Stuff You Should Know - How the Digestive System Works

Episode Date: December 8, 2011

The digestive system uses mechanical and chemical processes to absorb and transport all the nutrients your body needs to survive -- but how does it work? In this episode, Josh and Chuck take you through all 30 feet of the average digestive system. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that's uh, that was good. Chuck even just did jazz hands everybody. I did. That's what you have to do that when you say tada. Yeah, I think either that or bump your elbow. Right, right. Maybe like flick

the bottom of your chin like tada. I can't wait to hear your intro. Uh, okay. I've been gnawing on this one. Okay. I don't know what to say. I have, I have an idea. I'll try it. All right. This may get edited out. All right. Probably not though, because it's not bad. But Chuck. Yes. Did you know that I think probably the worst thing humans ever invented, not the nuclear bomb, not sarin gas, not reality TV. The second stall in the men's bathroom. The second one in our bathroom. In any public bathroom. What do you mean by second? I think the worst thing that a male human being can do to another male, and I'm just speaking for my gender is to come in and sit down in the stall next to an already

occupied stall. So you don't mean second. You just mean more than one. Yeah. Okay. The second through infinity. Exactly. Yeah. I don't, you know me. I don't do that either. I know you are a courteous, fine person who opens the bathroom door, sees one stall occupied, turns around. I guess it's not my time. Maybe I should go find another bathroom. There are other things you can do. So you just handled one thing. Like what, what's the terminology we're going to use here? I like poop. Okay. Poop's fine with me too. Feces, fecal matter. Okay. Poop is way like easier to, I'm gonna say easier to swallow. Excrement sounds gross. Yeah. Excrement is gross. Sometimes the fun word. I mean, this article uses the word fart. We haven't gotten to the article yet. I'm still

in my intro. So I think that that's a horrible assault on a person's humanity to sit down in an already occupied stall, sit down in the stall next to it. You must hate the airport. But I don't use the stall in the airport. Like I, that's really like literally an emergency if I was like 10 guys pooping next to each other in every airport. Never, never. I think maybe one time in my entire life. Anyway, I hate it just as much as before. But now that I've read this article, I understand what's going on next door a little better. That's my intro. I like it. We're talking about the digestive system. Yes, we are. Yes. Which there's some amazing facts right off the bat that Melissa Jeffries who I'm not familiar with her work, but this is a pretty quality article

if you ask me to use the word fart. She did. I that may be the only article on the site where that word comes in. I find that where besides how farting works. Is there? No, no. That's in the that's in this article, which we'll get to that later. She also has what I think maybe one of the best sentences on our website, which is the digestive team is composed of a bunch of hollow passageways that start at your mouth and end at your anus. Yeah, pretty much does it all. Yeah, food goes in one end, waste comes out the other. And we're going to tell you how. Yeah, but let's talk a little bit about the digestive system. Like how long is it, man? About 30 feet. Yeah, that's good long length. I mean, if you think about it, what your six feet, five, nine, five,

eleven, five, ten, five, tenish. Okay, so five, ten, but your entrails are 30 feet long. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. Yeah. And the one that nailed me was the. Oh, I know what this is. Yeah, the small intestine surface area is the size of a tennis court. Yeah. So basically, if you splayed your small intestine and unfold it loose from the rest of your bowels, splayed it and unfolded it because it's the folds that get you. If you've straightened it out, you could pretty much play tennis on it and it'd be regulation size. That's nutty. You've got clay, not table tennis. Grass, asphalt, and intestine. All right. So the cool thing about this article and the digestive system period is that there's a beginning and there's an end. Yeah. And

they used ham sandwich in the article. So let's go with that. Yeah, it makes sense. Like basically, we're going to now follow what happens to a ham sandwich. The moment you, not even the moment you eat it, starting when you pick it up and bring it to your mouth and it hits the area where your nose can smell it. And so begins the journey to your anus. So we can do this one, man. We've done way, way more tawdry, potentially explosive topics than this, man. We can do this. I'm a shame that I'm a grown man and I titter at that word. So as the sandwich comes to your mouth, your nose smells that ham. Yeah. Right. And it sends a signal to the brain says it's chow time. Let's get this party started. And your brain sends a signal to your salivary glands in your

mouth and they start pumping out saliva. Yeah. Like when you say my mouth was watering when I smelled that. That's exactly what's going on. That's exactly right. And I think my brain is overactive. You know how people are always like, it sounds like Josh is eating a piece of candy. No, I'm just I overproduce spit because I'm always hungry and I can smell anything and be like, well, I could go for that right now. Well, not at all. Right. So you've got your mouth watering, your saliva and the reason you salivate is because it has digestive proteins in it called with like amylase. Yes. And amylase is the reason you don't lick your lips. Did you know that? That's why your lips have when you lick them too much because you're actually destroying the very thin delicate

skin of your lips with this protein that is designed to break down food. Boy, my lips are a mess. Always looking at them. You can't do that, man. I know. So yeah, Josh, the amylase gets to work immediately on the carbs in the bread. Yeah. When you swallow, it's going to go down your throat, your pharynx. Yeah. And we covered a lot of this in the sword swallowing episode. So if you want even more in depth, look at that, go listen to that one. Yeah. But it takes the same path because you don't want your sword going down into your lungs and you don't want bread going into your lung. So thank you, epiglottis. Yeah. So a little flap. Yeah. That's going to guide it in the right direction almost all the time unless there's a malfunction. Anytime you swallow the epiglottis

covers trachea, leaving the esophagus to open up and accept your spit or your bolus. Remember, bolus is chewed food. Yes. So your sandwich is no longer considered sandwich. It's bolus now. That's right. And I actually choked last week on a sandwich like Mama Cass. I did. And I ended up blowing it through my nose for the next 10 minutes. Is it impossible? It is. That's horrific. Something happened. I choked and coughed and it, you know, went, I guess entered my nasal passageway. Jeez. And I was literally blowing sandwich out of my nose. It was not fun. You have mustard? No. Okay. You're lucky it didn't have mustard. That would have burned. All right. So now we are, well, we got to point out at the top of the esophagus is the

upper esophagus sphincter. Yes. At the bottom, there's a lower esophagus sphincter. Right. At the bottom of your esophagus. Yes. Yeah. And they let food in and then they let it right back out, which is exactly how it should work. Right. And along the way, you have these muscle contractions. Remember called a peristalsis, peristalsis, peristalsis, peristalsis that is just basically like the rings in your esophagus, the rings of muscles contracting and relaxing. And they are contract above and relaxed below and push the bolus down. Then when it hits that lower esophageal sphincter, that opens up and it pops into your stomach. And peristalsis is the key to everything. Yeah. Throughout the entire process of digestion. Yeah. Basically,

your whole, your guts and your stomach are just like contracting and expanding and stirring things up. And it's all just basically a bunch of spasmodic muscle contractions. That's right. And it will get to GERD later. But if you have heartburn or genuine GERD, then that means your lower esophageal sphincter is not working right. And some of your stomach acid is getting back up in there. Right. As Melissa Jeffries puts it, you have a lazy lower esophageal sphincter. And GERD is gastroesophageal reflux disease. I've got it. AKA heartburn. Yeah. Do you have it? Oh yeah. That stinks. Daily. Yeah. My brother-in-law had it so bad that he, they at first diagnosed him, misdiagnosed him with a panic attack because his chest was so tight. Yeah. But it hurts so

bad that it just like covered his entire chest and it felt like a, like a heart attack. Yeah. That's what mine would be like if I didn't take, take my pill. That's awful. Like a good boy. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's terrible. You have ham sandwich coming out your nose. You have bile and other stuff coming up into your esophagus. You okay? I got problems with my digestive system. Let's just say that. Okay. Okay. So we're in the stomach. In your stomach is going to, your basic, basically the stomach is going to get everything ready to go to the next step or to the small intestine by producing all kinds of enzymes and acids to break stuff down. Yeah. And also mucous to coat the stomach because the acid would damage your

stomach. Right. As well if it wasn't for this protective mucous. Yes. Which is very good that that's there. Yeah. And if you don't have the protective mucous or your acid can beat your mucous in a wrestling match, that's how you get ulcers in one way. One way. Yeah. 20 seconds, every 20 seconds though, the stomach is going to go through the peristalsis. Yeah. I think you can do that more frequently because I looked up why your stomach growls, rumbles, gurgles. That's just the sounds of digestion. The reason it happens when you're hungry is because your brain is not only sent a message to your salivary glands to start salivating, it's also sent it to your stomach to start the digestive process because there's food coming.

Yeah. So that's why you gurgle when you're hungry. It also happens when you eat too much or after you've eaten, you're gurgling. That's your stomach contracting. All right. Yeah. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil answer for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Right. And that's not a liquefied blob. It's more pasty, a pasty blob. Yes. And it's not called Kime. That's called yield. So you get the Kime inside of your stomach, right? It's now in the duodenum. Yeah, it's entered the small intestine, which as we said, the small intestine is considered the small intestine because the circumference of it is narrower than the large intestine. The small intestine is broken into three parts. And the entire point of the small intestine is digestion and absorption, a breakdown of the food materials, and then the absorption of the particles that are broken down, right? That's right. So the first part of the small intestine is what the duodenum, is that how we're pronouncing it? Maybe duodenum, I think.

That's what I was doing in my head, but I like duodenum. And that's basically a big burst of enzymes from the pancreas and the liver. Bile from the liver. Yeah. And it starts really breaking down food. Like the food's like, no more, no more, and then it leaves the stomach for the small intestines and it's like out of the frying pan and into the fire for this stuff. That's right. Yeah. The next two parts are the jejunum and the ilium, and they don't do a lot of breaking down the food. They mainly are absorbing the nutrients before you send it to the large intestine. Yeah. And here's, this is what gets me, man. I love this. The large intestine is also about absorption to some parts of it are, but it's also the biggest function it provides is

is, um, preparing waste. It seems like, um, that I've always wondered, like, how do you get your nutrients out of food? And this article explains it. Really? It's awesome, man. Think about this. So this breakdown process, and you have specialized enzymes, like some enzymes from your liver are meant to break down like fats, right? Right. And proteins. Your pancreas is meant to break down like, um, uh, carbohydrates. So you have specialized enzymes that break down certain things. Um, and then you have a villi, like you said, these little tiny hair like projectiles and microvilli that cover the folds of your small intestines. And then you have microvilli, which are projectiles on the small projectiles. And these things, like you remember taste buds

are, uh, or taste receptors are attuned to certain tastes. These things are attuned to certain nutrients. So they pick up certain types of nutrients and then absorb them through the cell, through the wall of your intestines and into your bloodstream to be delivered throughout your body. That is amazing. Is it? It's amazing. That's an amazing process. I'm glad you're knocked out by this. And so basically along the way, this food is traveling down and like, it just gets hit by all, like hit and run by all these different proteins that just go into the walls of your intestines, leaving what's left over. That's right. I'm just amazed by that. That's great. Uh, now you're in the large intestine, um, the indigestible parts that is.

And this is the last stretch here. Uh, you're going to get, you know, fluid is going to be extracted to produce what you want in the end, which is a solid fecal matter. You don't want it to. Not too solid to watery. You don't want it too solid either. There's like a, there's a balance to be struck. And, uh, the large intestine, you know, the bottom, there's three parts to that. The bottom is the, the cecum and the little appendix dangles off the end of that. Then there's the ascending, uh, ascending colon, which goes up, obviously the transverse colon, which shoots across your body. And then it drops back down to the descending colon. Uh, the first two sections, salts and fluids are absorbed, uh, from the food.

Right. Uh, electrolytes. It has electrolytes. That's right. And, uh, also bacteria, good bacteria in the colon that are going to ferment and absorb fiber, which is, that's how you get your fiber. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Chuck, we know a little bit about, uh, bacteria. Yeah. Remember the, uh, little video we made? I don't think it's out yet. Yeah. About healthy bacteria and how you have really good, like really beneficial colonies of bacteria in your intestines. And, um, if your bacteria is not doing the trick or you lose it, you can get a poop transplant. That's right. Which is poop taken from another healthy person, uh, ground up in a blender with, uh, saline solution, maybe, and then injected into the

ailing patient. That's right. Basically get a good colony of, of bacteria going in the intestine. Which is a great thing. It works, man. Uh, poop is going to move about a centimeter per hour through your large intestine. So it's a lot, a lot slower than your small intestine. And it, it does this with the help of more mucus produced on the inside of your large intestine to help the poop move through. And then, you know, at that point you basically have one in the chamber. That's cross Chuck, as they say. So that's the, that's the, that's the path. Yeah. If you were, if you're a bite of ham sandwich, that's what happens to you. Um, that's all you see, but there's other things at play. There's other factors, other organs, lots, um, involved in

this. And I looked up the spleen, spleen's immune system. I thought that for sure the spleen had something to do with digestion. It has like almost no role in digestion whatsoever. Oh yeah. Basically the two big organs outside of the actual digestive system that play a major role in digestion are the liver, which by the way makes up what two and a half percent of your body weight. Did you know that? Yeah, it's a big organ. I had no idea. And do not look up cirrhosis in Google images either. Yeah. You realize, you know, you say that a lot. You tell people not to look things up. You know that every time you do, people go look things up. Yeah. That's why I tell it. Um, so the liver, like we said, creates bile, which is a brownish,

yellowish fluid that's designed to, uh, break down fats and proteins. Um, and the liver stores this extra bile it produces in the gallbladder and you say, well, wait a minute, I have my gallbladder taken out. That's a worry. The liver has it covered. It just stores extra bile and bile ducts, right? That's right. The pancreas, pancreas creates enzymes that are designed to break down things like carbs, I believe. Um, also fats and proteins as well. But for the most part, um, the liver handles that. So basically both of these, these organs are producing these proteins. They're shooting them into your intestines, particularly your small intestine. And, um, they're helping break down your food. That's right. But that's not all. And peristalsis is, is helping this whole

time. It's making everything move around involuntarily. Right. Contracting, relaxing. Yeah. That's all about. And especially in the stomach too. It's basically like a washer on the wash cycle. Yeah. You know, washing machine. Uh, glands are very important. If you didn't have glands, then you wouldn't be secreting anything. Right. And you need all these juices. Yeah. Acids, enzymes, uh, the glands basically start in your mouth with saliva and go all the way, you know, through the stomach. Not, I mean, it doesn't go all the way. I don't think you, well, anal glands. I think those are just in dogs. I don't think humans have those and not just in dogs, but you know, I don't think we have anal glands. We should look that up. Yeah.

And hormones are really important. Like super important. They basically control everything. Yeah. As far as starting off each process. Yeah. So, well, a hormone, it doesn't matter what your, what your body's doing. A hormone is a chemical signal. And specifically with digestion, you've got gastrin. Um, it tells the stomach to produce acid. Secretin, um, tells the pancreas to do its thing. Same with the liver. Um, and, uh, what else does it talk to the stomach? So basically, secretin says, go start secreting your juices, right? Yeah. And then CCK, which if I may, colicistokinin. Colu. Colicistokinin. Colu. Colicistokinin. Yeah. That was very close. You're much better at pronouncing things than me. Well, I look it up. CCK basically says,

hey, pancreas, hey, gallbladder, we need some more stuff. And they give it to them. So basically, the hormones are running throughout the body saying, you, you, you start. That's right. There's food afoot. Uh, there are other hormones and we covered these, uh, ghrelin and peptide YY. Where do we cover that? Was that in? I don't remember, but I got it totally backwards. What? The first time we did it? Yeah. I said that ghrelin, um, was the stomach signal that it was full. Oh yeah. It's the exact opposite. Yeah. It means you're hungry. Yeah. The stomach and the small intestine produce the hormone ghrelin and it, that communicates to the brain to say, get some food in here. Did we get listening around with that or something? Yeah. A lot of it. Uh, okay. Uh, and then peptide

YY does the opposite. It says, whoa, we're very full. Or as I like to call it, peptide. Why? Why? Yeah. I don't eat until I hurt any longer. Do you? Uh, no. Yeah. It's just, it's just, I don't get it. It's so American. Yeah. It is pretty American. Gross. Yeah. And peptide YY says, whoa, we got enough to stop, stop feeding. Fair boy. That's right. Uh, nerves play a big part. Um, extrinsic nerves are in the unconscious part of the brain and the spinal cord and here, you know, the main fun, you got acetylcholine and adrenaline. The main function of acetylcholine is to signal all this peristalsis, all this muscle contraction. Right. And basically adrenaline shuts it down when there's no food. Right. Saying you don't need to keep contracting and relaxing

and moving around. Just take a, take a chill pill. Right. And those are conducted by extrinsic nerves, which are in the brain and spinal cord, right? Yeah. The intrinsic nerves are, uh, located in the actual guts. And what's cool is they circumvent the brain. They're activated by basically the pressure of food in your intestine. Yeah. I thought that was a little weird. Yeah. Usually the brain isn't bypassed. No, it's generally the, the seed of everything. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. Agreed. So, uh, you know, that's digestion. We should talk about all the stuff in your food and what it means. Yeah. Like carbs. This is, this is the amazing part that I was talking about earlier where it's just absorbed. Yeah. You know, this is where it happens. It's

got to go somewhere on this molecular level. Uh, carbs are broken down by all these juices, uh, absorbed into the small intestine and then eventually the blood, um, starch in the bread, if you're eating bread. Same thing's going to happen to that, but it's also going to produce a byproduct called glucose, which will give you some energy. Yep. There in your liver. Yeah. We'll give your whole body energy, but stored in the liver at least. It will give your whole body energy eventually when your liver releases and burns it. That's right. So carbs aren't a dirty word. No, you just have to be careful. What kind of carbs you're, you're taking in. Yeah. Some are definitely better than others. Complex carbohydrates are generally better than simple carbohydrates.

Sure. But remember, you know, not too long ago, everyone thought bread was like an evil thing on the planet all of a sudden. Well, if you want to lose weight really fast, stop eating bread. It's as simple as that. It doesn't make it equal though. That's one way. Um, protein, remember you've got, um, so you're specialized enzymes, some coming from the pancreas, but most of it coming from the, the liver in the gallbladder to break the stuff down ultimately into amino acids and the amino acids are what are absorbed and taken throughout your body. Amino acids are the building blocks of all life. That's what they say. Yeah. And then vitamins as my English friends say, you have an English friend. I got more than one.

What are you collecting them? Yeah. How many English friends do you have? I got dozens. Vitamins are, uh, there's a couple of kinds, uh, water soluble and fat soluble. B and C are the ones that are water soluble and they are easily absorbed along with water in the small intestine, but they also are easily gotten rid of past through your urine. Yeah. And then you got the fat soluble, which we're talking about A, D and K, and they are absorbed just like fat and then they are stored once they're absorbed, they're stored in, uh, lipocytes. I think it's lipocytes. I like lipo. Okay. Do you say liposuction or liposuction? I say liposuction. Yeah. I always go with the lie. That's what I didn't look up actually. I looked

up all these other pronunciations. Lipocytes, like lipids, fats. Yeah, or like lipo. Like lipids. So that's it, man. That's, that's the digestive process as it's ideally meant to function. That's right. It doesn't always function like that though, you know? It doesn't function like that for me ever. There's a lot of problems that can arise. Apparently you have all of them. No, not all. Um, there's also some, uh, I guess impoliteness that can arise. It's just a matter of course, just a normal, normal doing business. Yeah. Like belching, right? If you eat, especially quickly, uh, you're gonna get a lot of air trapped in your stomach or soda, obviously. Yeah. Basically anything that has to do with air

getting trapped in your stomach, uh, ends up as a belcher burp because I just belched. That's, that's good stuff. I sat up straight. That's how I, that's what usually does it for me. Yeah. All it is is, um, basically you're, you're esophagus, uh, pushing this air from your stomach out of your mouth rather quickly. Three to four burps is normal after a meal. Yeah. Say anything more than that, you might have an ulcer perhaps, or maybe you're just gassy. Well, gas is something different. All right. Yeah. We'll get to that in a minute. Okay. Um, vomiting, that's normal. It's considered normal to vomit three or four times after each meal. No, that's not true at all. That's very

dangerous. Did I misread that? Yes. Uh, vomiting is normal if you have, um, it's usually bad bacteria irritating your system and a signal is sent. Hey, you got to get this out of here. Yep. And it's really that easy. He's ruining the party. Have you ever heard Jim Brewer's little bit about all the different alcohol coming into your stomach and, and finally, like, I can't remember which one comes in and it's like all everybody's like a shot of yager at the end of the night. I think that might be what it is. That's fine. Um, then we talked a little bit about GERD before. Chuck, you're one of a 22 million Americans. You know that? I'm a good company who has GERD 700,000 trips to the hospital each year in the US alone. Yeah. I don't, I just

manage it through over the counter stuff and it, it, it handles it for you. Yeah. For the most part, but it's not good to, I mean, my doctor told me he's like, yeah, this isn't good to live with this for your life. So what are you going to do? I don't know. You get a new esophageal sphincter? I'm going to do nothing. Like I always do. Well, I mean, what can you do? I'm not sure. I don't know. I know there are surgeries, but I don't know what, you know, how involved that is. I don't want it. I will study and you find the lowest price for surgery and I'll beat it by half. What are you on Costa Rica? They're big for a dentistry now. Costa Rica? Oh, yeah. Huh. Like good dentistry. It's a lot cheaper. How else do you get big at something? You got to be good at it.

Well, by being really cheap. Peptic ulcers, man. That's another problem that actually we walked right past in the 10 scientists who use themselves as guinea pigs episode. So Peptic ulcers, you remember when we were kids, like Toms and Rollades is like I'm stressed out or I got a lot of, I got a deadline at work. I got ulcers. Oh, you're giving me an ulcer. Yeah. Not true. Yeah. Ulcers, it turns out, are caused largely most of the time by a bacteria called Heliobacter pylori. H. pylori. H. pylori. And there was a guy, an Australian physician. I think he's a physician or at least a biologist. I can't remember. Maybe a bacteriologist. We'll find out, I'm sure. This is like listener mail on listener mail. Yes. That's how bad this is. No. Anyway, his name's

Barry Marshall and he figured out that it was H. pylori that was probably causing Peptic ulcers. To prove it, he drank a culture of that bacteria and then cured himself with antibiotics. That's right. And he developed Peptic ulcers in the interim and showed like, yeah, that's what it is. You want a Nobel Prize for it. Really? Yeah. Wow. Anti-inflammatory sometimes can cause those as well. And I think that's probably like an abundance of anti-inflammatories. Really? Yeah. I don't think if you take like an Advil, you're going to get a Peptic ulcer. Gotcha. But an ulcer of any kind basically is something has gone into your stomach and has compromised your stomach or your intestines and has compromised the lining, that mucus. By way of a whole.

Right. Well, all those acids are then allowed to eat through and you have holes in it. That's right. It's not fun. Stomach bug. I get once a year. Once? Usually once. Which way does it come out? Both. Oh, at the same time, have you ever done that? I have. It is awful. It's so awful. Yeah, that happened to me once. I guess I probably get those, I mean, I would think more than once a year. Seems like I need to start paying attention. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I'll tell you next year. Okay. My flu always comes by way of the stomach, it seems like. I don't have like the regular flu that much. It's right. You don't. You get like septic flus. That's right. Peptic flus?

No, septic. Wasn't it like a septic stomach bug or something like that? Oh, I don't know. You were green. I've never seen a human being green before. Oh, you poor guy. I forgot about that. Lactose intolerant. I am also that. What? Yeah, to a certain degree. Really? Yeah, like if I eat pizza, yeah, then I'm having troubles. So here, this is a rare tri, trifecta, trivergence, we'll call it, of this episode, the cheese episode, and the gluten episode, the celiac episode, right? Because in the celiac episode, I said, we were talking about casein, and I was like, casein, that's probably just another word for lactose, and that's what people are intolerant of. Right. Well, that was totally incorrect, as we found out in the cheese episode,

because the cheese episode, remember, casein is the main fat in cheese, right? Right. So now, we're here, and I'm correcting it. Great. Yeah, all three are conjoined by mistakes and regret. Did we even say what it was? Lactose intolerant means you can't digest milk sugar? Yeah, lactose. Yeah. Not everyone knows what that is. Have you ever had the milk, the lactose-free milk? No, I drink a lot of almond milk these days, though. It's really good. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Emily's on the soy. She's been on that food. Tell her to try almond milk. I think it's better. I don't think she ever would. Tell her to try it. Emily, try it. I call it soy juice, so it bugs her. Yeah. Because it's not milk. Well, coconut milk, that's considered milk. Don't you consider

coconut milk milk? Same thing. Same thing. Coconut juice. No, it's coconut milk, and everybody calls it that. Well, everyone calls soy milk, soy milk. Right. But it ain't milk to me unless it comes out of a heat. A bison teeth? A bison teeth. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty, exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as

guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wall Street to Main Street and from Hollywood to Washington, the news is filled with decisions, turning points, deals, and collisions. I'm Tim O'Brien, the senior executive editor for Bloomberg Opinion, and I'm your host for Crash Course, a weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Every week on Crash Course, I'll bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic upheavals occur. And I'm going to explore the lessons we can learn when creativity

and ambition collide with competition and power. Each Tuesday, I'll talk to Bloomberg reporters around the world, as well as experts and big names in the news. Together, we'll explore business, political, and social disruptions, and what we can learn from them. I'm Tim O'Brien, host of Crash Course, a new weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Listen to Crash Course every Tuesday on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so we should cover the other end of the problems near your bottom end. This is the good part. Like IBD, inflammatory bowel disease, it's structural. Yeah, not to be confused with IBF. IBD is really like...

You say IBF? IBS. I thought there was one I didn't have. I was pretty excited there for a second. There's two types, major types of IBD, ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. About 600,000 Americans are afflicted by this each year. And basically, there are ulcers in the intestines that lead to cramps, diarrhea, intestinal bleeding. Not fun. No. Did you know that there may be like local law in some places, but they're trying to pass legislation that if you are a Crohn's patient and you tell somebody like in a public, like a business or something that doesn't provide public restrooms, that you have Crohn's and you need to use their restroom, this legislation would make it a crime to not let a person with Crohn's disease seriously.

Not use the bathroom. No, I think if somebody tells you, I have Crohn's disease, I guess the assumption would be that you just have to be a total jerk to use that. But even if you are encountering a jerk, it's worth having to put up with that jerk than to not let a person with Crohn's use your bathroom. Is this federal? That's the last I heard. Here's the thing though, you do that and they're like, whatever, dude, I've never heard of that. They kick you out. So what, you can go back and have them find or something. Yeah. But that doesn't help your problem though. No, it doesn't right then, but then the news picks it up and people start talking about it and then awareness develops. It starts, it takes a village. IBS. Yeah, IBS. So IBD,

inflammatory bowel disease is structural. Like there's something structurally wrong with your intestines, like you said. Yeah. IBS is functional where there doesn't appear to be anything wrong. You know how many cysts or there's not like a hole in it or something like that, but it's not functioning properly at all. So you have like cramps and gas and diarrhea. Yeah, just the whole nine. And apparently it responds to stress, hormonal changes, antibiotics, which makes me think that it would have something to do with that healthy beneficial bacteria colony in your intestines. Yeah. Well, they think your brain isn't communicating with your intestines properly. Yeah. But they're not sure. No, we don't know. So in the meantime, people with IBS

have to probably medicate. Do we need to talk about celiac? Well, no, go listen to how celiac disease works. What was it called? Something about gluten. Should I not eat gluten or something? Yeah, good one. That's what it's called. I think. Yeah. Go listen to that one. You'll learn all about celiac and you'll hear my now famous mistake about casein. Flatulence. Yeah. Whereas Melissa Jeffrey says farting. The digestive process produces gases, as we all know, methane, of course, also little hydrogen and CO2. Yeah. And when the rectum senses that there's some gas in there, taking up space since the signal to the brain, the sphincter relaxes and out it comes. Thank you. And what is normal?

Normal is something like three pints of gas per day that's built up and then released in 10 to 25 instances a day. Increments a lot. I don't think I shoot ducks that often. We should keep count. Okay. We'll start tomorrow. Start first thing in the morning. But you got to get. We should keep it a lot. You got to get. You may like stay up all night, though. And you know, because it's some of the stuff happens while you're asleep. Oh yeah. I hadn't, I hadn't considered or set up a microphone or a smellometer. Do you have a smellometer? I do. It's attached to my chest and it shocks me every time it senses something. Constipation. Something actually I've never been afflicted with. That's good, man.

That's good. That's what they call a reprieve. It is. Constipation is pretty straightforward. Functionally, it just means that your intestines not moving very fast. You remember when you're in your lower intestine, especially in the colon, the the chime or whatever it's called by that time, the waste is being stripped of water and salt. And if it's too long, right, but also to recycle that stuff. And if it if it stays in there too long, it can become dry and hard and difficult to pass. Yeah, hard poop. Constipation. A term. Yeah. In our household. Hard poop. Yeah. And then this one's so gross. And then the opposite diarrhea is just the well, it's just the opposite. It means you have an overactive lower intestine. Yeah. That is passing stuff too quickly and is not

absorbing fast enough. So you have wet poop. And I don't want to get into it. But there is a thing called the Bristol stool scale. And it is Umi's favorite poster in the world. There isn't like you have the illustration of the digestive system. Yeah, there is a medical illustration poster of like, I think it's seven, six or seven different types of poop from stuff that just like is like nothing but floating fats. Yeah. To a very hard like black poop and the different types are you want to hit somewhere in the middle? Yeah, I had a doctor say once that soft serve ice cream is what you're looking for. I didn't know I always thought I would be a little harder than that. Yeah. Yeah. Soft serve ice cream. I don't think so. This is a dietitian too. I think your doctor's

full of it. Well, this is one of those like your doctor's full of stool. This is one of those wacky dietitian guys, you know. Oh, gotcha. It's like, oh, you need to change everything you eat, which he's probably right. Probably. And diarrhea apparently happens to most Americans about four bouts a year, which I was astounded to hear that. How many a day? No, I mean, I just I figured people got diarrhea more than four times a year. Yeah, not not most people don't use much crystals as you and I do. What does that mean? Oh, crystal. Crystal burgers. Oh, gotcha. White castle for our northern friends. Yeah. Yeah. So our apologies to Crystal and White Castle and our apologies really to every single one of your mothers because I'm sure you laughed at this. We said poop a bunch of

times. Mm hmm. You said part. You said the F word. I said teat. Yeah, teat was in there. So I'm glad everybody made it through this one. Good going. Hopefully you learned a little bit about your own digestive system. It's a miracle how it functions. It is. It is amazing how the whole thing happens. So if you want to learn more about digestion, there's even some stuff we didn't touch in here, like cow digestion. Yeah, type in digestive system in the search bar, howstuffworks.com, and it will bring up this fine, fine article. And I said search bar. So it's time now for listener mail. You want to give a, this is Kiva based. Yeah. So you want to give a quick overview there? Okay. Kiva is an organization, a website that allows schmos like us who have an extra 25 bucks

laying around to lend it to people in say the third world who can actually buy a substantial amount of supplies or clothing or whatever and then use it to sell in their business to become well off enough so that they don't have to take loans anymore and can in turn be peaceful democracy loving times. And where is our team? Our team is kiva.org slash team slash stuff you should know. And we, our team has gotten pretty great. Well, yeah, where are we financially? Oh, gotcha. Yeah. So we have a team of that's also third, third in size behind the Christians and the, well, no, behind the atheists and the Christians and then team stuff you should not crazy. Yeah, that's pretty nuts. That makes us a pseudo religion. I didn't want to say it,

but I'm glad someone did. So our team with their religious fervor has loaned Chuck, I'm going to let you say more than I didn't get the exact number, but we surpassed $750,000 in loans in loans in like two years. Yeah. Two years or one year. Two. Yeah, you're right. I think yeah, we just had our second anniversary. And Glenn and Sonia are our awesome, I'm going to call them official team captains. We if they weren't official Chuck, I say we officially at this moment designate them are Kiva team captains, Glenn and Sonia. And they're awesome. And they keep up with it. And they set our goals. He actually Glenn figures his stuff out like by the month when we can hit this goal. And our next one is obviously a million bucks, which is staggering. Yep. And

he's calling it the million dollar march because it's due in March. Nice. If we have a nice holiday giving season. And I think we are like, I saw a couple people out there that had like some really amazing stats about their own, their own lending. Yeah. I got a few sitting there. Actually, I need to reload. Yeah. I just they've caught up to me. Really? Yeah. Well, you just had a reloading day and I haven't gone and looked. Yeah. I need to. It's always nice. Okay. And a special shout to Josiah and Janelle. Yeah. They are on our team. They are a US couple living in Korea. I think teaching English. Yeah. Yeah. So they're not, they're not raking in money here. They have loaned 400 times dude to the tune of $10,000. And yeah, that's, that's a lot. That makes me feel really bad.

$10,000 in loans in Kiva. Yeah. That's making a significant difference. But the cool thing is, is they are loans. And if they so decided they could get their money back. Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't look like they are. No, well, this is the retirement plan. So that, I mean, if you're not joining Kiva at this point, then you got something wrong. Something's wrong with you for sure. And like the fact that, that who is it? Janellen. Janellen Josiah. Janellen Josiah. Thank you so much for doing that. The fact that they loaned $10,000 is not like, that's not the standard. That's incredible. It's mind blowing. Yeah. There's a lot of people on the team have loaned a couple of times here or there. But if you go and look at,

you know, what it takes for a loan to be fulfilled, $25 like makes a difference pretty quick. The people who are looking for loans often are asking for far less than $1,000. Yeah. And they can take that though. Again, what a grand here $25 here is exponentially more in another country. That's right. Even in this economy. So if you want to join our Kiva team, we're always happy to have new people, especially if you actually provide a loan and not just join the team. I've never gotten that of you. You can do that? Yeah. That's weird. Yeah. You can go to kiva.org slash team slash stuff you should know and join. Yeah, you can buy Christmas gifts, gift certificates. Yeah, they're great gift certificates because after they're repaid, the person can either loan them

or they got the $25. So you can be helping two people at the same time. But you can also find a lot out about your nephew, what kind of person he is, what he does when re-loan day happened. Again, kiva.org slash team slash stuff you should know. And if you want to talk to us, you want to communicate with Chuck and I, you can tweet to us at syskpodcast. You can join us on Facebook, facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can join the $50,000 on Facebook. Thank you. Or you can email us at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage.

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