Something You Should Know - The Extraordinary Ways The Workplace is Changing & Why You Have Allergies

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Everyone has secrets. And that can be a problem. The burden of keeping a secret has a ripple effect in your life you likely don’t realize. This episode begins with an explanation. http://now.tufts.edu/articles/how-burdensome-are-secrets The world of work and career is changing in a lot of interesting ways. More of us are looking for meaning in what we do rather than just climbing the ladder and making money. A lot of people today have more than just one job – sometimes more than two! And there seems to be a shift in how people relate to their work and their employer. Bruce Feiler has been watching and researching these changing trends in the workplace and he is here to discuss how all this change impacts you and opens up opportunities for all of us. Bruce is the author of six consecutive New York Times bestsellers and his latest is called The Search: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World (https://amzn.to/3OKgwUI) Doesn’t it seem like a lot more people have allergies today than in the past? Why do we get allergies? What causes them to start in some people but not others? For so many of us, allergies are a real nuisance and for others a serious health risk. Here to discuss what you need to know about allergies is Theresa MacPhail. She is a medical anthropologist, and associate professor of science and technology. She is also author of the book Allergic: Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World (https://amzn.to/43d9uwb) Of course, you know that exercise is good for your health. It also turns out to be good for your sex life. Listen as I reveal how people who exercise regularly have a lot more fun in the bedroom and feel better about their own sex appeal. https://www.runnersworld.com/uk/health/a776324/can-exercise-lead-to-a-better-sex-life/ PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Indeed is the hiring platform where you can Attract, Interview, and Hire all in one place! Start hiring NOW with a $75 SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at https://Indeed.com/SOMETHING Offer good for a limited time. Discover Credit Cards do something pretty awesome. At the end of your first year, they automatically double all the cash back you’ve earned! See terms and check it out for yourself at https://Discover.com/match If you own a small business, you know the value of time. Innovation Refunds does too! They've made it easy to apply for the employee retention credit or ERC by going to https://getrefunds.com to see if your business qualifies in less than 8 minutes! Innovation Refunds has helped small businesses collect over $3 billion in payroll tax refunds! Let’s find “us” again by putting our phones down for five.  Five days, five hours, even five minutes. Join U.S. Cellular in the Phones Down For Five challenge! Find out more at https://USCellular.com/findus We really like The Jordan Harbinger Show! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, why holding on to a secret can be a bigger burden than you imagine. Then, the world of work. It's changing. It has to because so many of us are unhappy. Let's look at the numbers, Mike. 70% of people are unhappy with what they do. 75% plan to look for new work this year. A million

people a week quit a job. That's 50 million people a year. That number is twice what it was 10 years ago. Also, people who exercise have a lot more sex appeal and a lot more sex. And allergies, why we have them and the one good thing about them. If you are allergic, you might have a slightly lower chance of developing certain cancers, specifically certain types of skin cancers. And the reason is, is that your immune system is actually really strong and healthy and is constantly on the lookout. All this today on Something You Should Know.

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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 with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. I was just reading some very nice reviews about this podcast on Apple Podcast and somewhere else, too. I certainly appreciate that and invite you, if you have a moment,

to leave us a review, a rating for this podcast. It really does help us. First up today, if you've got a secret, and I think everybody probably has a secret, if you've got a secret, the sooner you tell someone, the better. A study from Tufts University confirms that keeping a secret can affect everything else you do. It could be good news you're waiting to announce, or something not so good that you feel you need to hide, but holding it in can actually hurt.

The burden of suppression can act as an emotional and physical weight in your day-to-day life. People who keep secrets tend to move slower and require more energy to get things done. And that is something you should know. The world of work has changed a lot. Certainly COVID rattled the whole working landscape with so many people working from home. But there's more to the change than that. This whole idea of having a job, a career that follows this path, that guides your life,

that just isn't the way for so many people anymore. Things are different. I mean, I can feel it. And someone who's really been looking closely at this is Bruce Feiler. Bruce is the author of six consecutive New York Times bestselling books, including The Secrets of Happy Families, The Council of Dads, and his latest is called The Search, Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World. Hey, Bruce, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you so much, Mike. It's great to be

with you. So paint this picture for me of how work has changed, because I think many of us still have this view that you have a job. That's what pays the bills. Hopefully it's a job you like. You work at your job, you move up in your career, and that's how it goes. But that's actually not the way it works today. The way it works today. The way it works is that each of us has up to five jobs. Many of us have a main job, but actually the statistics show fewer than half of us even have a main job anymore. And in my study, it was 39%. Two-thirds of us have a care job, which is caring for young children or aging relatives. Three-quarters of us have a side job, which you do for young children or aging relatives. Three quarters of us have a side job,

which you do for love or for money. But then there's two other categories that just became clear the longer I listened to the hundreds of hours of interviews that I collected, is that 86% of us have what I call a hope job, which is a term that I coined just because I was hearing it all the time. And a hope job is something that you do that you hope becomes something else, right? Like writing a screenplay or selling jewelry on Etsy or pickles at the farmer's market. And many of these hope jobs, people actually pay out of pocket to do, like starting a podcast or something like that, because they think and they hope that it might lead to something else. And then quickly, the fifth job is that 93% of us have what I call a ghost job, which is an invisible time suck that feels like a job, like battling self-doubt or

discrimination or sobriety or mental health. And the way you described it, I think is 1000% accurate, but I think it's worth pausing and celebrating that this is a powerful change. Because what you said was, is that one or two of these jobs we might do because we need the salary or the income or the benefits. But if we don't get meaning out of that job, then we take another job, which is where we get the meaning in our lives. And that actually is an incredible opportunity because where do we begin? The thing that's not negotiable is that people want work with meaning these days. But because we have this

kind of collection, this 360 degree relationship with work, if one of our jobs doesn't get meaning for us because the meaning is non-negotiable, we'll go to another job and do that because it gives us the meaning that we want and that we crave. And so do you think that this is new or this is just new research on something that's been going on for a long time and now you've put a face on it? The short answer is I think that it's new. For most of human history, people lived where they worked, and they worked where they lived. There was no word for career. There was no word for job. It wasn't until the 19th century that for the first time, two things happen. A third of the country left rural areas and moved to cities,

and this massive wave of people emigrated to the United States. And in 1908, a man named Frank Parsons invented the idea of the career. The career is a Latin word for chariot that goes around a course. And in 1908, he opened the first career counseling center in Boston. And within two years, that went everywhere around the country, and every college had a career counseling program. So in effect, he invented the idea of the career. But what did he say? It was only for boys. You only did it once. And if you ever changed your career, there was something psychologically wrong with you. 50 years later, then the embodiment of that linear career was created. And it was the resume. Before 1950, no one ever needed or had a resume. And what was the resume but a linear

trajectory of jobs that you did? And that was an age when the only people doing this were a certain kind of person. And that was a person who left home, went to work, and there was somebody back at home who took care of the kids and the laundry. Well, now the workforce is entirely different. Beginning in 2019, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the majority of all people hired are black and brown women. Okay, so the workforce is changing, and as a result, they've changed the way we think about work. So I think that this is a long historical shift, and it's something that we have to reckon with. And by the way, if you work in a company and you want to recruit and retain talent, the old days when you can say, I'm paying you, that should make you happy, that doesn't work anymore. Companies have to realize,

whether it's mental health, whether it's family leave, whether it's finding ways for your workers to feel engaged, if you don't offer these opportunities to your workers, they're going to leave in two and a half years. So this is a massive inflection. And what are the stakes? Let's look at the numbers, Mike. 70% of people are unhappy with what they do. 75% in a poll released in May of this year, 75% of people plan to look for new work this year. A million people a week quit a job. That's 50 million people a year. That's a third of the workforce. That number is twice what it was 10 years ago. And another third is saying, I don't want to come into the office every day. I want to maybe come in several days. That's 100 million people who are in a state of flux. These numbers are

unprecedented. This is new. We have to grapple with it, and it creates great opportunity, but we need help trying to figure out how do we ask the questions and make the decisions we all need to make. What is the impact of this? And when you say people have up to five different jobs, they have side jobs, what is the impact of that?

Is that a good thing or is that a bad thing or it just depends? The research on this is actually quite interesting, Mike. Okay, so let's just take a side job, which as we said, three quarters of Americans have a side job. Here, the research is quite telling. If you have a side job that is the same as what you do during the day, it will actually make you less happy and less productive. So for example, if you work in a design shop and you spend your weekend calligraphing wedding invitations, it actually will undermine your performance at work. But as in the case with most people, if your side job is something different, you as i said make jewelry or sell pickles right or are notary public or you know do a dj at weddings and you work in a design office because

those are different because it gives you meaning in that other part you'll actually be more effective more productive and happier at work so this is not a threat to the workplace. It's an opportunity, but it requires a rethink and a reframing on everyone's part. Why do people have side jobs typically? Is it just for the money or what? The short answer to that question is people have side jobs because it will give them meaning. For some, that meaning is money. Okay, I need to replace the tires or put a new roof on my house or prepare to send my kid to college. But for others, it's a sense of service or getting back. So, I'm going to serve on the

condo board, right? Or I'm going to write a memoir, right? Or I'm going to do something else that gives me meaning. Because we don't just make meaning in one area of our lives. So how are you supposed to find, or what are the questions you ask to find out what it means to find meaning in your career or in your work. What is a problem you've been trying to solve since you were a child? What were the upsides and downsides you learned about work from your parents? And by starting in the past and then moving to the present and filling out basic questions like,

I'm in a moment in my life when or my purpose right now is people begin to find out that they have a variety of things they want to accomplish sure they need to support their families if that's their role in the family but also they also need to support their own life story I want to give back I want to have purpose I. I want to somehow make the world a better place. And by the way, that's a lot of people. There are 3 million school teachers in this world. There are 5 million people in arts and culture. There's 10 million people who work in religious institutions or higher education. And there's 20 million people who work in public

service. That's 50 million people. That's 30% of the workforce that is saying meaning is not exclusively about money for me. I draw a broader definition and I seek a more fulfilling story. We're talking about the ever-changing world of work. And my guest is Bruce Feiler. He's author of the book, The Search, Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World. This is an ad for BetterHelp. 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

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education and it was not the right fit for her she went off and worked on a boat for many years and then she began this path to healing and now she does body work and she helps people recover their inner trauma and move beyond it and reclaim their lives and their life stories. And I asked her this question in almost exactly the same words. And she said, but what if you're just going about your day and you don't feel that you have a story to tell? And what she said has really resonated and stuck with me she said if that's where you are right now keep going but you're not necessarily always going to be there and they're gonna be moments in your life when you say ah now I'm confused now I'm stuck now I'm unhappy with what I do a 70% of

us are as we just were saying. And now I want to ask those questions. So if you're not in this place right now, that's great. Keep going. But you or someone you know is in that place right now. And for them, this is what they need to do. Because the story that we have told in this country since the very beginning is that success is all about

climbing. Rags to riches, greater salary, higher office, you know, better view, more benefits. But having done this now for 1,500 hours of listening to people tell their stories, I can tell you one thing I know with confidence, that people who are happiest, feel most fulfilled, and are most successful in what they do, they don't just climb. They also dig. They excavate the story they've been trying to tell their whole lives, and they say, now is the moment that I'm going to start telling it. Yeah, I mean, I get that.

It just seems like those people are more the exception than the rule, but it sounds like what you're saying is it's really the rule. clearly. 80 million of us are in a work quake right now. You or someone you know is going to sit down with someone they love today over breakfast, a cup of coffee, late at night, and say, I'm unhappy with what I do, and I want to do something that makes me happy. Because here's the thing, Mike. Those of us of a certain age grew up with the expectation that the American dream was that each generation would do better than the prior generation. And that better was almost exclusively defined by one metric, money, and these external metrics of achievement. We still have that desire but what happens when you go talk to people is that their definition of doing better than their parents is they want to be happier and more fulfilled I asked everybody the first question I asked people in my interviews were what were the upsides or values of work that you learned from your parents

64% said working hard then I asked them what were the downsides or shadows of work that you learned from your parents. The number one answer, they worked too hard. The number two answer, they sacrificed the family. That is the change. 86% of Millennials say that they are more committed to well-being at work than the generations prior. That's the Xers and the boomer. 86% of millennials self-identify as caring more about a meaningful workplace and work that gives them meaning than their parents or the generation immediately before them. That is a massive change. This is built in. Fewer people are searching merely for work.

More people are searching for work with meaning. And what does it mean to have work with meaning? Because you get what from that? I love this question because I think it allows me to do what I know you love to do in your podcast, which is to geek out a little bit on the science. There's a difference between happiness and meaning. So happiness is present-oriented.

It's a fleeting emotion. I cite in the search this incredible research by Roy Baumeister of Florida State, who is the meaning guru in American academia today. And he says animals can be happy, because anybody can be happy in the present. But meaning is different. Meaning is about stitching together past, present, and future.

And for example, meaning is about accommodating in your own life story unhappy events as well as happy events, okay? And the way you do that is with a story. Because what we've learned through neuroscience is that our brains are wired to tell a story. Life is the story that you tell yourself, that story you have in your head about who you are

and what brings you purpose and where you came from and where you're going. That's not just part of you, that is you in a fundamental way. Okay, that's what we've learned from neuroscience. And while work is out there, we have a story to tell. For whatever reason, that has not really been in the world of work. So the idea that I explore in this book, that each of us has a work story,

that's actually a new way of thinking about it. But that's exactly where career counseling has gone. So now the cutting edge of career counseling is what's called narrative career construction. The idea that your work is a story and that every time you have one of these work quakes, which as we've been saying is every two and a half years, that's like a plot twist in your own life. And it causes you to revisit the decisions that you're making and the choices that you choose to follow. So that is the big change. Our work is a story and at different times of our life, we want to tell a different story. And so what's going to happen or what is happening with those jobs that are inherently fairly meaningless? If you're working the fry machine at the fast food place,

hard to imagine you're going to find a lot of deep meaning in that, but somebody has to do it. Well, in fact, what happens when you talk to people is that they find great meaning. I tell the story about an iconic study at the University of Michigan Hospital where researchers talked to people who worked, mostly women, in janitorial roles. And when they ask somebody, when they ask a woman, what does it mean to empty a bedpan? What do you do? She doesn't say that I empty a bedpan. She doesn't say that I do the most menial and meaningless job you can imagine. She says, I'm an essential part of the care team. That's what I am.

I am making people's lives better. And when you ask people, as I did, all of the hundreds of people that I interviewed, what is the thing that is, who are the, and when I ask people, as I've done for hundreds of people, like, what is it that brings you most meaning? They say the people, but they don't mention the colleagues, okay? They mention the people that they help.

So if you talk to people, as I have done now for years, and say, what is it that does make you happy and bring you meaning from what you do? They tell a story. So somebody in the cement business, my father was a builder. And I remember a conversation from when I was 10, and I was like, Dad, everybody else's parent seems to have a job. You seem to do four or five different things. You work in multifamily and solo family, and you have apartments, and every two years it's changing,

because that's what the real estate business was like in the 1970s. I was like, what do you do, dad? And he said, I'm in the shelter business. And now, almost 50 years later, I can remember the beauty and power of that statement. Wow, he's in the shelter business. And that's one of the essential things that we all need as human beings. He doesn't see it the way I do. He's going to apartments and houses and construction sites.

He is serving a purpose that we all have. And that's what people do no matter what job they have. So there's a difference, or maybe there isn't a difference between finding work with meaning and finding meaning in your work. Oh, that's a beautiful, beautiful question. And I do think, I love that question and I'm reflecting on it as I'm absorbing it as you ask. The way to think about that beautiful question is each of us wants a life with meaning and the work is only one part of that. And at different times in our lives,

we may prioritize different things. So maybe we say my family is most important to me right now. So therefore, I'm willing to take work that has less meaning because I need other things from it, a sense that I can provide for my family and the security and the benefits and things like that. But then maybe in a few years, we become empty nesters and we all know people like this who say, okay, you know what? I devoted myself to belonging. I wanted something for myself now. Or we also know people who said, I've been focused on myself and my agency and my contributions and my own salary and title and status. You know, I'd like to give back first. I'd like to give back now. So like to give back now so my answer to your question is

what's most important to us is that we have a meaningful life and we can adjust how we find meaningful work to suit that larger purpose you know I think everybody who works at some point has that sense of you know is is this all there is Is this it? Is this really what I want to do? And it's remarkable that so many people are having that kind of epiphany moment and saying, oh, let's think about something else. Let's find meaning in what I do. And this is a whole new world of work.

I appreciate you sharing it. I've been talking with Bruce Feiler. The name of his book is The Search, Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate it. Thanks for being here, Bruce. 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. 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.

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I have that allergy. I have no idea what specifically I'm allergic to, but on certain days, I and a lot of other people start sneezing and get watery eyes, get stuffed up. And then there are food allergies. Seems like a lot more people today have food allergies than in the past. Why is that? What is an allergy? Why do we get them? Can you get rid of them? Here to explain all this is Teresa McPhail. She is a medical anthropologist, associate professor of science and technology studies, and author of the book Allergic,

Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World. Hi, Teresa. Thank you for coming on Something You Should Know. Hi. Thanks so much for having me. So what exactly is an allergy? What's going on when you have an allergic reaction to something? It's basically an immune reaction and it's basically just a hypersensitive immune system response. So your immune cells are responding to an allergen, whatever it is, peanut protein or oak tree pollen in the air, grass pollen. And it's deciding that that thing should not be part of you. And it's triggering a similar immune response that we have to things like bacteria and viruses. So it's basically just gearing up the immune

system. To attack? To cope, I would say. So it's mistaking a pollen grain for something that is potentially harmful. A normal person will just tolerate a piece of pollen that enters your nasal passageways. But for those of us who have allergies, your immune system cells respond to that pollen as if it's a bacteria or a virus. So it starts turning on inflammation. So that's why you get the swelling. It turns on the mucus production, which is why you get all sneezy and your nose starts to run and your eyes start to itch. So all of the same mechanisms come on, which is why it's

sometimes, especially, you know, in the spring, it's really hard to tell sometimes if you have a cold or allergies because the initial response is the same. So you said something a moment ago that if you're a normal person does this and someone with an allergy does that. Well, it seems like it's pretty normal to have an allergy. I mean, what are the numbers of who has allergies and who doesn't? Well, it's growing. It's about, it's hard to get an accurate number because it's really hard to measure these things. But we think anywhere between 30 and 40% of the total global population has an allergic response to at least one thing. So that's a ginormous number of people.

And I think that sounds low to me because I don't know anybody that doesn't say, oh, God, my allergies. Oh, my God. Right? Yeah. Well, what about in Western society? Is it worse? Yes.

There tends to be more allergies in developed countries, or I would say richer countries. And there are various theories for why that is. And it all boils down to our lifestyles. And one of the interesting things that might surprise people is that you often see, like, say someone is living in sub-Saharan Africa and then they immigrate to the United States or England. In about three years, a lot of them will develop allergies and they had absolutely no allergic response in their country. You mentioned a moment ago asthma and eczema. Are those considered allergies? That is such a tricky thing to answer. Most of the researchers and clinicians that I talk to would say yes. There are some people that hold out a no.

And the reason is that something like asthma, even though it's a similar immune response, it uses the same pathways. You can get asthma from exertion and that's not an allergy. So a lot of people want to keep asthma separate and then refer to people who have allergic triggers. They'll call it allergic asthma. So here's what I'm trying to understand here is that you say that people, for example, come from the desert and move to the West. Within three years, they have an allergy. Why? What happened in those three years that they now have an allergy because they came here? It could be a variety of things.

The number one reason is probably that their bodies are being introduced to things that they've never seen before. So the immune system, before we turn three years old, your immune system is learning the world, if you want to think of it that way. So your early exposures really train your immune system to respond to the things in your environment. So if you grew up in one area and then you move to another area, your immune system, if you've never been around elm trees and suddenly you're breathing in elm pollen, there's a chance that your immune system might think, hey, wait a minute, we've never seen this before. This shouldn't be here and react. So that's the primary way.

But the secondary way is that their diets change likely in all likelihood, and also their lifestyles are changing. So if you think about people moving from more rural areas to more urban centers, they're being exposed to more particulate matter in the air from air pollution and things like that. So their immune systems are being bombarded with a lot of things that they haven't seen before. So that can go either way. Some people are fine. And then other people who would never have developed possibly an allergy in their home country then start their immune system, start having trouble with coping with all of the new things in their environment. So help me understand something. When I was a kid, I don't remember many people

having allergies, and I certainly don't remember people, very many people, having food allergies. Today, you know, you can't bring peanuts to school. This is a peanut-free zone. There seems to be a lot more people with food allergies than there used to be. These aren't people coming from another climate, from another part of the world. So what happened? What changed that now this is such a thing and it didn't used to be. It's interesting because allergic responses to food were likely around for a very long time, but they flew under the radar. And there are possible reasons for this. A, we weren't looking for them. And there's always the trope of if you're not looking for something, you don't see it. But also, children were, they were just growing up in a different way. The other problem is that

we gave mothers and fathers bad advice, especially in terms of peanuts, as you're probably, some of your listeners are aware. We changed the guidelines a few years ago. So up until fairly recently, they would advise mothers not to ingest certain foods during the latter stages of their pregnancy and not to give toddlers and young children things like peanut butter just in case. And it turns out that was the exact wrong advice, that early introduction is better, even though someone might still have an allergic response. But we kind of created a bigger problem because, again, that training. So if you withhold it until older, then the immune system doesn't get trained on it. So they've actually reversed course

and they want parents to introduce things like peanuts as soon as possible into the diet to see if there is a problem. And if there's not, to potentially prevent a problem from developing by getting the baby immune system used to that form of protein. So that is another reason

that we saw this explosion of food allergies. I remember hearing someone explain that the increase in allergies in people has something to do with the fact that we tend to live in a very clean environment. We're not exposed to a lot of things. It's kind of that argument of, you know, you should let your kids play more in the dirt and get dirty because the more things we're exposed to, then that helps our immune system. And that because we live in such a clean environment, the immune system gets bored and it needs something to do. So it attacks itself. And that's why we have all these allergies. Does that explanation line up with what you found in the research? Yes, that is usually called the hygiene hypothesis. So the idea is that when you're not exposed to a lot of bacteria and viruses when you're young,

the immune system was evolved to deal with a lot of that. And so in the absence of it, your immune system is rather like a toddler that has not been given anything to do. It's bored and wants to do something. And so it's actively looking for something to do. I mean, the evidence does show that kids who grow up on farms, particularly, so if you grow up on a farm, but interestingly enough, it has to be a farm with animals. And there's something about being in the barn, like, so if you carry your infant into the barn and they're exposed to all these animals and dirt in the barnyard, those kids tend to have extremely low rates of allergies. So we know that at least partially the gene hypothesis is definitely true. Can you give me a sense of like, what are the most common allergies and what are, you know,

like how many people have peanut allergies and how many people have allergies to, you know, like how many people have peanut allergies and how many people have allergies to, you know, stuff in the air? I mean, I have allergies to stuff in the air. I don't know too many people who don't. It's really hard to say. And the reason is we usually rely on self-reported surveys. So you're basically asking people who may never have been to an allergist to say if they have an allergy. So it's really hard to get a good number on this. Obviously, hay fever or respiratory allergies are really prevalent. It's probably, so again, this number, you're like, why is it this big? It's the difference. It's either 10% to 30%. I like to go right in the middle and say about 20% of the whole global population has hay fever or respiratory allergies. It could be more than that,

but it's definitely not less than that. Like you said, almost everyone I talk to has something. Food allergy typically is smaller. The best information we have is around 9%, 8 or 9% of children are having issues with one or more food allergens. And that seems fairly stable. But again, it's really hard to get those numbers because not everyone has access to an allergist, which is,, which is another huge problem everywhere. Is it true that allergies will sometimes just disappear? Yes, yes. Because especially food allergies, a lot of them, like nut allergies seems to persist over time,

but a lot of allergies that people have when they're younger tend to disappear over time because for whatever reason, your immune system develops a tolerance over time. Also, your immune system function changes in relationship to things like stress, hormones. One of the really interesting things I learned was that more boys have asthma than girls, but adults, females have asthma at higher rates than males. And the reason is that testosterone is protective because it dampens down the immune response. So testosterone kind of turns the dial down on the immune system, which is exactly why more men were prone to dying in response to COVID. And that's also why you might have heard that sometimes when women get pregnant or go through menopause, they'll develop new allergies that they haven't had before.

But the truth is, if you have an allergy, pretty much the best thing you can do is to avoid as best you can, whatever it is you're allergic to, pretty much the best thing you can do is to avoid as best you can whatever it is you're allergic to, because there's no cure typically for an allergy. And so you just have to avoid it or live with it, right? Yep. That's one of the worst parts about writing this book is that there's no happy ending. Like I would love to say that we're so close to solving this problem, but you can't solve it partially because you can't turn off the immune response. I mean, none of us want that because then you might die of pneumonia. I mean, you can't, you have to modulate it. So there's no

cure that we know of. Like I said, you can learn to tolerate it. So the treatments coming online now, that's what they're aiming to do is like, can you moderate the immune response so that it turns it down a notch so that your immune system learns to tolerate or you just shut off that part of your immune response that is reacting. And that is the best we can do for now. So there really isn't a possibility for a cure that we know of. Well, the one thing that seems to help with allergies is just getting older, right? I mean, a lot of kids have allergies and those allergies as they age will disappear. Is it just the immune system just gets tired of it and just stops responding? system overall is not as robust as it used to be. So in a sense, it's kind of a double-edged sword, right? You're living a better quality of life because maybe your allergies are a bit better

than they used to be when you were young, but also then you're more vulnerable to things like the influenza virus or COVID. So it is tricky. It really is tricky. I understand that a lot of people claim to have allergies to foods or whatever that aren't actually allergies. That if you want to know if you really have an allergy, you really need to see an allergist. But a lot of the things that people say are allergies are maybe sensitivities, but they're not allergic reactions. Especially with food allergies. I just like to underline that. It's really hard to tell because so many things have the same symptoms. So if you're getting stomach upset, it could be an intolerance, right? You could be lactose intolerant or you could have a milk allergy. And if it's not a severe response, then it's going to look similar. And the only way to tell is to go and have the testing done and to go and see a food allergist and do the golden test is the double blind food challenge. But even something as simple as a respiratory allergy, you could have something else going on. And it's always a good idea to, if you can, to get a

referral to an allergist. Because also, and this is a fun fact that I think will surprise a lot of people, is that your GP in medical school, they don't really get allergy training. They get about two weeks. So most GPs actually are not really the right people to diagnose allergies because yes, while they may see it a lot, they're not exactly trained in the same way and they definitely don't get the same level of training. So even if you get a test at a GP, you should always try to see an allergist if you can. Well, here's the thing. If every spring when the flowers come out,

you start sneezing and your eyes get watery and you don't have a cold, what else could it be? It's probably allergies. Yeah. You could have, I mean, you could have a sinus infection you don't know about, a persistent one. That comes on every year in May. Well, exactly. Exactly.

You can put the pieces together yourself, which is what most of us do. Very few people with hay fever go to see an allergist. I get it because why? And also, it's really hard to tell what you're allergic to. And even if you know, like, so say you do go to an allergist and you get the panel done and they say, oh, you're allergic to grasses and mold. Well, what are you supposed to do? Right, exactly. Yeah, it's going to be the same. And they're probably just going to tell you to take a daily antihistamine during the season. I could have told you that.

Right, exactly. And so I get it. I get why people wouldn't want to go. But for those people who are having serious responses, but some of the people I talk to, they can't sleep at night. They're so congested that it really affects their quality of life. For those people, it's really important to go to a specialist because you can get stronger antihistamines that are not available over the counter. So when I think of allergies, I think of, you know, food allergies like peanuts and shellfish and respiratory allergies, hay fever, pollen, that kind of thing. What else are people allergic to? Okay, so pollen, dust mites, mold, different chemicals, milk, egg, wheat, corn, soy. I mean, those are the shellfish. Those are the main ones. Peanuts, obviously, tree nuts is huge. Those are the main ones, I would say.

And then though, if we kept going, I can't even list them because there are people who will have allergies to really random things. I mean, you know, during the course of researching this book, I mean, it's not unheard of. Occasionally you'll get someone who's allergic to cold and it's real or allergic to sun. Is there anything good? Is there anything good about allergies or is it just all it's just a nuisance and it's horrible? Is there any silver lining? If you are allergic, you might have a slightly lower chance of developing certain cancers, specifically certain types of skin cancers. And the reason is, is that your immune system is actually really strong and healthy and is constantly on the lookout. So it's possible

that an allergic person's immune system is spotting those rogue cells earlier and doing something about them faster than a non-allergic person. So that's a little silver lining in an otherwise big cloud. Well, it's such a weird thing, allergies. I mean, it's not a sickness, it's not an illness, but it sure is a pain in a lot of ways to deal with. And I appreciate you coming on and explaining it. I've been speaking with Teresa McPhail. She is a medical anthropologist,

associate professor of science and technology, and author of the book, Allergic, Our Irritated Bodies in a Changing World. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate it. Thanks, Teresa. Aerobic exercise can improve more than just your heart health. It can also improve your love life. A study carried out in adult runners

revealed that 80% of those runners felt more attractive in front of their partner as a result of that exercise. Another study by the University of California found that after following a moderate aerobic regime four times a week for nine months, male subjects had sex 30% more often. People who exercise regularly increase their lovemaking time by 15%.

What's more, research in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality found that 80% of men and 60% of women who exercise three times a week rated their sex appeal as above average. And that is something you should know. Ratings and reviews are really important to us because, as well as you can imagine, if someone's looking for a new podcast to listen to and it's got a lot of positive ratings and reviews, they're more likely to give it a listen. So please help us out and give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should

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