Something You Should Know - Hidden Ways Movies and TV Influence You & Why You Need to Brush Your Tongue

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, you can search just about anything online, but there are some things you probably shouldn't. Then, movies and TV have a powerful influence on all of us in lots of very interesting ways. I think that if you ask people, what was the thing that kind of motivated you to get into the field that you want to do? Lots of times movies will come up.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Lots of times people will say, I saw ER and then I realized that women could be doctors. And as a result, I pursued that career. Also, what you should probably do about 2 o'clock every workday afternoon. And the latest trends in dentistry. How to brush, how to care for your tongue, and should you get your wisdom teeth removed. The advocates of wisdom tooth extraction, they cite a number of reasons. Perhaps the most common reason is the belief that the wisdom teeth will push and crowd your other teeth. Well, Mike, the research has shown that that's simply not true.

Starting point is 00:01:26 All this today on Something You Should Know. This is an ad for better help. Welcome to the world. Please read your personal owner's manual thoroughly. In it, you'll find simple instructions for how to interact with your fellow human beings and how to find happiness and peace of mind. Thank you and have a nice life. Unfortunately, life doesn't come with an owner's manual. That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterhelp.com. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hello, and welcome to Something You Should Know. Yeah, it's pretty cool the fact that you can search for just about anything in a search engine, and you'll get back some results. But it turns out some things may be better left unsearched, according to an article from Reader's Digest called Nine Things You Should Never Google. For instance, don't search things that you don't want popping up in ads later on your computer. If you search for racy lingerie, you can bet you're going to see a lot of ads for it popping up all over your screen. Don't search for anything that's going to incriminate

Starting point is 00:02:52 you. And you see this on TV all the time, and they arrest somebody for murder, and then the news report says, and they searched their hard drive and found Google searches for how to murder someone. So don't do that. Don't search skin conditions. At least not just before lunch. You will get some pretty gross images in your face, and there's so much information on skin conditions that you're just better off making an appointment with a dermatologist. Don't search your favorite thing in the world plus the word cancer. Like, if you search dogs and cancer,

Starting point is 00:03:30 you're going to get something back that says dogs cause cancer in humans. So don't search that. And don't use search engines for translations. Search engines just aren't that good at it. And if you're trying to communicate something, failure is likely. As evidenced by the song, The Girl from Ipanema, the Portuguese lyrics of that song translate to English as,

Starting point is 00:04:00 Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking. When the Portuguese lyrics were put into Google, it translated as, Girl in the golden body, son from Ipanema, the it swung, it's more than a poem. Well, that's not right. And that is something you should know. We all watch movies and TV shows and read books, mostly to be entertained. That's pretty obvious. What's less obvious is that the things we consume as entertainment influence us. Popular forms of entertainment can and do have a direct mental, emotional, and sometimes physical effect on us,

Starting point is 00:04:41 as well as on the culture, the economy, and even the future. And often it's done in ways that are hard to recognize unless you know what to look for. But when you know what to look for, it gets really interesting. Someone who knows what to look for is Walt Hickey. Walt is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and data expert and author of a fascinating book called You Are What You Watch, How Movies and TV Affect Everything. Hi Walt, welcome to Something You Should Know. Hey, thank you so much for having me. So the idea that what you watch on TV or in the movies affects you, it's not a new concept. I mean,

Starting point is 00:05:22 we all heard it as kids that, you know, what we're watching is ruining our brains or, you know, watching violent films will make you violent or something like that. But it's not real clear what the connection is. I think that a lot of times that we have conversations about this, it's in the most kind of baseline way. A lot of times, like, you know, somebody who watches a lot of Fox News tends to get maybe more conservative over time. Likewise, with MSNBC in the other direction, that kind of, in my experience, at least talking to folks about this topic, is oftentimes the extent of thought that folks put into it. And what I was just so struck

Starting point is 00:06:00 by when I was doing, you know, a couple years of pop culture reporting, was how often it would just come up that somebody says, Oh, yeah, no, I saw a movie, and it completely changed my life. And it made me do it want to do a different thing. And it made me want to be somebody different. It was, I saw somebody represented on screen that I identified with that said, Yes, I could be a doctor. Yes, I could do this kind of career. And you have enough of those conversations where you kind of realize that there's so much more going on here than just the surface level ways that media can, you know, change someone's politics or change someone's outlook or change someone's perspective on stuff. I would imagine, or it would seem that how much films or TV influence you has a lot to do with you. Like how impressionable are you?

Starting point is 00:06:46 For example, you know, we hear the violence argument that people who watch a lot of violent films can become violent, but plenty of people watch violent films who never become violent. It really kind of depends on the person. To an extent, because in a laboratory,

Starting point is 00:07:03 if you show somebody a bunch of violent films, or if you show somebody some violent imagery, or if you show somebody some violent video, you know, typically, they'll find that they behave a little bit more aggressively in subsequent tests. And that's, you know, this concept that you can be, you know, mentally aroused by violence is a fairly proven element of lab related work work, but the world ain't a laboratory. And so there's these two researchers, economists that I spoke to that did this really fascinating story trying to look at do violent films actually create and encourage violent crime? And so they were able to look at the weekends that violent films came out, and they were

Starting point is 00:07:41 able to look at the conditions of those weekends from weather perspectives. And then they were able to pull in some really fascinating data about the rate of, you know, assaults that were kind of tracked over the course of a number of years. And what they found was that they had a very unexpected conclusion from this, which is not, you know, it's not only that violent films being exhibited in theaters and being seen by millions and millions of people isn't linked to an increase in violent crime. In fact, it's actually linked to a decrease in violent crime. And as they kind of peeled away at the statistics of this, they realized, you know, movies have an interesting role here, where if you have somebody who's, you know, let's say a man between the ages of 16 and 24, which is kind of that dangerous period in which young men tend to get into trouble in the middle of the street. And if you sequester that individual inside of a cinema for three hours, regardless of if they're watching something violent, that has a public health impact. They're not out at a bar, they're

Starting point is 00:08:38 not out drinking, they're not out messing around on the road. And they actually find subsequently, like, even if they do kind of hang out and go out on the street afterwards, the three hours that they spent not getting drunk has a noticeable decline in how violent assaults register in the country. And they were basically arguing, like, that this self-succastration, the idea that I would, you know, a person who potentially would be doing something inappropriate on the street is instead, you know, just going to sit in a movie theater for three hours, that that has, you know, a person who potentially would be doing something inappropriate on the street is instead, you know, just going to sit in a movie theater for three hours. That has, you know, pretty remarkable public health impacts. Yeah. That's pretty interesting that it's not because

Starting point is 00:09:13 it has nothing to do with the influence of the film. It just has to do with the fact that they're inside watching it and not getting into trouble. The concept of the film, if anything, is a plus because what they effectively found was like, you know, if you want the kind of folks who would potentially be their alternative evening is going to get drunk and, you know, potentially getting into trouble later on in the night. It's a lot easier to get these folks to self sequester inside a cinema when the movie Saw 10 or the movie's Joker or the movie is like kind of this kind of appealing, you know, violent spectacle that, you know, young men enjoy and do want to see. If you compare it to, you know, a Pixar film, you're obviously going to get less of those folks self sequestering inside of a cinema. And so as a result, you know, I think it just kind of speaks to just the power of movies and also just like how much how important time is. The idea is it's not just like, well, you know, I spent all afternoon watching television or I spent, you know, the night at a movie theater. And like everybody in their head compares that to like, well, you could have been exercising, you could have been volunteering, you could have been at church.

Starting point is 00:10:14 Whereas like, you know, how we spend our time and what we invested in, I think is an incredibly valuable thing. So this may be an impossible question to answer, but when the dust all settles from this, when you say you are what you watch, like by how much? Is it forever? Is it in the next two days? And how much different are you? And like, is there a way to quantify what the impact is? Or is it just too big a question? It's a really good point. It is kind of difficult to say, you know, I am, you know, 24% of me is what I've seen on television. I think you kind of just are able to track it through broader societal changes that I don't necessarily think that we would chalk up to what we see. I mean, I come to a lot of examples when it comes to things like science, which the relationship between science and the film industry is complicated.

Starting point is 00:11:06 You know, oftentimes scientists see movies that incorporate science and are various to various degrees mortified over how much it was butchered and to other extents tend to really enjoy the funding boost that will come afterwards. You can see a film like Jurassic Park completely changed the outlook for the field of paleontology, send a wave of new money and new interest and new undergraduates into that field and really provoke a bit of a renaissance when it comes to how that fairly ancient field is able to proceed. You can see similar things when it comes to what people value when it comes to their government. The military has obviously always had an eye on the films because they realized that one of the best way

Starting point is 00:11:46 to compel people, especially young people, to pursue a career in the military is oftentimes by exposing them to military heroes and military careers through film and television. And to that extent has really kind of gone and set up liaison offices to really facilitate that. I think that this stuff really just kind of gone and set up liaison offices to really facilitate that. I think that this stuff really just kind of keeps coming up again, whether it's the popularity of sports,

Starting point is 00:12:12 even like the popularity of people's pets and the dogs. Dalmatians, one of my favorite elements of the book, is that you're able to track a spike in the interest in Dalmatians as an animal right after the re-release of 101 Dalmatians in the early 90s. And like that changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of dogs and was just because, you know, people saw a movie and the dogs had spots in them and they thought that was cool. I think that if you ask people, you know, what was the thing that kind of motivated you to get into the field that you want to do? What was the thing that motivated you to kind of pursue the

Starting point is 00:12:43 hobbies that you want to do? Lots of times movies will come up. Lots of times people will say, I saw ER and then I realized that women could be doctors just as much as men can. And that was the first time that I'd seen that. And as a result, I pursued that career. You can see the same thing with Grey's Anatomy. You can see the same thing time and time again. We're talking about some of the interesting ways watching media, TV and movies in particular, have an effect on you in ways you probably never realized. My guest is Walt Hickey. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and author of the book, You Are What You Watch, How Movies and TV Affect Everything.

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Starting point is 00:14:06 and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. So Walt, when you talk about the influence of TV and movies on people, it's mostly the serious stuff, right? It's the violence, the crime, the medical, the... But what about comedy? Does comedy have the same influence or because it's not so serious, it's viewed more as fluff and so not so much? Comedy that I specifically focus on are sitcoms because I think that sitcoms are an outstanding way to understand a society's values and how they, like basically a sitcom is very good at understanding what is assumed about families and workplaces within a society by watching family and workplace sitcoms. And you can kind

Starting point is 00:14:56 of trace the arc of this over the course of history. You can track basically how American families are perceived all the way from the Andy Griffith show all the way on through shows like Black-ish today and basically what is an acceptable baseline for what an American family looks like and it's composed of. You can watch throughout history as it goes from being perhaps less than picture perfect as you get shows like Married with Children being very, very successful, like Roseanne being very, very successful and illustrating the changing social mores. You can have shows that are about the workplace, which I really think is an exciting way to kind of view American history

Starting point is 00:15:31 is through our workplace sitcoms. I mean, one of my favorite kind of parts of this is that, I don't know if you care for the show 30 Rock, but 30 Rock is a fairly, like, it's not a remake, but it directly is designed to evoke through casting the Maryary tyler moore show you have you know a young woman in the workplace who is given a great deal of responsibility you have her older more conservative boss you have the wacky people that she works with

Starting point is 00:15:55 and basically how you intermediate these you know challenges and this workplace thing is where you mind the comedy from and you know you can watch workplace sitcoms evolve over the course of time, whether it's taxi or whether it's superstore. And just basically, it's a way to kind of rub people at different social classes together and see what happens in an exciting way. And so like comedies, I really, I can't get enough of them just because I think that they're just such a fun way to kind of track how a society views itself and what a society assumes about itself. One of the things that movies and television seem to be very good at because of the power of those images that we see is, is they can change perception of groups of people. You know,

Starting point is 00:16:35 I think of the old Western TV shows and Western movies, villainized Indians, Native Americans, and, you know, war movies villainize the enemy. And that's a powerful, that's a powerful thing. For better and for worse. I think that one of the most remarkable organizations studying this is something called the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. And it's this laboratory run out of the University of Southern California, Annenberg, by this researcher, Stacey Smith. And her team basically every year counts every character in film and television from, I believe, the top 100 grossing movies. They do some really compelling research about the... Basically, they'll get the gender, they'll get the ethnic background, they'll get all sorts of different

Starting point is 00:17:21 statistics about the characters who are given an opportunity to speak in film. You're talking about 50,000 characters, give or take a year across these kinds of films. And as a result, they're able to kind of discern, you know, not only who is being represented, but the manner in which they're being represented. And the statistics that were just so sobering were that if you looked at representation of Arabs and folks in the Middle East, and I don't want to just say Arab Americans just because this is also the global representation of it, but Muslims in general, and if you look at the representation of Hispanics and Latinos, what you remarkably kind of see is that for many people,

Starting point is 00:18:01 if the way that you see these communities are simply through the representation in media, like I believe double digit percentages of Latinos on television are represented as people involved in a gang or in some kind of criminal work. Double digit percentages are of people who are represented as Muslim within media are represented as either working with some sort of terrorist organization or working along or like, you know, adverse to the aims of the protagonists and in some kind of villain capacity. And that's where it gets really worrisome, where the representation that you have within media is unilaterally and overwhelmingly negative. Completely out of sync with the actual understanding of how these communities actually operate within the world. One of the most shocking things that I had seen was that if you looked at the number of Asian American

Starting point is 00:18:58 and Pacific Islander leads, they tracked half the time the person who was the Asian American or Pacific Islander in the lead role was Dwayne Johnson. And so these roles can go to vanishingly few people. And even when they are heroic, you can count the number of performers who have these heroic roles on one hand. And that's the kind of thing that worries me at times about how people are viewing things in the aggregate. That being said, I think that one thing that's been really exciting about the past couple of years is that number one,

Starting point is 00:19:29 you've seen some legitimate shift in that. You've seen those issues get pointed out and people are endeavoring, whether successfully or not, to begin to address them. You talk about how you use the example of when the movie Beethoven about the St. Bernard came out, adoption of St. Bernard's went way up. When 101 Dalmatians was re-released, lots of people wanted to adopt Dalmatians. There's this power that the media has. Can you give me some other examples of the power like that? One of my favorite ones is that the United States was not sending rockets into space through the 1950s. Obviously, by the early 1960s who could do it. And over the course of that period, NASA hadn't existed yet. We weren't really getting rockets even into space. And the

Starting point is 00:20:39 only thing that was really affecting that opinion was a number of Walt Disney produced documentaries interviewing folks like Werner Von Braun and illustrating the principles of how one would actually get to space and how one would actually get to the moon and how one would actually build a lunar environment, as well as a number of large magazine exploratory features in a magazine called Colliers, which was one of the largest syndicated magazines of the times, basically making the science fictional case of here's actually how we can pull this off. And so if you looked at that era of human history, despite the fact that rockets weren't even getting past the stratosphere, we were still successfully convincing the American people

Starting point is 00:21:17 that it was viable to get to the moon merely through a number of Disneyland related segments, as well as a couple of magazines. Now, you said you had, or it says in the material about your book that some of the changes, some of the influences that movies and TV have on people are also physical. So can you give me an example of that? So like I interviewed these researchers who study, they're medical researchers, and they typically study something called thrombosis, which is basically the process at which your body clots at the wrong time and things that cause strokes. And the clotting system in your body is very sophisticated. It's one of the oldest systems

Starting point is 00:21:52 that we have. And what these folks effectively found after exposing people to a very neutral film, it was a documentary about champagne, and then exposing people to a jump scare-laden horror movie, they found effectively that your body, over the course of watching a horror movie, has released a specific compound that is the compound that they release when your body's preparing itself to bleed, when your body's effectively worried enough

Starting point is 00:22:19 that you're going to be wounded, that it wants to be ready to kind of get that ball rolling on staunching that bleeding pretty quick. And so what they effectively found was that they, this coagulation factor, um, that is specifically linked to your body getting ready to be injured is strongly activated when you watch a horror movie. So, yeah, I think that it kind of a big conceit of the book is that this stuff is not just visual. It's not just audio, right? It has a physical manifestation in your body. Your mind appreciates, appreciates it in ways that you might not otherwise appreciate. And these things are really doing something very physical to you beyond simply just being

Starting point is 00:22:50 passively watched, right? What's another example, maybe an unusual one where, you know, like real life and films have intersected? One of my favorite examples, I'm personally a hockey fan. And the entire existence of the Mighty Ducks, the Anaheim Ducks, was effectively after the success of the film, the Mighty Ducks, Disney had $50 million from that film and the video proceeds that they then just decided to use to buy an NHL franchise, which they then co-branded and coded all that. And it was, it is very interesting to me that 3% of the National Hockey League exists exclusively because of the successful Disney movie from the 1990s. Well, the idea that watching TV or movies has a physical, has a physical impact on you. To me, I mean, I've never heard that. It's always been, you know, it's a psychological thing,

Starting point is 00:23:42 but not a physical thing. Is there another example of that? Yeah, so I told you about the blood study. I think that there was another one that still blows me away where effectively there was a group of researchers basically study something called VOCs, which are volatile organic compounds, which are basically just chemicals that are released by living things, that by tracking them, we can understand what's actually going on physiologically. Because when you exhale, you're not just exhaling carbon dioxide. You're also exhaling all the waste products for different kinds of, you know, chemical

Starting point is 00:24:12 reactions going on in your body. So for instance, after you lift weights, after you tense your muscles, you're going to be exhaling something called isoprene because the process inside your body that required you to, you know, flex that muscle has isoprene released as a result. And what they found blew me away because I think it just so gets at the power of this stuff. And it also just shows how little we really understand and appreciate this, which is that they were able to basically attach a device that measured little VOC levels in cinemas. And what they were able to find was the way that they were able to track chemicals in the air was consistent across the same movie across totally different screenings. And so one of the films that they did was they had a film, The Hunger Games Catching Fire.

Starting point is 00:24:57 And at the same moments within The Hunger Games Catching Fire across all sorts of different screenings, the same chemicals would spike, which tells us something's going on physiologically when we watch these films. In some cases, it was isoprene, like I just mentioned, because if there's a vicious attack and you flinch, you're flinching. The act that we were able to make your body flinch is going to cause everyone to exhale isoprene at the same time. And they found not only things that they could easily attribute to known, you know, physiological reactions like carbon dioxide and like isoprene, but all sorts of different but reliable spikes among different chemicals. And so there's this idea that, you know, we, the things that we understand about our body are growing every, every day. But there's all sorts of these, you know, millions of little chemical reactions that go on inside of us, that movies

Starting point is 00:25:44 are able to consistently and reliably affect. And what that tells me, again, is that these are not simply visual experiences and these are not simply audio experiences and not simply a thing that you have on the background. It's a thing that is fundamentally changing you. And as a result, we ought to give it a little bit more respect. Well, there's a lot to this. I mean, a lot more than I thought. And it clearly shows how powerful film and television can be. Walt Hickey has been my guest. Walt is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, and he's author of a book called You Are What You Watch, How Movies and TV Affect Everything. If you'd like to read it, there's a link to the book at Amazon in the show notes. Appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Walt. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. There's a link to the book at Amazon in the show notes. Appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Walt. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. 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,

Starting point is 00:26:46 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,

Starting point is 00:27:08 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. 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.

Starting point is 00:27:55 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.

Starting point is 00:28:29 Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Most likely, you have your dental routine down. You brush a few times a day, maybe floss, see the dentist twice a year, and maybe more often if something's causing pain. Is that about right?

Starting point is 00:28:56 Well, is that enough? Is that still the general thinking of what to do? When you consider how important your teeth are, and when you hear about the relationship between dental health and heart health and other medical issues, it is important to know what to do and what means what when it comes to your teeth. Here to explain is Teresa Yang. She is an award-winning dentist and educator who has taught clinical dentistry and practice management at the UCLA School of Dentistry, and she's author of a book called Nothing But the Tooth. Hi, Teresa. Thanks for

Starting point is 00:29:32 being here. Thank you, Mike. Great to be here. So let's start with one big myth or misconception that you hear often that you would like to dispel? I think one of the biggest misconceptions about dental health is that pain is an indicator of a problem. So patients often say, it's not bothering me. I don't understand why I need to get it fixed. And sometimes that's true, and sometimes it isn't. Or alternatively, just because something hurts, it doesn't necessarily indicate a problem or a serious problem or even one that originates from your mouth or teeth. For example, you may have referred pain in your teeth that's actually due to an ear and a sinus infection. So very specifically, good oral hygiene includes the following steps. And what would that be? One, brushing your teeth. The most

Starting point is 00:30:27 important time to brush your teeth is at night before you go to sleep. The reason being that saliva flow drastically decreases when we sleep and saliva has cavity fighting properties in there and also lubricates our mouth. Plus you have all that gunk in there from everything that you've eaten during the day. So if you're only going to brush once a day, brush at night before you go to sleep. Two, flossing or some way to clean in between your teeth, whether it's with dental floss or an irrigator, a floss irrigator, there's really no other way to clean in between your

Starting point is 00:31:07 teeth and cavities typically form either on the chewing surface of the tooth or in between the teeth. So in terms of oral hygiene, that's all you need. Do you need a fancy toothpaste? Do you need a fancy brush? No. The mechanical action of rubbing something, a brush or a washcloth as in the case of an infant or a young child against the teeth, just that mechanical action of cleaning the plaque off your teeth is sufficient. For some people, they need some additional extra like fluoride treatment or some kind of lubricant for their mouth but for the average person that is what oral hygiene entails and go to the dentist twice a year this short answer is it depends the dental profession has done a

Starting point is 00:31:59 great job of training the public to think that we need to go, everyone needs to go twice a year. So let's talk about children, for example. Do they need to get their teeth cleaned twice a year? Quite honestly, no. Children don't develop the amount of tartar or calculus that we adults develop. And quite frankly, they don't really need to get their teeth cleaned. But between the ages of, say, 5 to 14, all of those baby and primary teeth are going to be lost and replaced by a whole new set of permanent teeth. So there's a lot going on. At a minimum, a child should be going once a year, but more desirable would be twice a year to have an examination. So we all need to have some kind of a professional examination once a year. As for cleaning, yes, some of us need to go twice a year.

Starting point is 00:33:02 That's a good rule of thumb. For the average adult, some people may need to go twice a year. That's a good rule of thumb. For the average adult, some people may need to go less frequently. And then there are a whole slew of others that may benefit from seeing a dentist more frequently and having their teeth cleaned, say, every three months. Everyone's had the experience of you go and get your teeth clean. And I love that. I love that feeling afterwards. I kind of don't want to eat because I love that clean feeling. And when the hygienist is done cleaning your teeth, you sit there and wait for the dentist to come in. And the dentist finally comes in and says, open your mouth and looks in there. What's he or she looking for?

Starting point is 00:33:42 Depends on how long that dentist is looking. So, Mike, let me flip that back to you and ask you, how long is your dentist looking in your mouth after the hygienist is done? I would say less than a minute. That's not an exam. There are many different kinds of exams. So the first one is the comprehensive exam, and that's generally done when a new patient enters the practice and includes the following. One, a physical evaluation of the teeth done in conjunction with other diagnostic tools like x-rays, photographs, any models or duplicates of the mouth. Two, a periodontal or gum evaluation

Starting point is 00:34:26 that checks each tooth for any signs of gum disease. Now that may be something that your hygienist has done and that information is presented to the dentist. Mobility or the looseness of your teeth is also checked as is gum recession and the quality of the gum tissue. Three, some kind of a soft tissue evaluation that includes screening for oral cancer, temporal mandibular joint disease or TMD, any swollen lymph nodes, any signs of potential sleep apnea that would need further investigation by your physician.

Starting point is 00:35:06 Four, checking the bite of individual teeth and the entire dentition as a unit. Are there signs of any abnormal tooth wear? If so, why? Five, an evaluation of urinal hygiene. And again, there that may have been done by your hygienist, including any tips and techniques that would be helpful. And lastly, an evaluation of any oral appliances like night guards or retainers that you have, and to see if they're still fully functional. But most importantly, any examination should include a discussion of the findings and recommendations. Now, the exam that you describe in association with your cleaning in the hygienist is called a periodic exam. As the name implies, it's something that occurs from time to time, usually in conjunction with the cleaning appointment.

Starting point is 00:36:10 Yeah, well, I've always figured that, you know, the hygienist has had her fingers and face in my mouth for the last 20 minutes. If there was something worth noting, she would have seen it, that him coming in and looking for a minute, he's not going to see much more than she did for 20 minutes. I would agree with that assessment. One thing I think adults are very concerned about with their mouth is bad breath, mouthwash, that kind of thing. Can you talk about that? Sure. Bad breath can come from many different sources. It could be from our GI or gastrointestinal system, we could be having something in there that can then become bad breath or be interpreted as bad breath. People that are dieting are burning fat that has a specific odor that then is translated into bad breath. And it's called ketosis and we may be having bad breath from that as adults as time goes on i don't know if you've experienced this but i've certainly experienced

Starting point is 00:37:13 this where you're getting more and more food stuck in your teeth so i've gone to the point of carrying dental floss around with me because there are certain areas where I routinely get food stuck in my teeth. So any food that's trapped can cause bad breath. There's bad breath from cigarette smoking and the like. At the core is good oral hygiene. So if we keep everything clean, brush our teeth, our tongues, ensure that there's no material trapped in our teeth, that should help with the bad breath unless it's from a systemic condition. With mouthwashes, we need to be careful about what types of mouthwashes we use. Mouthwashes that advertise as antibacterial.

Starting point is 00:38:04 Remember that we have good bacteria and bad bacteria in our mouth and we don't want to indiscriminately kill off all the bacteria in our mouth so I would advise again routine use of mouthwash many times a day once in a while sure if you need to freshen your breath. What are wisdom teeth and why do so many people have to have them removed? Let me give you some background on wisdom teeth. So humans have three sets of molars the six-year molar, the 12-year molar and they're so named because that's when they erupt into the mouth and then the wisdom tooth or the third molar.

Starting point is 00:38:45 And we have a total of four wisdom teeth, one in each quadrant at the backs of our mouth. There are four quadrants. Back in the caveman days, we had large, strong jaws that accommodated all of these teeth. But as we transitioned from a hunter-gatherer to an agrarian society, one where we cooked our food and consequently began to eat softer foods, a predominant theory says that our jaws then began to shrink. Fast forward to today, and interestingly, the wisdom tooth is the most commonly congenitally missing tooth. So even so, evolution is slow, if not glacial. Sometimes there's not enough room for these wisdom teeth. But you're asking, should they be routinely pulled out? Well, in the United States, we spend an estimated $3 billion annually on the removal of wisdom teeth. It's almost considered a rite of passage. Other countries such as the UK, they discourage this automatic extraction of these teeth.

Starting point is 00:39:49 The advocates of wisdom tooth extraction, they cite a number of reasons. It's hard to keep this area clean, leading to possible cavities and gum infections. Cysts can sometimes form around the teeth or tumors even. If there's not enough room and the jaws have completely developed, then why not get rid of the teeth sooner rather than later? Healing is always easier and faster in a young person. Or perhaps the most common reason is that the belief that the wisdom teeth will push and crowd your other teeth.

Starting point is 00:40:24 Well, Mike, the research has shown that that's simply not true, but this myth has persisted and even some dentists believe it. There's not enough concrete evidence to recommend the wholesale removal of wisdom teeth. Fully erupted functional wisdom teeth work like any other molar and should be kept around.

Starting point is 00:40:44 Impacted wisdom teeth, meaning that they're not completely erupted or they're partially erupted and partly under the gum or the bone, they should be monitored. Often, one or more problematic teeth can be extracted, leaving the others intact. So when do we extract? One, if there's repeated pain or infection. Two, if there's a cavity that can't be easily treated in the wisdom tooth, or if there's a cavity on the tooth in front of the wisdom tooth, if the wisdom tooth is in the way, preventing the treatment of that tooth directly in front of it. Three, if there's any suspicious cyst formation,

Starting point is 00:41:27 and this would be found on a routine x-ray. Four, when there are unusual soft tissue changes or gum problems. For example, if you're missing the lower wisdom tooth, the upper wisdom tooth sometimes will continue growing and erupting until it hits the gum on your lower jaw. And that chronic irritation can cause a problem to that gum. And lastly, prior to braces, if the mouth is crowded already and the teeth need to be moved into the space occupied by the partially impacted wisdom tooth. So in short, the decision to extract should be made on a case-by-case basis. So I'd like you to comment because I read and realized that the American Dental Association says you don't need to get your teeth x-rayed except maybe every two years.

Starting point is 00:42:23 But very often, every time, every six months when you go to the dentist, they want to take new x-rays. And I sometimes think, well, maybe they want to take x-rays because they'll get the insurance money to take the x-rays. But every six months, it's probably not necessary. I think there's some truth to what you're saying, but also bear in mind that there are many different kinds of x-rays. So when your dentist says, Mike, it's time for x-rays, and your response is, well, I just had x-rays, you may be speaking about apples and oranges. In other words, maybe you had an x-ray three months ago, but it was a different type of x-ray to diagnose a specific problem versus these routine checkup

Starting point is 00:43:07 x-rays or bite wings that you're going to have now. So there needs to be more information before we can say that, yes, x-rays are being taken too frequently. To address what you're asking, the x-rays that are taken at the time of your visit with a hygienist, those are called the bite wings, and they are x-rays that check for cavities in your back teeth. Depending on the patient, every year or even every two years is a good rule of thumb. So talk about the tongue, because there it sits. It's, you know, surrounded by our teeth. Nobody really talks about the tongue.

Starting point is 00:43:49 Is it important to talk about the tongue, or we just let it sit there and do what it does? The first thing I'll say about the tongue is we should be brushing our tongue. Some tongues are very smooth in texture, and other tongues are, I would say, unattractive, with lots of furrows in there and other tongues are I would say unattractive with lots of furrows in there and deep crevices where food can get stuck bacteria lives in there so brushing our tongue is an important aspect of oral hygiene you can either use your toothbrush or there are special brushes or tongue scrapers that are designed to do that.

Starting point is 00:44:29 But yes, let's talk about our tongue and tongue position. What I'm referring to now is ideal resting tongue position. That is when your mouth is not engaged in eating, talking, kissing, singing, etc. Your tongue should be resting on the roof of your mouth or the palate behind your upper front teeth, but not touching those teeth. Did you just check yourself, Mike, to see if your tongue is in that position? I did, and it is. And it is. Perfect. So in this position, the upper and lower teeth are slightly apart

Starting point is 00:45:01 so as not to place any undue pressure on them. And for all of those clenchers and grinders out there, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to clench or grind your teeth with your tongue in this position. One thing we haven't talked about, and I've heard talk of this, is the connection between dental health and heart health. Can you address that? Mike, the health of your mouth doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Starting point is 00:45:31 So in recent years, yes, we have learned of the connection between gum or periodontal health and heart disease. Whether that is a connection of causality, we don't know, but there is a link and there is also a link between gum disease and diabetes and that link is even more well established in that if you have periodontal disease that can lead to increased diabetic problems and vice versa. There are also other things in your mouth, like a small airway at the back of your mouth or throat.

Starting point is 00:46:14 It might be the reason for your sleep apnea, a disease that has multiple health consequences from risk of stroke to obesity. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, what we've talked about, heart disease, diabetes, sleep apnea, even Alzheimer's. So in short, your mouth is intricately tied to the rest of your body. And we need more research in this area to establish those connections, but a healthy mouth benefits your overall health. Well, this has been really enlightening because, you know, teeth are one of those things that you don't think about that much. You know, you brush them, but you don't really pay much attention to

Starting point is 00:46:52 them until something goes wrong, and then you really pay attention. So it's good to get this insight on how to care for your teeth. My guest has been Dr. Teresa Yang. She is an award-winning dentist and has taught clinical dentistry and practice management at UCLA School of Dentistry. And she's author of the book, Nothing But the Tooth. And if you'd like to get a copy of that book at Amazon, there's a link to it in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on, doctor. Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure being here. If you would like to be extra productive, start over and do a reset at 2 p.m. Most of us try to motor through a lot of stuff at the start of the day and then wind up in an afternoon slump.

Starting point is 00:47:47 But according to time management expert Eva Wisnik, 2 p.m., that's the perfect time to assess how much you've accomplished. Details and tasks have probably changed since the morning, and you might be stuck in your original plan. Eva says most people tend to evaluate their day around 5 o'clock, but then it's too late. You're out of time and in crisis mode, putting out fires or putting things off. So instead, set your alarm for two in the afternoon, get up, stretch, have another cup of coffee, and then take a fresh look at the rest of your day and reprioritize. And that is something you should know. One of the things that keeps this podcast going, it's kind of the fuel, is getting good reviews and ratings on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on. So it would be of great benefit to us and would only

Starting point is 00:48:31 take you a moment if you would leave us a rating and review. I'm Micah Brothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Hey, hey, are you ready for some real talk and some fantastic laughs? Join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa DeMonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? We're serving up for hilarious shows every week designed to entertain and engage and, you know, possibly enrage you. In Don't Blame Me, we dive deep into listeners' questions, offering advice that's funny, relatable, and real. Whether you're dealing with relationship drama or you just need a friend's perspective, we've got you. Then switch gears with But Am I Wrong, which is for listeners who didn't take our advice and want to know if they are the villains in the situation. Plus, we share our

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Starting point is 00:49:36 that feels like a chat with your besties, 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. Hi, this is Rob Benedict. And I am Richard Spate. We were both on a little show you might know called Supernatural.

Starting point is 00:49:57 It had a pretty good run, 15 seasons, 327 episodes. And though we have seen, of course, every episode many times, we figured, hey, now that we're wrapped, let's watch it all again. And we can't do that alone. So we're inviting the cast and crew that made the show along for the ride. We've got writers, producers, composers, directors, and we'll, of course, have some actors on as well, including some certain guys that played some certain pretty iconic brothers.

Starting point is 00:50:25 It was kind of a little bit of a left field choice in the best way possible. The note from Kripke was, he's great, we love him, but we're looking for like a really intelligent Duchovny type. With 15 seasons to explore, it's going to be the road trip of several lifetimes. So please join us and subscribe to Supernatural then and now.

Something You Should Know - Hidden Ways Movies and TV Influence You & Why You Need to Brush Your Tongue

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