Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: Why do men have nipples?

Episode Date: August 6, 2017

In this week's SYSK Select episode, they're always right there, taunting you: why do you have me, they ask? Why do men have nipples? It turns out there's a good answer why and nipples on men aren't entirely useless after all. Join Chuck and Josh for this heady investigation. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everybody, this is Chuck with this Saturday Select edition of Stuff You Should Know. And this week I picked out a little show called Why Do Men Have Nipples? And that's how you have to say it in your head

when you read it out loud. It's from January 10th, 2013. And if I remember correctly, it's just kind of an interesting episode. And I think Josh and I were looking each other one day with our shirts off. I was like, why do you have nipples? Why do you have nipples?

And that's generally how most of our shows get started. So give it a listen, and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and we're doing this. We're doing it. Whether you like it or not.

Yeah, we're recording our podcast, Stuff You Should Know. You probably know because you tuned in. So welcome. And if it was an accident, hey, welcome to the party. Talk about serendipity. You're about to learn about male nipples. Yeah, you are. Talk about a party.

Yeah. You got them, I got them. We all do. Do you want to talk about chromosomes for a second? Sure. Chuck, you and I each have 23 chromosomes in our body. We talked a little bit in designer children, I think. Yeah.

About a little genetics over here. We're not going to go into that now. But the 23 chromosomes, if you put a man and a woman side by side, or their chromosomes side by side, the 22 of the 23 chromosomes are going to be exactly alike. It's that 23rd that gets you. Yeah. The 23rd chromosome either has a pair of Xs or an X and a Y.

That's right. A pair of Xs equals a woman. XY equals a man, OK? We're not that far apart. We're really not. And that becomes very, very clear when we're in utero. Because sexual dimorphism, which is the inward and outward differences between genders, between male and female,

like who-who's and ha-has and that kind of stuff. PPs and cuckoos. Sure. Those are all hammered out in the course of our development on the 23rd chromosome, right? Yeah. A lot of it you come out with, right? You were born with a vagina or a penis.

Yeah, or both. Right. But a lot of it is also set up to be kicked in when puberty happens. That's right. But still, there's differences. There's changes. And it's all because of this 23rd chromosome.

Some of the things, though, can go either way. And depending on what happens when puberty comes along, either nothing's going to happen to this equipment, I guess you could call it. Or a lot of crazy things happen to it. And one of the good examples of this are nipples. There's a really great question. Why do men have nipples, Chuck?

Yeah, I have a funny little story about this. My sister and I were hanging out about 15 years ago. And they had a male dog. And I was rubbing the belly. And the dog had very, like, just pronounced nipples more so than you would usually see on a male dog. And I guess I never noticed before. And I was just like, I was kind of grossed out.

I was like, God, what is your dog have nipples? And she was like, you have nipples. And then it just like, it was an awakening. Blew your mind. Blew my mind. Yeah. I was like, wow, you're right. I do.

Why? And I never really researched things like this back then. And now I know why. Now we know why. Yeah. And we should say this is the generally accepted explanation. It's not necessarily scientific fact.

But it is, this is pretty much why. Yeah, most mammals, in fact, most male mammals have nipples. I think mice, stallions, and. Platypus. Yeah, the male platypus is among the handful of animals, of mammals, where the boys are born nipple-free. Which is weird, because as Conger points out, Kristen Conger from Stuff Mom Never Told You,

she wrote this article. And she points out that you can make the case that mice are more evolved in that respect than human males. Yeah, ours could be a flaw. Yeah. We'll get to that. Well, let's talk about this. So back in 1999, right before Y2K, it's Y2K fever, Yale

University researchers released a study that said, hey, we've gotten to the bottom of this mystery of why or how male mice don't grow nipples. They're just completely, seriously, go out in your yard right now, trap a mouse, pick it up by its tail, and examine its little belly. No nipples. Yeah, nothing.

Or if it's got nipples, that means it's a little lady. Exactly. That's the way you tell. That's one of the ways you tell with mice. And it's because of a protein. P-T-H, little r, p. Yeah. It's always so exciting when they give them names like this.

After mice are, after their mammary tissue starts to form, produces this protein. In a male mice, it signals the cells to form male hormone receptors. And it basically destroys the tissue, like in utero, correct? Yes, because boy mice and female mice, they all develop mammary tissue, which gives you all the equipment for nipples and breasts

and milk ducks and all that stuff. They just destroy theirs before they're born. Yeah, that protein signals it to be destroyed in male mice. Prepare for the mindblower now. Boys and girls as humans undergo a very similar process in utero as well. Before that sexual dimorphism that's really carried out by the 23rd chromosome begins, we both, both genders,

start to develop mammary tissue and develop all the equipment. It's called milk lines. They're like kind of like. Garner calls it the plumbing. We have the same plumbing. Right, exactly. Which is kind of funny and true.

Yeah. And we develop this plumbing before it's decided or before we start to develop sexual traits. Right. So it's almost like if you look at a timeline of sexual development, the nipples come first. Yeah. So that they're not associated as far as the, I guess,

nature is concerned with male or female in humans. It's the same thing. Yeah. So we don't have a protein that takes care of the nipples and males. So men and boys and girls are born with pretty much exactly the same setup until puberty. That's right.

And that's when hormones kick in. Estrogen in girls is going to cause breast growth and mammary gland development. Yeah. And that's when things diverge. You know what really stood out to me on this? That means that our nature's default setting as far as humans are concerned is female.

Yeah. I think it's pretty neat. It is pretty neat. Well, women are the seed of everything. Sure. Seed of life. That's right. So it's what everybody calls them.

Seed of life. So the simple answer then is the reason we have nipples is because we've always had nipples. And through the years, evolution never said, you know what? You don't need nipples. No, and I think the case has been made that the reason men still have nipples is because nipples are so vital to female reproductive success

that there's no, Conger points out, there's no adaptive pressure to select nipples out of men. Yeah. It's such a vital function. Right. So it's like, we don't want to possibly mess with anything. So everybody gets nipples, OK? Just live with it.

Yeah. But that's why men have nipples because nature's default setting for humans is girls. Yeah. And it's interesting. And I love my little nipples. I'll just come out and say it. You do.

Well, I think it would be odd to not have them. I don't think so. It'd be a little getting used to, but I think it would not look odd. You know, we did our Barbie podcast. Has that come out already? Yeah. And there are people on the web that will teach you

how to make nipples for your Barbie dolls. I saw that. They're kindles. Yeah. Like very realistic looking. Very realistic. But yeah, you'd look like a Ken doll. It would just be weird.

I don't think Ken looks abnormal without nipples. It's because it's a doll. He also doesn't look abnormal without a penis. That's true. You know? Yeah. I think you would be a little distressed if you woke up one day without nipples.

Or maybe you'd love it. Maybe it's a new lease on life for you. Yeah, I'd be like, you should go bare chested everywhere. This is great. I'm a freak. Yeah. Yeah. So we said Chuck is something that's kind of interesting,

if you ask me. If you take a six-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl, a prepubescent boy and prepubescent girl, and you compared their mammary glands, the whole mammary operation they've got going on, they're virtually the same. And it's not until estrogen comes along that the differences really change.

The fat develops, so the breasts get bigger. These milk ducts develop. You've got all this process that just kind of takes these things that are almost latent in terms of into functioning breasts. Yeah. Right? If we found, if you expose a man to estrogen, he could conceivably lactate himself.

That's part two of this. We didn't even put that in the title, because we didn't want to just blow your minds right out of the gate. Yeah. But the point is, is men have nipples, because girls have nipples, and men can lactate because women can lactate.

Yeah, and in fact, as little babies, you and I might have lactated. Who knows? When the hormone prolactin is what facilitates breast milk production in new moms, when they can actually pass this along in utero to their fetus, and that little baby can come out, if they get enough of that, passed along with the ability

to lactate, both little boys and little girls. And it's called witch's milk. Only last couple of weeks, usually. I'll bet it's a distressing couple of weeks if you're the parent. Like, what is going on? Well, I'm sure it's explained. There's all sorts of weird things that can happen right

away that you're like, what? And I think usually doctors are like, don't worry. The little fontanels, the brain will grow together. Or not the brain, the skull will grow together at some point. Don't worry about the soft parts. Just don't pat it on the head. So that, yeah, witch's milk, it occurs. And I don't know how rare it is.

She didn't say, but I've got the impression. It's rare-ish, is it? Yeah. Even rarer is spontaneous lactation in adult men. Yes. And that's called galactaria, which does not sound very pleasant. No, it doesn't.

But essentially, if you lack enough testosterone that your estrogen levels are comparatively high, you can suffer galactaria, which basically is male lactation, spontaneous male lactation. Yeah, but Konger points out it could be the cause of alarm, though, if you're an older man, correct? Is that just because of the testosterone deficiency? Right.

OK. Yeah. But Darwin thinks, hey, maybe early man, breastfed, like full-on breastfed. And who knows? Maybe they did. Who's to say? Are we to say?

No. Charles Darwin. Yeah. So you've got galactaria as a possibility, which is milk as a possibility, two ways that human males can spontaneously lactate. And we're not the only ones who do. There's a type of bat that was discovered

to lactate spontaneously. And a surprising amount of animals over the course of the last century or two have been exposed to all sorts of different tests to make them spontaneously lactate. A steer was made to lactate. Do you know how surprised that steer must have been? Yeah.

But we found that if you can increase estrogen levels and trigger the release of prolactin, you can make men produce milk. Right. And it happens sometimes. So the prolactin is produced by the thyroid gland, right? Yeah. The pituitary gland?

Yeah. And women, when they have a little baby, they really ramps up like 10 times as much. Exactly. So what they found is that after a baby's born, dad's suffer, I guess suffer's not the right word, dad's experience in increasing prolactin production too. Normally, it's not enough to cause lactation,

but they suspect you can make it happen if you are. OK, so this is really strange. If you hold a baby to your breast, your nipple and your man and you're the father, so you're already prolactin high, you could conceivably trigger the production of milk if you did that repeatedly over the course of a couple weeks.

Yeah, it's a physiological response and biological, I guess, sort of all wrapped up into one. And you can have like a sympathy lactation almost. Yeah, and it's happened, 2002 in Sri Lanka, right? Yeah. I didn't actually get to look this guy up, so I don't know a whole lot about him other than the fact that he breastfed his daughters

after his wife died. Yeah, his wife died during a childbirth, and he took over. Wow, that's amazing. It is. But another way to lactate is if you're starving, Chuck. Oh, really? Yeah. There was this one POW camp, Japanese POW camp.

And in just one, there was 500 cases of men lactating spontaneously. For each other to live on? No, you would think. Actually, what happens is so your pituitary gland produces prolactin, and your liver is typically charged with eating up excess hormones, right? When you're starving, both of them kind of slow down.

But when you start to eat normally again, your pituitary gland starts functioning quicker than your liver. So you have higher levels of hormones, including prolactin. Hence, you have starving men who lactate. Wow, that's a reality show. Some sort of island, vacation island, I don't know.

Good as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64?

Do you remember getting frosted tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing.

Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help.

This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody,

about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And there, there's a tribe, the Aka, a pygmy tribe in Africa. There's about 20,000 of them. And this dude, it was documented that they men

breastfeed their children. And this dude went and lived with them. And not only that, it's amazing. They're known as the best fathers in the world. Because they spend 47% of their time, 47% of the time, their babies are within arm's reach of the father, which is far and away more than any other culture in the history of the world, 47%.

And the gender roles in this Aka tribe are completely interchangeable. Like sometimes, if men go out and hunt, the women take care of things, sometimes the women go out and hunt. And the men wash the clay pots and take care of the children. And it's just, they don't know gender roles like that. It's just completely interchangeable.

It's pretty cool. That is very cool. And that was a question that kind of Darwin raised. Like, well, wait a minute. Maybe we used to breastfeed. Men used to breastfeed. And that's why we have this, which would make it vestigial. Like wisdom teeth are appendix.

It's something that we used to use that we don't anymore. It's just superfluous. Or it's possible that we can, in a pinch, do it, which would not make it vestigial, because we could still conceivably use it, like with Dad and Sri Lanka or the Aka. I guess the big question that it underlines is, like, why? If men can do it, why aren't we?

Yeah. Why wouldn't you do that? Especially if we live in generally monogamous cultures. Well, I think probably because of evolution, because women did it for tens of thousands of years only. Like, if we had kept doing it, if early man did do that, and they just kept doing it, then today you and I might. It might be like, hey, I'll pump and dump today, honey.

Exactly. Don't worry about it. So let me ask you this. If we stopped, if we used to do it, even if we didn't used to do it, the very fact that we're equipped to do it, like, under the right conditions, under the right chemical baths, you and I could lactate right now.

Right? Let's have a party. As our cultures become more and more monogamous, and we get further and further away from males going around and spreading their DNA with as many mates as possible, and instead pair up, then it's entirely possible that 10,000 years from now men and women will both breastfeed. We've got the equipment.

It's possible it'll just get easier and easier for us to do it. And then we will breastfeed as well. Interesting. It is. Well, it's apparently quite a bonding experience between mother and child. And so I do it. Jerry just laughed.

I was not breastfed, however. Oh, you weren't? No, man. I was the child number three. Your mom was over it. Yeah, she's just like no more. I've never looked into the ramifications of that psychologically if that matters.

It seems like you turned out OK. No comment. So before we sign off, I guess, we should raise the point that because we do have a lot of the same anatomy underneath, men can get breast cancer. It's not rare, but it's not super common. I think in 2012, about 2,200 American men were diagnosed with breast cancer.

And so it happens. You never hear about it. Nothing to be ashamed of, guys. And that's a high enough rate to say, for some to say, well, then that means that nipples should be selected out in men, and probably will eventually. Well, therein lies what we mentioned earlier is the fact that it could be just a flaw, an adaptive flaw

over the years. Yeah, what about third nipples, additional nipples? Did you know that they happen most frequently in males and on the left side? It's interesting. One in 40 newborns has an extra nipple. Yeah, I mean, have you ever seen these? Yeah, they don't usually look like a full-on nipple.

Sometimes they look like a birthmark or something like that. It has a tooth growing in it. But yeah, Chandler had the third nipple in friends, right? Yeah, right. It's a superfluous sodium crusty clown. Oh, really? I didn't think I knew that. Yeah, one in 40.

That's way more common than I think. That means that I know a few dudes that have a third nipple they probably just hadn't told me. I don't think I know 40 people. Outro music On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90's called David Lashher and Kristine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point. but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and non-stop references

to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to, hey dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. ["You Should Know"]

You're so weird. You got anything else? Nope. OK, well, if you want to learn more about male nipples, male lactation, evolution, vestigial stuff, You can type in why do men have nipples in the search bar at howstuffworks.com and it'll bring up this article. And I said search bar, which means it's time for listener mail. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I guess I need to stop myself. Stop.

We have a television show coming out where I play Josh, you play Chuck, and the television show is called Stuff You Should Know. That's right. And it's coming out on Science Channel January 19th, Saturday at 10 and 10.30 p.m., two episodes for the big debut. That's right. We are debuting after the season three premiere of Idiot Abroad with Ricky Gervais and Carl Pilkington. Yes. Which we're excited about. That's a great lead-in for us. And if you don't have cable and you don't have Science Channel. Or even if you do and you're like, I love that and I want to see it 800 times. Yeah, you can get it on iTunes, we're told now. They are making the shows available on iTunes for purchase the day after the episode airs. And episode one is Free Dudes and Dudes. Yeah, so every Saturday when we have a new episode the following day on iTunes, you'll be able to buy it.

That's right. So January 19th is the big premiere. I'm already wearing a dickie and a bow tie and little cuffs right now. How do I look? You look great. I'm getting ready, slowly but surely. That's right. That's 10 p.m. on Science Channel. Stuff you should know in the television show. It's going to be great. January 19th. That's right. All right. Now listen to me.

Yeah. I'm going to call this Mustache Woman. Remember during one of the November plugs, I think, said something about ladies. Of course, you don't have a mustache, blah, blah, blah. It can happen. And this is probably a pretty good podcast to mention this. Okay. I'm Caleb. Guys, I was listening to what will happen when we reach the singularity. And Chuck said, men, I guess, women, if you can grow a mustache, more power to you. I immediately stopped the podcast so I could email.

I suffer from a condition known as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, PCOS, which is a leading cause of infertility and affects about 12% of women. Many women don't know what it is or that they have it, but symptoms include infrequent or no menstruation cycles, acne, weight gain, diabetes, and insulin resistance, and herce- herceutism. Like herceutism. Yeah. Herceutism, yeah. Which is excess hair. Yeah. It can lead to women growing hair where no woman should on the face, excessive arm hair, legs, and even hair on the nipples.

Luckily, I am not affected by this particular symptom, but some women report having to shave several times a day, including sneaking razors and to work to shave their faces. Oh. Needless to say, this is a devastating reality and can have huge impacts on a woman's confidence and emotional well-being. One lady with PCOS is participating in Movember to raise money for men's health. That's awesome. And to promote PCOS awareness. That is really awesome. Very cool.

So I'd love if you could read this on the air and raise some awareness around this condition. You can find more information through the Polycystic Association of Australia via Twitter, at P-O-S-A-A. I'm Australian. Please don't do an impersonation. Are you going to? No. That's terrible. I would really appreciate the plug.

Big fan of you guys. This is Kayla. Awesome. Kayla, thank you very much for writing in. And thank you to the woman who grew a mustache from Movember. That's pretty awesome. Head tats off to you. If you want to let us know about something that we obviously don't know about because we made some weird reference to it,

you can tell us all about it on Twitter at S-Y-S-K Podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com, slash stuff you should know. And you can send us a good old fashioned email to stuffpodcastatdiscovery.com. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Life tell everybody ya everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.