Stuff You Should Know - Earwax: Live With It

Episode Date: March 19, 2015

Despite tons of people using cotton swabs each day to clean the earwax from their ears, cerumen (as earwax is clinically known) is actually quite beneficial to the health of your ears - and even kind of ingenious as your body's defense goes. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Munga Shatikler and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-Pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

Just a Skyline drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HouseForks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry.

Yeah, it's Stuff You Should Know. He just shrugged. Like, what are we going to do? That's what we are. Yeah. Episode number? Seven-something. Yeah.

I have no idea. I don't either. It's in the 700s though, folks. If you think there's only 300s, because you're on iTunes, you're in for to be doubly surprised. Yeah. Well, somebody tweeted recently, I've just found the HouseForks app and there's way more Stuff You Should Know than there is on iTunes. I hate you guys now.

Right. You're like, wait. I was cool with 301, but that's it. I had someone ask you the other day if we feel like we're running out of things. Topics. Clearly we are, because we're recording on earwax today. Yep. Exactly.

What'd you tell them? Look for boogers in the near future. No, I said no, that sometimes it feels a little like, oh my gosh, what are we going to do, but there's gazillions of topics in the world. At least. And gazillions of scientific. That's right. What is that?

How many zeros? Is that a real number? I don't know. I don't think it is. Let's say 90 zeros. It's a real number if you're eight years old. Right. But watch, it probably is a real number.

Yeah. I think a Jillian is a real number. A bazillion. Jillian definitely is. I would guess gazillion is by now. I might actually look that up. I mean, there's just like a handful of mathematicians who are in charge of naming that kind of stuff, you know.

So, Chuckers. Yes. While you're looking that up, do you have earwax? Do you have problem earwax? No. No. I don't either. No.

I wouldn't say so. It is a little distressing though, even though we will find out, it is awesome and exactly how it's supposed to work when it just sort of falls out of your ear onto your shoulder. Yeah. That's ideal actually. Yeah. Because earwax and your physiology in general doesn't care about what social group you're

a part of. Nope. It's just like, here's some earwax on your shoulder. Deal with it. Although, and I didn't look up why this is true, apparently in northeastern Asian countries like Korea and China, their earwax is a little different. They're more likely to have the dry earwax, which can be hard and red to black in color, which sounds gross, and flaky or pale yellow, whereas over here we have that nasty, gooey,

orangey mess. Wet earwax is what it's called. Yes. And the reason why actually is because of the ABC11 gene. Oh, is that why? Yeah. They isolated the gene that causes the type of earwax that you get. And it turns out that, say, the W mutation is, or the D mutation, dry earwax is recessive.

So the only way to get dry earwax is if both of your parents have dry earwax, both carry the D gene or D mutation of the ABC11 gene. Well, I have both. Most people have our WDs. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you have to get two D alleles, two dry earwax alleles to have dry earwax yourself. If you have a W and a D or two Ws, you're going to have wet.

And for some reason... But I have both. Can't... Oh, like, one ear's dry and the other's wet? No. Like, sometimes, you know, if I get the old cotton swab out, which... Now you're introducing something way beyond genetics. That's not even apogenetics.

That's human intervention. The point is, if I get the cotton swab out, that's when I'll get out the orangey wax. It's wet stuff. But I'll also have the dry flaky stuff that falls out sometimes. Probably, I would guess, and I'm no seramin expert. Yeah. I'm no seraminist. Now, what's the word?

What's the word? I actually looked it up for someone who studies this. Oh, really? It has to have to do with seramin. I can't find it, no. So seraminist isn't ringing a bell? No. It's wrong?

I can't find what it is. Sorry. I'm not a person who studies earwax, but what I would guess is that when you're digging in there, you're getting to the fresher earwax. That's what I think. And then as it works itself further and further out your ear, which is the natural process, it's exposed to drier air, the ambient air, and it dries out and flakes off, which is what it's supposed to do.

Yeah, I think that's probably right. So I don't think you have both. I think if you have both, the stuff inside your ear would be dry as well. Yeah. All right. Well, that makes sense. So what earwax is or seramin, C-E-R-U-M-E-N is the scientific name, but I'm sure they call it wax.

It's the third chubby angel. No, the cerebrum. It is made up of secretions of a couple of little specialized glands in the skin on the outer third of the ear canal. Yes. So you have your sebaceous glands and they're going to secrete, and these names all sound so gross. Really?

But they're perfect for describing what they are. Yeah, yeah. They secrete sebum, S-E-V-U-M, and then you have an apocrine sweat gland that's modified that produces... It's got a hemi. Yeah, it combines with the sebum and that's where you get your seramin. And so sebum in and of itself is fairly normal. If you take your fingertip and rub it alongside where your nose folds into your face. Yeah, get a little dry skin there.

That's... Well, if your stuff is at all oily, that oil is sebum. So apparently it mixes in in your ear with that kind of apocrine gland, like you said, to form seramin, which is its own thing. It's not just sebum, but all of it is basically a fatty, oily, lippity compound that's secreted by these glands in the skin cells, specialized glands. Yeah, about 60% keratin, which is a protein. And then like you said, the fatty acids, you've got dead skin cells, you've got hair follicles. Dead bugs?

Little bugs? Yeah. Lots of stuff that comes out in this. And like you said... Dust? Probably dust mites then too. Sure. And like you said, it's produced in the inner third of the outer ear. Outer one-third of the ear canal.

Okay. Yeah. And when it's produced in there, it migrates outward thanks to the motion of... The ocean? Right? And you talking and chewing. Oh, is that what it is? Yeah, I couldn't figure out like how does your earwax move, but it's just from jaw movement. Normal jaw movement moves the newer stuff outward, and as it's coming out, all the gunk

and stuff that it's protected your ear from are moved out with it. So the stuff that flakes off and falls on your shoulder that everybody points and laughs at at the party, that is filled with all the stuff that your earwax caught along the way. It's a beautiful, elegant process, probably the most beautiful aspect of the entire human experience. Well, I think you're making a joke, but I really do think that it's the little things like that, like I'm amazed about the function of the brain and of course the organs and all that.

But just something as simple as that mechanical talking and chewing will work earwax out of your ear. It's just so basic and I think it's awesome. I think it's really cool actually. I know what you mean, I agree with you. So some people produce a lot of this, I was going to say gross stuff, but have you seen Paddington? The movie?

Yeah. No, I heard it was really good. It's very good. Super, super cute. Really well done. Why did you see that? Just because it's a cute movie. Really?

Yeah. Saw it in theaters and everything. Right. Please tell me you took Yumi. Yeah. And as a matter of fact, it was just me and Yumi and the whole theater. But if it's just you and no kids, then it's like somebody might want to call the security. And they did.

I'm just a Paddington fan. But I am now. So anyway, there's a part featuring earwax in Paddington and it does not celebrate the beauty of earwax, it's the exact opposite. And actually Yumi was like, it got her. It was really gross but awesome. So anyway, go see Paddington. Is that a spoiler?

No. No. Okay. I don't think so. Maybe for like a five-year-old. Right. You know? So like I said, some people produce a lot of the stuff.

Some people don't produce as much and they don't really know why. But they do know that sometimes stress and anxiety can increase production of earwax. Makes sense. Which I think is interesting. Hormones? Sure. Hormones affected, your glands go off. It also said that some drugs can increase your earwax production and I looked all over

and couldn't find the drugs. But if stress and anxiety does. Hyowasca. I imagine, yeah. Or cocaine would probably make you produce more earwax or something. Oh yeah, when you put that stuff in your ear. Yeah. Or something that makes you like trigger jaw a lot.

Oh sure. That could probably get more earwax out. Yeah. Interesting. Never thought about that. I couldn't find anything else. As gross as you might think earwax is though, it actually is a great thing for your body. And there's a very good reason why you have it.

Because there are four main functions that your earwax is going to serve, my friend. One of them is it creates an acidic environment. That's great. That kills, helps kill bacteria and fungi. Oh, even better. Number two. It is, well that's a big deal too because your inner ear like that is really a place where fungus and bacteria would thrive because it's moist and dark.

And you know what we always say about moist, dark places. Fungi thrives. That's right. The thing is, it doesn't seem like that'd be a big problem to have fungi in your ear. But it would because it would affect things like your balance, nausea, ear aches. It just wouldn't be good. So the fact that earwax produces in acidic environment alone makes earwax a beautiful thing and to be celebrated.

So if we could just stop there. We could, but you can go on. Like you said, there's four and that was just one quarter of these benefits that earwax bestows. Secondly, it is a lube. It lubricates your ear canal basically to keep it from drying out. And you know, you don't want the inner ear becoming all itchy and dry and craggy. No.

And you want to hear something weird that I have a new personal hygiene thing I have to do as of yesterday, starting yesterday, something I'll probably have to do my whole life. Hair. I have to moisturize my ears now. I thought you were going to say hair inside the ear. I have been doing that for a while. It's getting, I got a little fro inside.

Ear fro? Yeah. I feel like taking moisturizer and like rubbing on my ears because I got a haircare yesterday and like my ears were exposed and all of a sudden I'm like, wait, why is like there a streak of white on my ear and they're bright red? And I realized like my ears are chapped and that is brand new or else I just noticed it. So I'm an ear moisturizer now. Yeah.

You had that 70s earmuff hairstyle cut off of your ears. Right. So your ears were exposed. Yeah. It was pretty 70s. You had to create like a blank slate of, you know, that could be worked with. It was kind of longish for you. Yeah.

It was really long. And it was that 70s like earmuff thing. It wasn't quite. It was getting there. It looks good. Very nice. Thanks. Sure.

Did that make you uncomfortable? No, I was fishing for that. Oh. It's the whole reason I brought that story up. You looked either sheepish or really uncomfortable with that. A little bit both. All right. Gotcha.

One of the top four things that earwax does is your seramin and your hair fall. Just like lettermen. Exactly. It's going to discourage everyone's worst nightmare, which is a spider crawling in there, which I covered, you know, that happened to Emily. I think I talked about that on one of the shows. Right. That was genuinely one of the most awesome things that I've ever experienced because

it did not happen to me. Wasn't there a picture, didn't you post a picture of it or something like that? No, but there, I think I posted a picture of a happening to some woman in China, I think. Okay. That was frightening. And it was a picture of a spider looking out of the woman's ear canal, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But Emily's, if people haven't heard this story, it was, I think it was in the middle of the night or something. She was like, I got this weird fluttering in my ear and I don't know what's going on in there. Well, you know, I took her in the bathroom and shined a light and I was like, holy crap. And the spider, I think, worked, didn't it? With the flashlight. Remember, like, if you look at your, I don't know, I did the, did I?

Jerry's saying yes. Yes. Okay. So there you go. Well, all I remember thinking is, Emily, I don't want to have to break this to you, but you have a spider in your ear. You didn't like chloroformer first? I should have.

Yeah, you should. Yeah. She was not excited about that. I'm sure. She was not pumped. So, well, what was the process for getting it out? Well, I looked on the internet super quickly to see how, and they said to flush it out and use tweezers.

It's a little warm. Oh, my gosh. You did use tweezers? Yeah. And I put the water in there and it kind of loosened it up and went in there and got the tweezers. And I was like, look at this. How big was it?

Oh, I mean, it wasn't huge, but it was enough spider for her taste. Sure. Yeah. More than enough, right? Dude, I can't imagine that. I mean, some people sleep with Vaseline in their ears to keep bugs from calling in. Yeah. Like, that is a thing.

Yeah. I mean, people don't want bugs in their ears. No, but that's taken, I mean, that's a severe paranoia, I think, if you're sleeping with earmuffs or Vaseline in your ears. Yeah. Earmuffs, I hadn't thought about that. Oh, so you didn't have to leave the skin. All right.

And number four, finally, is your earwax is going to trap some dead skin and hair cells. And basically all of that junk to carry it back out to keep it clean. So it sounds sort of counterintuitive to trap that stuff, but it's trapping it so it can carry it out. And if you didn't have earwax, it would just go in there. Right. And if you chew things like celery and you talk, then the earwax is going to work its way out in a slow process where all this stuff is cleaned out and you don't ever have to

do anything with it under ideal circumstances. But always our circumstances ideal, and we'll talk about how things can go wrong after this. Attention, Bachelor Nation, he's back, the man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new tell all podcast, the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. I'm going to push the envelope, but I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about.

For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward and letting everybody hear from me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this, and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day, truly every day of my life.

I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesha Tickler, and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. Lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running

and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in, and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father.

And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, so ideally, you don't have to ever think about earwax or anything like that, except to brush it off your shoulder, right? Sure. But for some people, earwax can build up and become impacted.

A lot of times, it's because people mess with it, like with cotton swabs on a stick. You know, you may have seen the advertisement on the big game. I think they're just called cotton swabs. Right. Yeah, okay. So if you use that, a lot of people use those to clear out their earwax, right? Yeah, you're not supposed to. No, it's doing the exact opposite.

Because your earwax is created and moves from the outside third of your inner ear. When you rub cotton swab on it, you're actually pushing it in further than it's supposed to be. And it can't get out as easily there. So what you're going to do eventually is have earwax build up. Yeah, and it's so hard to get people to not do that because it's so rewarding when you get out of the shower and you use that swab and you get that orange gunk and you're like, oh man, I'm so glad that's out of my body.

But it's got a purpose. Leave it there. You're supposed to leave it there. Plus, using cotton swabs can lead to other kinds of dangers like you can push too hard and perforate your eardrum. I think it really is true. You're not supposed to put anything larger than the end of a football in your ear. You can also clean it too much.

Yeah. It can result in something called swimmers ear. Where basically for people who spend a lot of time in the pool, their ears are constantly irrigated and the canal becomes basically free of earwax and as a result, bad things can happen. Yeah, and they say if you do have swimmers ear, put a few drops of a slightly acidic, not acid, like hydrochloric acid. Just put a 55-gallon drum of hydrochloric acid in there.

What is a slightly acidic fluid, I wonder? Maybe lemon juice? That's what I would guess. That's probably what I would do. I hope we're not advising something that's really dangerous. No. As a matter of fact, maybe you should go look up what you should put in there or go to your doctor.

Yes, but they advise some slightly acidic fluid in the ear after you swim and that reestablishes what should be a normal acidic environment. Yeah, because when you strip out that earwax, you lose those big four benefits and all of a sudden your ear is dry and cracky and you've got fungus and bacteria growing in there and you get ear infections and it's not fun. It's a big four. Back to creating a buildup of earwax, you get what's called Ceremon Impaction. That is when you have a bunch of earwax pressed against your ear drum and it can result in

all sorts of stuff like headaches, nausea, ear aches, coughing for some reason. That can be from using Q-tips, people who use hearing aids run into this a lot. When your Ceremon becomes impacted, you have to go to the doctor. That's right. Which my sweet wife had to go to the doctor when she was a little girl because she got earwax impacts on you and she said it sucked. Well when you go to the doctor, if it comes to that, they're going to have quite a few techniques they could use.

Ear syringing is one of them and it becomes painful. It does. I don't think it is though. I bet it's actually quite a relief. Yeah, that's not how I hear it. Really, is it painful? Yeah, Yumi says it really is not fun. Well, I didn't know if that was like a five-year-old Yumi or...

Well, yeah. Yeah. But even as an adult, she remembers it as not being very fun. Is this Paddington Yumi? Maybe that's why she had such a reaction. They'll use other instruments. Sometimes you use a microphone or I'm sorry, a microscope. That'd be weird.

To magnify the ear canal. To shout into it, to shatter your ear wax. Some people have a more narrow ear canal or if you have a perforated eardrum or something that can be a problem, basically you want to go to a doctor. You could try some home methods like peroxide or maybe mineral oil. Yeah, apparently warm mineral oil kind of breaks it up a little bit. Yeah, that's one of my most pleasing memories as a kid when I had ear aches as my mom would like heat up mineral oil and put it in my ear.

Yeah, but that was nice. It felt really nice. It was very warm. And for some reason, I like the feeling of water closing my ear like when I get in a pool. Oh, yeah. I'll bet probably because of that. Yeah, maybe so.

I didn't think about that. Do you like that? Or is it what? I was just mad. You just like crawl into the fetal position. Why is Chuck just floating in the pool like a baby? No, I've never had much of an affinity for water in my ears because some people hate it.

I don't hate it. I don't like it. Yeah. And like, you know, bang on the side of my head if it feels like there's a drop of water in there. Does that work? It can. Not always.

I think normally the water just has to dry. Right. Yeah. Sometimes I get dizzy in my head. It hurts. Yeah. I used to see when I lifeguarded, I would see swim team members do that, though. And I was always like, I don't know if that just doesn't seem right.

That's in a while it does. And it just goes, and all of a sudden you can hear normally again. Interesting. I didn't see the reason for this though, but they did in this one article I saw have cautioned people against ear irrigation if you had diabetes. What? Yeah. Why?

I have no idea. I meant to follow up on that. So we don't know what drugs cause an increase in ear wax buildup and we don't know why if you have diabetes, you shouldn't do ear canal irrigation. I don't know. They said not to use irrigation if you have a perforated eardrum. Yeah, I get that. A tube in the eardrum, a weakened immune system, or diabetes.

I have no idea. Not to follow up on social media and let people know. But they do say if you do want to clean your ear, it's not like you can't clean your ears, but just wash your external ear with a cloth, but you should never stick something into your ear canal. Right. It's just no good, but it's interesting that the cotton swab business is huge. I mean they've made a, if you think about it, they've made, I don't want to say it's,

they shouldn't be selling these things. No, I know what you mean though. Yeah, you know? Yeah. Apparently I couldn't find out how much people spend on cotton swabs every year or how many are produced. We couldn't find out that either. But for 2011, apparently Americans spent $63 million on ear cleaning stuff, home ear

cleaning stuff. And I imagine a lot of that went to cotton swabs, but also like home irrigation kits and stuff like that. Yeah, because you can get those at the drugstore, right? Right. And those are fine. I guess. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, everything is upside down right now. No, I think the irrigation is fine if you don't fall into one of those categories that I mentioned because you're not sticking an object into your ear. That and then if you don't do it too frequently to where you're stripping the earwax out of your ear. Right. Because it's not like that thing just replenishes overnight guys.

I know. And you know, I use the cotton swabs, not a lot, but occasionally, but I'm not going to do it anymore. But it is, like I said, it's, it feels so good to get a big hunk of that stuff out. Yeah. I've never been into those. Yeah. I'm just, I'm not going to do it anymore.

I'm going to tell only two. I'm going to burn all that stuff. All I do is I take some soap and lather up my hands, do the outside of my ears. And then like, I, I guess I just kind of follow the contours of the inside of my ears and I'm trying to remember like, do I go into my ear canals and I think I intuitively stop with your fingers. Yeah. And about the outside.

So I don't really go into the ear canal and then rinse it out and get off and get out of the shower and then now I, I, I moisturize my ears afterward is the last step. That's great. The other thing too, that they, of course you should never ever do, like cotton swabs is one thing, but like a car key or bobby pin or like a toothpick. What is wrong with you? I don't know. You should never ever stick something like that in your ear because you're just asking

for trouble. Big trouble. All right. So in this break, we are going to talk about ear kindling attention bachelor nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new tell all podcast, the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times.

It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope, but I promise you this. We have a lot to talk about for two decades. Chris Harrison saw it all and now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward and letting everybody hear for me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out.

I have not spoken publicly for two years about this and I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking.

You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. Lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention, because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop, but just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down.

Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so Chuck, you teased everybody with ear-candling. Why don't you tell everyone what that is?

It's hokum. Describe the hokum. Well, ear-candling, and a lot of people don't know this, I think. I think a lot of folks say, oh my gosh, it's the best thing ever. It is also known as auricular-candling or coning, and it is a procedure when you put a cone-shaped, waxy cone-shaped device in the ear canal, and it's usually got a plate underneath it between the cone and your ear, and you light it on fire, and supposedly what it does is that-

You stick the thing in your ear and then light it on fire. Probably what it does is it creates a vacuum to pull out impurities. Right, because the flame supposedly needs oxygen, well, the flame definitely needs oxygen to burn, and it's getting its oxygen by sucking it out of the ear canal through the cone, hence creating a vacuum, and as it does, like you said, it sucks out impurities in the earwax, and supposedly also clears your sinuses, clears the plaque out of your dendrites and all sorts of stuff like that. Yeah, this one article by Lisa Rosen M.D. said she went to, and this is in the 90s,

but she went to a discovery expo in Atlanta and said that they had ear candlers there in one of the exhibitions, and the lady said that ran the booth, quote, it cleans the whole head, brains and all, they're all connected, you know. Is that quote in there? Oh yeah, end quote, and of course it was in Atlanta, I'm like, oh great, although that doesn't necessarily mean- Yeah, that could be anywhere. But there are a lot of people that think it's a cleanse for your ear, and it does connect

to your brain, and it clears your head, and it's a spiritual thing, and they don't know where exactly it came from, but China and ancient Tibet and pre-Columbian, South America- Atlantis. Yeah, they all are cited as places where it might have happened. Yeah, no one has any idea where this stuff originated, it could have been created in the U.S. in the 70s, for all anybody knows. Should we read some of the things that supposedly helps? Yeah, we should probably also say, if you haven't been able to tell by now, science

is thoroughly debunked ear-candling, and this is from that article that Dr. Rosen and some of her colleagues got together and kind of step-by-step took down the idea. Yeah, there's a list of like 40 things, we won't go through them all, but release Vertigo, clears the eyes, purifies the blood, aids sinusitis, relieves ear aches, opens and aligns your chakra, releases blocked energy, reduces stress and tension, stabilizes your emotions. It does none of that because it has just been proven to be an outright, not only fraud but dangerous. Right.

And here's why, so the first one is that you can't pass liquids and gases through an eardrum that isn't perforated or ruptured. So it's not sucking anything out of your inner ear or your lymph system or your sinuses or your brain. That's why your ears pop when you're in a plane. If you could pass air through there, that wouldn't happen, there would be no atmospheric pressure going on. So that means that sticking an ear candle in your outer ear is not going to suck anything

out because it can't pass through. That's point one, right? That's point one. Point two is oxygen will create that vacuum. And suck out the impurities. Yeah, and that is just not true. Yeah, apparently, and yeah, doing trials of ear candles, they weren't able to create a vacuum in any of them.

So there's no vacuum created. That's right. There's also the idea that if a vacuum were created, it would suck impurities out. Apparently after ear candling, some of these, at least one of the same trials, studied the stuff, the residue that was found afterward, like I guess in the stump of the ear candle. Well yeah, and that's what people point to because there's all this gunk and they're like, look at all this stuff that came out of my ear. Oh my God.

Right. So what it's about to be is ash from the ear candle and leftover wax from the ear candle, but not... It's just ear candle. Not ear wax. No. Just the candle residue. Yeah, like they tested the substance.

It is not cerebrum in any form or fashion. What about the idea that it's safe and effective? I think we took care of the effective part. But the safe thing, apparently there's a lot of injuries you can get from it. You can be burned is one thing. You can perforate your eardrum, you can get infections, you can get buildup of the candle wax to replace whatever wax you think you're getting out. Yeah, it can have the reverse effect.

Exactly. And then one woman actually died from a fire that was caused in 2005 from ear candling. I looked it up, she was doing it, I guess, by herself on her bed and the ear candle fell out of her ear and caught her bedsheets on fire and she made it out of her house fine but she was asthmatic and had an asthmatic reaction to the smoke and died. How did it happen that fast? I don't know. I guess she had some 1940s like bedsheets or something.

Oh right, they were made out of like some flammable material. There is a company, I won't name the company, but one company that made it and it came with a 75 page manual and a 30 minute video tape, I guess this was a while ago, it was a video tape and candles and plate guards and flame retardant cloths and oil and an otoscope and if you read the flyer with this kit, it says, quote, it supplies you with everything you need for a safe and effective session of entertainment. Right, for entertainment purposes only. Yeah.

Because apparently I think it says that Canada regulates those things or the US does is medical devices if they make any health claims. Yeah, I think they're illegal in Canada outright. Gotcha. Or at least they were, I'm not sure if they still are, but yeah, the FDA won't even, I mean, you can't make any kind of claim on the box. If you get an ear candle at your little health food store, just read it carefully, they can't make any claims.

For entertainment purposes only. Because it's a hoot. To put a candle in your ear and light it on fire. There was one other thing I came across in the articles you sent me and I don't know if it's true, but it sounds fantastic that if, if you could create a vacuum with an ear candle, the negative pressure created by the vacuum would rupture your eardrum, which sounds pretty awesome. Yeah.

I don't know if it's true. It wasn't backed up with a source or anything like that. I couldn't find it anywhere else, but it's pretty hilarious. Yeah. So don't ear candle people. And if you write in and say, no, you should see the stuff that comes out, it is not your earwax. Yeah, you should put that stuff beneath the gas chromatograph and see what you think.

I mean, it's proven. This is like, uh, what was we talked about recently? Crop circles. Oh, yeah, we got heat from that too. People like, no, it's not proven. What was it? I think it was that. Okay.

The lowest crop circles. When we're like, no, they've proven that these guys came out and said, we made it up. No, I know what they were saying though. Like it, it's just like, uh, we were talking about with ESPs because you can disprove. Right. Right. And some of it doesn't mean that just proves all of it except with crop circles. We should come up with the stuff.

You should know T-shirt friends. Don't let friends ear candle. Yeah. Yeah. Just love your earwax. Yeah. Let it fall out on your shoulder and let someone point it out and you say, that's nature, baby. Yeah.

It's cause they eat celery. Yeah. Uh, if you want to know more about your wax, you can type the word into the search bar at howstuffworks.com, I think we have it done as one word, maybe. Uh, yeah. Uh, and, uh, I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this ice cream follow up. We got a lot of good stuff on ice cream.

Yeah, we did. People really liked that episode. Uh, hey guys, I'm a student at the, in, uh, University of Minnesota twin cities started listening to your podcast just this week and I'm officially hooked. Uh, I'm listening to your podcast on ice cream, which is really interesting because I've worked in ice cream parlor for the last five summers, Wilson's opened in 1906 and is still going strong today. One of the most famous restaurants in Wisconsin, uh, there are definitely different types of

vanilla ice cream. Yeah. Uh, we use two types, French or deluxe vanilla and purple vanilla. The label on this other vanilla is purple. We use purple vanilla for shakes and malts because it's less rich, allows for the flavor of the shaker malt to be more distinguished. We serve French vanilla and ice cream cone Sundays and floats, uh, and you mentioned having root beer floats remind me of an interesting thing that I've noticed, uh, people often

get offended when they order a black cow, uh, and we have to ask them what it is. That's because almost everyone has a different idea of what a black cow consists of. Some say that it's a root beer float, uh, some say that it's a root beer float with chocolate ice cream. Some say it's a Coke float. Some say it's a blended root beer float, et cetera, et cetera. Somehow they all got labeled as black cow. Uh, thanks for giving me more ice cream knowledge.

I'll actually be able to answer customers now when they ask what the difference between ice cream and frozen yogurt is. And that is from Andrea Nelson and she says P.S. Those nasty cheap cones with the flat bottoms are known as cake cones. Yeah. I saw that afterward. Don't order them ever. They're, I mean, if you're at Jason's deli and that's all they got, oh, is they have

the free ice cream, right? Yeah. And that's how I, I, I was like the day that we recorded ice cream and I couldn't remember the name of the cone. I think I ended up going that night. There it was. Cake cone. I was like, yes.

Cake cone. Somebody else called it a wafer cone, but I think that's just wrong. I see where that would come from because it's wafer-esque. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense, but I've never seen it called that before. And that's too close to waffle cone. Right. You know.

Right. Makes people confused. Yeah. Thank you, Andrea Nelson for that one. Thanks, Andrea. Uh, if you want to get in touch with us to say hi or to tell us about ice cream or anything like that, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know.

You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. And as always, you can join us at our home on the web, the luxurious stuff you should know.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. I'm Munga Shatikular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House.

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