. Honestly, if this were a regulated industry, vitamin E would have a black box warning on it saying that this product has been shown to increase your risk of prostate cancer. But it's

not a regulated industry, so people don't know that. And so there tends to be all these sort of vague claims supporting their use. Well, I think there's long been a belief that vitamin supplements are a good idea because I think the belief is that they're insurance against a bad diet. Yeah, although it's hard not to get the vitamin D. I mean, vitamin D is another sort of craze that we're currently, I mean, there are so many foods that are supplemented that it's, I mean, how many people with scurvy do you know? How many people with rickets do you know? Certainly we need vitamins, but it's hard to avoid them even with an inadequate diet. I wouldn't know if I had scurvy or ricket. I'm not sure what the symptoms of scurvy are, and I hope to never find out.

Bleeding gums would be one. Are you okay? Don't have any bleeding gums? You're probably good? Yeah, I think my gums are good. Paul Offit has been my guest. He's a medical doctor. He's a professor of pediatrics at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and his book is called Overkill, When Modern Medicine Goes Too Far. You'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, doctor. Thank you very much. Well, stay safe. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. Thank you very much, Will. Stay safe. Disney themed games and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. fun-filled shows. And don't blame me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest

advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our listener poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. There is something about this particular time in our lives. I don't know exactly what it is. It's just that weird feeling. And it makes me and maybe makes you think about your own mortality. And are you and your loved

ones prepared should, well, the euphemism is should anything happen to you, but mostly that means should you die or become incapacitated, particularly if it were to happen suddenly, without warning. In July of 2009, Chanel Reynolds' husband was tragically killed in a car crash. She and her husband were totally unprepared for that. The results of what she had to go through motivated her to write a book called What Matters Most. Hi Chanel, welcome. Hi, Chanel. Welcome. Hi, thanks so much for having me. You bet. So before we get into what people really need to know for themselves,

share some of what happened to you. About 10 years ago, I got a phone call when I was over at a friend's house with my son, and it took me a while to figure out through a number of missed messages and voicemails that my husband had been in a terrible accident and he was taken to the hospital and I didn't know where he was or how bad it was. But you can tell by the lack of information sometimes that it was pretty serious. So I got to the hospital. He was still alive, but barely. A week after surgery in the ER and the ICU, all the tests came back saying the same thing, which is that his injuries were unrecoverable, was the word that they used. And so after a week of realizing that our wills were drafted but not signed, and we

had some insurance but not other insurance. And I couldn't find, you know, the password to his phone to access basic phone numbers. I realized that for a college-educated project manager, I did not have my scene together at all and that most people also didn't too. And so when my life went sideways, it took me months and years really to kind of put the pieces back together again. And I realized that we kind of suck at dying and death in this country and that there are a few things that we can do in advance to make a hard time maybe feel a little bit softer. We can't take away all the bad things that may or may not happen, but we can maybe make the cushion a little bit better to ride out the storm. Do you think it's just a case of people don't want to, you know, face their own mortality so

that they kind of, it's almost like if I make a will, then I'm going to die kind of thing, and that we just avoid the topic just because it's uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable. And, you know, there are a lot of people who talk about how we are living in denial of death, and I won't say that's not true. I'd also say that, you know, it's been so removed from our daily lives that it's a bad thing that happens rather than a thing that's going to happen to everyone. So the data seems to support that talking about death won't actually kill you. And it also seems to support that it is really the one thing we have in common. So while it's unpleasant or uncomfortable, it's as true as gravity and oxygen is. And the more we're prepared for it, the less awful and sucky

it has to be for us and everybody else around us to, you know, writing a will seems like an uncomfortable thing to do. People don't really know what it is or how to do one. But the truth is, it only takes a few hours to do it now, rather than dozens or hundreds of hours if you die without one and your friends and family have to navigate probate court and just figure out what it is and how it works when you're at your worst and you may not have the capacity or the critical thinking skills to handle it very well. I think also people think that not only will it take a long time and that it's very complicated, that it takes an attorney, it's going to cost a lot of money. And so people don't. I mean, do we have numbers on how many people have a will. And that goes the same for some of the other basic what they call estate planning documents like a living will, which is also called an advanced care directive or a power of attorney document, which can give somebody the ability to make decisions for you if you are not able to do

it for yourself, but not exactly in an end of life position, but say you're hospitalized for a few weeks, and you're not able to pay bills and somebody needs to access your bank account or keep your phone on. I think people wonder, do I do it myself? Do I need to get an attorney? And what do you say? Well, almost every attorney I've spoken to agrees that having something is absolutely better than having nothing. If you have the resources or if you have a complicated estate, which means you might have more than a few million dollars, you might have property out of state. Let's say you have a complicated guardianship or blended family situation, absolutely talk to an attorney and make sure

that you're covered. If you're going to do it, you might as well do it completely and properly and correctly. However, a lot of people, their situation is pretty uncomplicated. And so a lot of the online templates work just fine for many, many people. And if there are a few critical items that you want to take care of, like guardianship for your kids or pets, or setting up a temporary guardian for somebody if you need to go to the hospital for a few weeks and you want your next door neighbor to take care of your kids so they can stay in the house rather than going off to live with their grandparents in another state, there are a few things you can do to cover the things that you are most concerned about. And then you can always update your wills later. But it can really take as short as an hour or two. You can do it on your computer. What makes a will legally binding is signing it with two witnesses. And in most states, you don't even have to have it notarized for it to be legally binding, although it's always a good idea. And what happens, and you can use your example, your experiences as the example, but what happens when you die and you don't have one?

If you die without a will, it can really, really suck. And a lot of the things that are confusing and awful and stressful and terrifying is because you don't know what's going to happen. Some of the states are what are it's called community property states. So if you're legally married, the probate process could go a little more smoothly if it's clear who your heirs are. Although I have to say that generally most people don't agree with all the decisions a state will make for you while you're alive. So it could very well be that you're not going to agree with who gets your stuff or who the guardians are for your kids if you don't create a will and you die what's called intestate. And then the state takes over your home or your

assets and even guardianship of your kids is really questionable. So things can take weeks or months or years and it's much more expensive and it's much more expensive, and it's much more stressful than if you would just write down a few of your basic instructions so people can say, oh yeah, here's what Frank wants me to do with his ABBA vinyl collection and all of his Elvis jumpsuits and call it a wrap. And when you say the state, what does that mean? Yeah, so probate is a process that goes through a legal process. And there is a judge that follows the state's rules about what happens to your assets and your stuff. And usually the heirs are set up ahead of time and decided based on who's closest to you. So if you're married, if you have

living parents, if you have living children or siblings. And so there's an order of who your heirs are and who your stuff would go to. But it may not necessarily go to the people that you would want things to go to. And you might be sticking somebody who may not have the capacity or the ability to go through all your stuff. Say you wanted one brother rather than another brother to have the Elvis jumpsuits, or you wanted your best friend from college to have the Elvis jumpsuits, but nobody would know that. And that person probably wouldn't get them because, because there's no instructions left behind. Right, right. And so in a short form list here, what are the documents in a perfect world that you should, the typical person should have and then put it in a drawer and not have to worry about it again?

Right. Well, there's three basic estate planning documents that form what's essentially the foundation of the instructions. The first one is your will, and that's who gets your stuff and that states your end-of-life decisions for the kind of care that you do and also don't want to have at the end of your life. That would be where you would say, I don't want to be resuscitated or I do want the machines turned off. The third document is a power of attorney document, and that's where you can grant someone or a couple of different people rights to be your medical power of attorney, even a digital power of attorney or a financial power of attorney. So someone can step in for you and take care of your bank accounts, close down your social accounts. They can make medical decisions for you on your behalf if you're not able to.

There are other documents and there can be many more and many more complicated ones when it comes to a trust in some states or for some people, having a trust is a great idea. But usually, those are the three main documents that cover most people. If you have children, where I guess you would want to put that in a document. What document is that? So in your will is usually where you state guardianship of kids and or pets. And you can have different levels of guardians. And it's always recommended to have a backup person named. So you can say that your

kids will go to live with your sister. You can also have short-term or temporary guardians listed in case you would want to have your say grandparents have the kids for the summer. So you can leave instructions about who you want to have taking care of your children or pets. And then also if there's any other specifics that you'd like, whereas, you know, you would want them to finish going to school in the same state or what kind of care you would want for them to have, which would be helpful information. The other two things I'd really like to mention is you can set up temporary guardianship. So, for example, my parents are the guardians should something happen to me before my son is an adult. They live out of state. So I actually have somebody else listed here as a short-term or temporary guardian who can have and take care of my son for a few weeks or a few months should my parents not be able to get here in time, or if they need, you know, to make some accommodations. So that was an important thing for me to be able to know that my son could stay in the house, and then the guardianship could be smoother and that there's a little more options for that. What happens if both parents die at the same time? Because I imagine a lot of people in their will put, you know, my wife will take care of this or my husband will take care of this. But if they both die in the same car accident or plane crash or whatever, and that has happened, then what happens. Yeah, that's when having guardianship set up for if both parents are deceased is really,

really important because you don't want, well, you don't want there to be any confusion. You would want your kids to know what would happen so they wouldn't be confused either. And you certainly don't want to have a court battle over who's going to get guardianship of the kids during a time when really the kids would need the most amount of love and consistency and support as possible. So that's an extremely important reason why you have a will. And for me, in particular, as a single widowed parent, I wanted to be really clear that my son knows that if and when, well, if something happens to me before he is an adult or when I die, that he's going to be taken care of. So our conversations actually are like, he said, so mom, what's going to happen to me if I die again?

I'm like, well, Connie is going to be able to have you for a week or two, but you're going to live with grandma and grandpa and they'll come move here so you can finish school and you know at your same school and his what his response normally is is like okay great what are we having for dinner because because especially as a kid who knows that death can happen it when he's asking what's going to happen to me if you die he's not looking for me to say don't worry sweetie i'm never going to die because it isn't true and he knows it's not looking for me to say, don't worry, sweetie, I'm never going to die, because it isn't true, and he knows it's not true. He feels better knowing that there's a plan for him and that he'll be taken care of if something were to happen. Yeah, and that goes back to that thing about nobody really wants to talk about death. So I imagine a lot of people say, you know, don't worry, Johnny, everything will be fine. I'm not going anywhere.

I'm going to be here. But you might not be here. It turns out, you know, today's probably not the day that you're going to die. But you can't make that promise. And it's important to me that my son knows he's taken care of. And it's true. We really are uncomfortable talking about death. We often say, if I die, rather than when. And so even our very casual, passive language around death and dying sets it up to be something that we're excluding ourselves from as humans. And I think during, you know, this time right now, when the world is upside down and life has gone sideways and we're feeling this urgency and the exigency at the same time, we're not just thinking about emergency planning and masks. We're also thinking about, wow, what's really going to happen if something really happens?

And while it's scary, you know, I think we're having scary conversations about hard things. But we're also starting to have more hard conversations that will bring a sense of relief afterwards, right? Like talking about what would happen if something happens, and then having a plan or some options about it, makes me less anxious about the idea that something would happen because I don't have to run around like, you know, the aliens have landed and my house is on fire looking for an emergency key or knowing I have backup phone numbers because I've already taken care of that. For the person who's listening to you who finds this hard to get motivated to do something,

what do you say? What can you, knowing all the things you know and all you've been through, what can you say to that person that maybe that would really help? One thing that helps me just slowly, bit by bit, stay on top of this stuff is uncertainty sucks more for me than thinking about having a plan, you know, hoping for the best is nice, but hoping for the best is also not a plan. And so even five minutes a day of just looking online and updating your beneficiaries or making sure that somebody is written down anyway,

doing a couple things, having an emergency key outside, having a backup plan. You know, I'm in Seattle, which is earthquake country. And so a lot of emergency planning and the things that you need are kind of baked into that. So if something were to happen, let's just say, what would the next 24 hours look like? And if you know that someone can get to you, or you can get to them, if you know that your pets might be taken care of, so you don't come home afterwards, and the dogs have eaten your couch, you know, just a couple of things to make the noise level go down when the stress or the worry or the overwhelm goes up, I find to be incredibly helpful for just having less things on my to-do list

that are constantly kind of banging against my nervous system. Well, it's not a particularly fun thing to talk about, but as your own experience illustrates, it's a lot easier to take care of these things ahead of time than to have to do it after the fact, after someone or you dies. And as you said, it's not if, it's when. I appreciate you spending the time with us, Chanel. Chanel has some free resources on her website that can help you get this process started. Her website is ChanelRelreynolds.com

and the name of her book is What Matters Most. There's a link to her website and a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Thanks, Chanel. Hey, thanks so much. It was wonderful to chat with you. Just from talking to people and from my own experience, I know that a lot of people who like to exercise are not exercising as much as they used to before the whole coronavirus thing

because we're supposed to stay at home and it's sometimes just easier to stay at home. But it's still important to exercise and there are so many good reasons to do so. First of all, it's going to boost your mood. A study of 8,000 Dutch people between ages 16 and 65 found that in general, people who exercise regularly were more satisfied with their life and happier than non-exercisers. It also reduces stress as well as improves your ability to cope with and respond to mentally taxing situations. Exercise also boosts your confidence a lot. And it helps you sleep better.

A study showed that people who worked out intensely in the evening slept better than their peers who didn't work out or who worked out less intensely. And that is something you should know. I appreciate you spending your time listening to this podcast, and I hope you'll share it with someone you know. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness friendship honesty and positivity join me and an all-star cast of actors

including liam neeson emily blunt kristin bell chris hemsworth among many others in welcoming the search for the silver lining podcast the go kid go network by listening today look for the search for the silver lining on spotify apple or wherever you get your podcasts