June 18, 2019 • 44 mins
In the early 90s, a new study that found that kids who are exposed to more germs early in life are less likely to develop allergies later. With the West in the grip of a full-blown immunity crisis (still going on today), this was an interesting thought.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello there, it's me Josh, and I just wanted to
let you know, people living in Minneapolis or with access
to Minneapolis, I'm going to be in your city doing
my solo show, The End of the World or How
I Learned to Start Worrying and Love Humanity. It's a
gas and it's pretty interesting too. So in June I'll
be at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and the next
(00:23):
night I'll be at the Miracle Theater in Washington, d C.
So come see me. Go to the Miracle Theater dot
com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome
to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:46):
I'm justus Chuck. There's Jerry Stuff you should know. You
Jerk brad Oh, Jerry's back from vacation. Hello, Jerry, welcome back.
Welcome back, Miss Rolling. You don't look any different. You're
rolling your eyes at Josh. That means everything is normal. Normal.
I thought you might be sun kissed, but she's nodding
(01:09):
though she just wrote down helped me on the side.
I saw that. I'm sure everybody heard the paper. Russell too,
I have an announcement real quick if you don't mind.
The Bryant's are back in the Cat Game. Got two kittens.
Oh congratulations, thanks The cat Game. Yeah, the kiddie game
(01:29):
where the cats name uh Luna and leave on and
they You know, we've been planning this for a while
since we lost our cats, but we had the house renovation.
It was like, that makes no sense to get two
cats in a rental house and move them. So then
we waited, and then we were like, well, we're going
out of town on vacation for Memorial Day, so let's
wait after that. And we did. And I woke up
(01:52):
on Sunday and looked at the calendar and I said,
it's a cat day. Cat Day. So I went to
the Humane Society. But Anna got to eight month old kittens. Siblings, Oh,
matching cats. Boy and a girl wants a Luna is
a girl and she's black and uh Levin is black
and white, both short hair, which we're gonna try and
(02:14):
recreate Lauren and the Wizard a little bit, you know
that whole thing. Well rules that you have established, Well,
we're gonna get a Tabby and another main coon because
we really love those. But you're in a different direction.
That's just like, you know what, you know, these are kittens,
they're great, they need a home. Let's take them home. Well,
you know what, dude, congratulations, thanks, it's been a lot
(02:34):
of fun. Best wishes to the best of lifetime with
Luna and LEVI. Well, you start at my age with cats.
I was like, you know, this maybe one of the
last bears. And Emily was like, stop, I know, I
think it's don't even go there, stop doing mass you mean.
And I have a friend who's a neighbor and she
was like, you know, we're like, hold your dog. And
(02:56):
she's like, oh, she's like three, so we'll probably pass.
Said about the same time. I was like, why why
would you say that out loud? Well, if these cats
live a nice, healthy, longish life, they will see me
into my mid sixties and see Ruby through high school.
That's cute. That is that parts cute? So si um,
(03:18):
so it's good that you're getting these kiddies for Ruby.
In part for Ruby, I'm sure it's largely for you
guys too. Yeah, it's for all of us. But she's
going to run around growing up being exposed to cats.
Are they going to be indoor outdoor cats. No, strictly indoor.
Strictly indoor, they live longer. Still not judging, but no,
it's fine, keep your cats. They kill fewer birds too, yes, um,
(03:42):
but the fact that she's going to be exposed to
cats is a big leg up for her. Yeah. And
the fact that she was being licked in the mouth
by dogs from the moment she was born. Yep, that's
true too. But dogs cats different animals, true, which means yes,
veried microbe, varied spit. And we're gonna get into why
(04:04):
we're saying all this stuff soon enough. Just hold your horses, everybody,
But um, what we're talking about is the hygiene hypothesis today. Yeah,
and this is sort of the then diagram of several
past episodes, including are some really good ones on allergies,
the the immune system? Did we do one on the
(04:25):
immune system? Either that or just the microbiome? Like, we
definitely did that, but they may have been three, but
if not, at least those two. And the hookworms episode, sure,
yeah Southerners lazy and dumb right, Nope, it was hookworm. Um, yeah,
we did do some good ones, but this is like, yeah,
this is the stuff you should know A way is
where we talk about all the stuff that has to
(04:45):
do with the larger issue before we ever do larger issue. Yeah.
And if you listen to the show for a long time,
you're you're getting a pretty robust education. Yeah, and a
lot of silliness. Yeah. So um, let's stop the silliness here.
So uh, if you didn't realize, it's already prepared to
(05:08):
have your socks knocked off. But we in the developed
and rapidly developing world, right, Um, I'm just scanning my memory.
That's the right term, correct, I think? So Okay, um
our suffering what's known as an immunity crisis, like a
massive one, the likes of which has probably never been
(05:29):
seen before in human history. And it's happening at the
snap of a finger, the blink of an eye, the
pop of a spit bubble, right like that fast in
evolutionary terms. To be fair, Josh just said that because
I popped the spit bubble in his mouth while he
was talking. That's sort of one of my chores. I
got some stats between ninety and the year two thousand
(05:53):
rates of hay fever, eczema, asthma, and type one diabetes,
and he's all have to do with immune dysfunction, uh
sort of three D and developed and developing countries since
nineteen yep, between fifty and two thousand, and children born
in the UK in nineteen seventy were twice as likely
(06:13):
to get XIMA than those born in nineteen and there.
I mean, there are tons of stats we could keep reading,
but all of this flies in the face of what
you would think would be happening, which is, as we
get you know, more medically advanced and our world gets
more sanitized, sure like everything, people should be getting sick
less and have more robust immune systems, and the complete
(06:37):
opposite is happening. Yeah, and it really has been confounding
people because there's a couple of factors, or there's a
couple of things here that this evidence is screaming. Number
one is happening really fast. Number two is happening in
a distinct part of the world, right, the developed world. Um.
But it's also happening over time too, in the same places. Yeah.
(06:58):
But the first one is hapening so fast that rules
out genetics because genetics doesn't operate that fast. No, no,
and um, so it's clearly environmental. That's what everybody's settled
on and um again, it was confounding everybody for a
very long time. And then in nine there are a
lot of people who tried to explain this. And in
(07:20):
ninety nine there was an British epidemiologist named I think
you pronounced his last name is Strahan? Oh, really Strachen Stratching,
the Kraaken name, or Michael Strahan, one of the two,
one of those or Michael Shannon. Let's throw him in
the mix. Two. Man, he's good. So David Stratching, I'm
(07:42):
just going with that, um he. He and some colleagues
released a very short paper in the British Medical Journal
in nine and it said, we think we might actually
have this figured out. What's going on beyond behind this
confounding immune of the crisis, Why everyone's bodies are turning
(08:02):
on themselves, whether immune systems are going haywire and crazy. Um,
we think it's because things are too clean actually right.
And he didn't actually use the term, but the word
hygiene was in the title of the paper. But right
after that people said, I like the way you're thinking.
We're gonna call what you're talking about the hygiene hypothesis,
(08:23):
but first explain to us what you're talking about stretching, right,
I mean basically he was saying that if you're a
little baby that's born and raised up through your early
very important uh immunity developing years to about age four
the most important. Yeah. So, uh, if if you were
(08:44):
cleaning everything too much and slathering everything in hand sanitizer
and keeping your child inside in a in a protective,
clean play place, then they are not being exposed to
the they're too clean, not being exposed to the germs
that they need to develop a robust immune system. Right.
That was his interpretation of some evidence. The actual study
(09:06):
that the paper was based on. It was a study
he carried out of I think seventeen thousand British households
kids in particular. Yeah, and he found that kids born
into smaller families had a higher chance of developing allergies
as they grew older compared to kids born into larger families. Yeah,
(09:29):
which is supported his theory, right, which is that because
there's more people in a family, there are more people
bringing germs into the home, exposing the little kid to
the germs um more frequently at an earlier age, and
that those germs somehow protect us from developing allergies later on.
(09:52):
That's that was the basis of we have to say
the original hygiene hypothesis because a lot of people don't
know it, but it's changed dramatically since then. Yeah, and
people got on board. It made sense. Um, still kind
of makes sense in some ways. And uh, it made
a lot of news, and people really kind of got
on this train of let's not have any kids or
(10:13):
just have one, sure, and let's let them roll around
a dog poop. Right, it did get translated really quickly
into let's all stop washing our hands because initially the
thing that was identified was infections. That kids develop infections
from infectious pathogens, and that being exposed to infections early
on actually trains the immune system and makes it basically
(10:37):
bulk up. It makes it gives you a beefy immune
system later on, and more to the point, a smart one.
And really we should probably talk about what the immune
system does to really get home what's stratch And and
all of his colleagues and everybody in the world was thinking.
Was actually going on, Yeah, should we take a break
and talk about a little do a little allergy recap
(11:21):
all right, so you can refer to our allergy episode
for the full picture. But um, but here's sort of
an assessment, an overview, if you will. And that is,
and I remember when we said this in the initial episode,
an allergy is basically a mistake. It's a yeah, like,
there's nothing inherently wrong with dust or pollen. Those things
(11:43):
are great. They're not actually foreign invaders that are going
to harm your body. No, there's nothing wrong with dust.
People avoid dust because they're allergic to it. But it's
not like dust has some inherent property that gets in
your nose and makes you sick. You're allergic, Well, it
makes you allergic, it does, but it doesn't make you sick.
But it's not the dust's fall, I think, is what
you're trying to say. It's your stupid immune system's fault. No,
your immune system says this is a harmful invader, even
(12:05):
though it's really not. It's pollen or dust or something,
and let's mount a defense against this. And that is
what triggers this allergic response, which is, you know, we'll
govern that in detail, but everyone knows what that is.
It's in the case of dust and pollen, it's you know,
sneezing and inflammation in the nose. Yeah, scratchy throat redness,
(12:26):
maybe a rash, depending on what kind of allergen you're
talking about. But it's all just a big mistake. Do
you just made It's really serious, but it's okay. So
it is a mistake, and this this is why mistakes
like allergies happen. Okay. The immune system. You're born with
an immune system that says I'm ready to learn, I'm
(12:48):
thirsty for knowledge. It's remarkable, right, it actually trains and
like we said earlier, that first four years are really important.
It's basically when your immune system learns to recognize what's
a actual for an invader that I need to defend against,
a mountain immune response against. And what's just a normal,
harmless or maybe even friendly microbe in the environment like
(13:11):
dust or pollen. Such a friendly microbe, right, it really
has a good personality as far as cat hair it goes. Yeah,
So what happens is when that immune system meets uh,
something harmful, truly harmful, it creates an antibody and it's
very customized. It's not like you said earlier. It's a
very smart system. It's not just a one size fits
(13:33):
all deal. Because your body is trying to get very
specific with how it's going to deal with these invaders
for the rest of your life. Right. Um, So, when
when a foreign microbe, friendly or harmful or totally neutral,
comes into your body, you have a multi layered system
immune system. It's actually really two layers to tell you
(13:55):
the truth. There's the innate immune system and then you
have the adaptive immune system them. And the innate immune
system is basically that's what you're born with. It's the
Blaster from Master Blaster okay, okay, which was Blaster. I
think Blaster was the big like like crushed skull guy
of course, and then Master was the master the road
(14:15):
on his shoulders. So Blaster gets his meaty paws on
a microbe what seems to be a foreign invader, and
it doesn't matter what it is, Blaster does the same
thing to it. He crushes them up and eats them
and digests them and then poops out the the the
parts of that invader, that microbe that make that microbe
(14:38):
that microbe um the proteins on the outside of the
microbe called antigen's okay, and it says, look at this,
and it shows the adeptive immune system what it's got. Yeah,
so that innate immunity you're you're born with it, and
it's it's sort of like, h like mom is going
to pass on some like cobra coverage almost right, You
(14:59):
get this like temporary verry insurance that that mom is
kind enough to pass on, and that covers you for
a little while while your body is sort of learning
how to do it on its own. With Master. I'm sorry,
Blaster sort of leading the way at first. So where
you left off was it presents it to Master and says, here,
(15:19):
uh do with this? What you will start learning? Right?
What is this that I just chewed up? That's two
John Travoltas in one episode you know that was vide
Barbarino and what's the other one? I just regular John?
Why you swee so um? When Blaster spits out these antigens, says,
(15:40):
what is this? Check it out? Master's job now, Master
is the adaptive immune system. The second part, This is
a more nuanced, smarter um selective or supposedly selective part
of your immune system where it looks at this stuff
and somehow, some way, I don't understand exactly how it
(16:00):
does it. Maybe we touched upon it in our immunity episode,
but the adaptive immune system Master says, Okay, this is
actually not harmful at all. Don't worry about building in anybody.
You can forget about that. And as a matter of fact,
don't forget about it. But the next time you see
this thing, just let him on through. He's the friendliest
cat hair you're ever going to meet. Don't kill him
next time. Yeah, Or if it's an if it's an
(16:23):
actual foreign invader and everything is going smoothly and correctly,
then the adaptive immune system is going to say, well, whoa, whoa,
this is a really dangerous thing you've just presented me with.
We're going to study its weaknesses and we're going to
build a molecule that is designed to kill this thing
with extreme prejudice. Yeah, it turns into Clint Eastwood all
(16:46):
of a sudden. Yes. Um. While this is going on
in the background, we should mention that uh blaster has
already set off the He's basically walled things off with
an inflammatory response. Yeah, and not like something you know,
mean that he said to Master, Not that kind of
inflammatory response, but why are you so short? But regular
(17:09):
A regular inflammatory response is sort of the big dumb
guy's way to deal with something. It's like, all right,
while you figure this out, just let me puff up
and let me cause a rash or give give you
a fever or you know. There's all sorts of inflammatory responses. Yeah,
blasters responsible for what you think of when you think
of uh an infection. Yeah, you're fighting out like me
(17:30):
last week. Now, I had that weird virus. Yeah it's gone,
it's gone. Great, that is weird. It is weird. Um,
but I had we had Emily and I both had
all sorts of things weird bumps and lumps and rashes
and fever. Yeah it was. It was not good. But um,
so that's the inflammatory response is going on while Master
(17:50):
is working on his plan rights sort of like a
first line of defense almost. So we have to so
Julia Layton put this one together and like we have
to go or the four the four key components of
the inflammation response. Okay, okay, you've got calor, dolor, rub or,
and two more. It sounds like Game of Thrones or something.
(18:12):
It does. It's heat, pain, redness, and swelling. Yeah, and
when you put them all together, you're like, yeah, of
course it's analogy. That's an infection. That's what happens when
something tries to get my body. Blaster goes and and
brings this on. Right. Yeah, and man, every time we
study the immune system, it just blows me away. I
love it. It's just amazing that humans can do this. Yeah,
(18:32):
you know so, um yeah, we're not even trying. No,
we're just sitting around watching Well I'm not watching Thrones.
But do you watch that? No? Did you? I watched
the first few seasons and dropped off. Yeah. Apparently you
pulled out just in time. M according to Reddit, Well,
I know everyone said one through seven was great. Okay,
so you did in foresaw seven? Now I saw like
(18:53):
one through three and then just got confused and went
to sleep. It was using, Oh yeah, there's a lot
going on. Yeah, you have to keep up with the
characters and storylines, and it just got too too much.
I was just like, yeah, okay, I'm gonna go back
and watch uh Company again. Right. I can't wait for that.
(19:13):
I watched um Berry, have you been watching Barry? Now?
I need I watched a few episodes on a plane
I started. Yeah, I need to get Emily on the
on the Berry train. It's very good. It is good. Yeah,
that's a good show and VP. Of course I need
to watch the last season of V I'm not on
that same here, okay, So anyway, slight digression, Keller, Dolor,
(19:34):
rub Or, and two more Um and Blaster. The innate
um immune system is basically creating this to to keep
the infection localized. Wow, the adaptive system Master is figuring
out what to do and building the anybody. So once
all this happens, that anybody is released, it goes in
and destroys the whatever remaining microbes of that foreign invader
(19:58):
are still around, and the body is saved. And even better,
somehow your immune system remembers this. Yeah, that's the important part, right,
so that the next time Blaster comes along and comes
back with that same that same micro but the same
kind of microbe. Master says, I know just the thing
for this guy. We've met him before. We're gonna get
(20:19):
this anybody over here, and it's going to destroy them
and the body will just keep coming along with the
immune system mounting normal um appropriate responses, and your body,
all your cells are just screaming. Two men enter, one
man leave the whole time. It's very uh, it's kind
of disturbing actually under a microscope. Should we talk about
(20:42):
T cells? Yeah, didn't you say we're quickly going to
go over the immune system. I mean, we don't have
to talk about T cells. No, No, I'm just saying
we've talked about different being quick we talked about them
a lot in the past. Yeah, but not to this
this degree, and they actually are pretty important in this
all right, Well, so remember that blaster the innate immunity.
(21:05):
Uh dude, Remember any microbe it gets his hands on,
it does the same thing to Too bad for the microbe.
So he's going to present that that microbe's antigens to
these t Helper cells T cells that we've talked about before,
and they are part of Master's smarter system. And like
earlier when he said he presents it, what he's really
(21:25):
doing is presenting to those T helper cells. Right, So
there's T helper cells that are undifferentiated. There's kind of
floating a long waiting to be told what to become.
And then Master says, you turn into some th h
one cells. Because this is a bacterial or a viral infection.
Th H one cells are are um specialized to combat
that kind of microbe or if say it's a hookworm
(21:48):
infection um they would turn into th H two cells,
or if it's an allergy or an allergic response, it
means th H two cells are involved too. And this
is here the key to the original interpretation of the
hygiene hypothesis. Yeah, and the th H one it's it's
sort of a they do a lot of things, but
(22:09):
th H one generally work on the inside of cells
and th H two generally work on the outside of cells.
They sort of split up and they sort of balance
each other out too. That's a big, big key to Yeah,
like if there are more th H one cells, there
will be less th H two and the other way around. Right,
they kind of regulate one another, or more like more
(22:29):
to the point, t T regulator cells regulate th H
one and th H two cells. Yeah, the T REGs,
which we didn't find out about until like the two
thousand's right, But if there are this is the point here.
If there are a lot of th H two cells,
there's not going to be very many th H one cells,
(22:49):
and vice versa. And so the original interpretation of the
hygiene hypothesis was that kids who are not exposed to
bacterial or viral infecttions early on in life, do not
have a chance for their immune system to learn what's
good what's bad. And since their th H one cells
aren't activated because they're not exposed to pathogens, um, they're
(23:13):
th H two cells, the ones that are responsible for
allergic reactions, get to go into hyper drive and being
responsible for allergic reaction th H two cells kind of
like a hammer into a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
So to the th H two cells, everything looks like
a foreign invader, and so an allergic response is mounted.
(23:33):
So because the kids th H one cells weren't active enough,
the th H two cells were overactive, they weren't exposed
to infections, they developed allergies later in life. That's what
they thought was the crux of the hygiene hypothesis, and
that it was all because we're we were living in
a world as far too clean for our own good. Yeah,
(23:54):
And you know, there are more studies that they did
that really seem to support this in the in the nineties, UM,
really interesting one in the Germany's UH in the early
nineties they did in a study of allergy rates of
East and West German kids pre unification. Obviously, and this
was a really great idea, because what you had was
(24:15):
two populations that were genetically identical, basically just living in
two drastically different environments. Obviously, East Germany was very polluted,
it was generally more poor, um much more industrialized, and
in the West it was you know, cleaner probably and
cleaner but cleaner for sure, and kind of all the
(24:37):
way around. And so they hypothesize. There was a researcher
named Edeka von Mutious that's good enough. I think that's
exactly right. And she basically, you know, said, well, clearly,
the children from the West will be healthier and less allergic,
and she found the exact opposite again, so it was
(24:59):
just another s of some more compelling evidence that this
hygiene hypothesis kind of carried a lot of weight. Yeah,
and the fact that she was expecting the opposite was
kind of interesting too. But she was like, whoa, I
just accidentally proved this hygiene hypothesis because it doesn't again,
it makes zero sense that the cleaner the environment, the
more likely your immune system is to malfunction later in life. Right,
(25:23):
should we take a break? Yeah, all right, we'll take
a break and we'll talk about sort of where this
is now in the new understanding that hasn't gotten nearly
enough press. Right. Okay, so the world really clamped onto
(26:00):
a hygiene hypothesis because I mean it makes a lot
of sense, Like it's very appealing. It's like, yeah, just
go be dirty, you don't have to worry about all
this stuff. And yeah, pesticides are are terrible for us,
so as antibacterial soap, and you know, just everything you
can think of. Um. The idea of it was was
really or really just kind of appealing to the world,
(26:21):
especially in the nineties because that's when people started caring
about like herbs and supplements and like organic food and
stuff like that. So the timing was really good. And
the idea of looking at all these chemicals we're using
to sanitize our world is actually harmful rather than beneficial
appealed to a lot of people. But it also appealed
to people in the sense that now we had an
(26:41):
explanation for this mysterious massive explosion in in allergic um
reactions and immuno messed up function. Right. Sure, did you
know type one diabetes is a um um an immuno
efficiency Just from this, Yeah, me too. I had no
(27:02):
idea was like why did they keep talking about diabetes,
and then I realize your body has mistaken the beta
cells that produce insulin and your pancreas as a foreign
invader and attacks them. That's why you don't have insulin
enough insulin, because your body is turned on it. Very interesting,
same with like crones and um uh, any kind of
(27:22):
autoimmune disorder. Really, yeah, your body is mistaking the cells
of your own body as a foreign invader. But again,
these the incidents of these these kinds of disease just
exploded over you know a handful of decades and by
the nineties and about two thousand people had said it
was because we're overly clean. We're killing off the pathogens
that we actually need to infect our kids so that
(27:44):
their bodies can recognize a good invader from a bad
invader and they won't develop allergic reactions later on. Right, Well,
today we now know that the hygiene hypothesis wasn't quite right.
It's been It's not like they threw it all out,
but it's been revised and and it's a lot smarter now,
and they're the basic theory now is is that what's
(28:06):
missing it's not necessarily a hygiene thing, but it's nature.
And they have a name for it, which is very cute,
the old Friends theory, and this is introduced by a
fellow name Graham Rook in his Colleagues and two thousand three,
and this basically theorizes that exposure to these harmless microbes,
(28:28):
not the pathogens or what's going to protect you from
allergy sensitization. So, uh, kids playing in the dirt and
kids getting looked in the face by a dog in
the years one through three and four is actually a
really good thing. Doesn't mean you shouldn't wash your hands
after you poop or just let that chicken, pull that
(28:51):
raw chicken off the counter and don't sweat it. You
should still practice um basic hygienes. But kids being inside
all the time and not being exposed to nature like
they were for hundreds of thousands of years is the
sort of the problem, right, And it's part of the problem.
Why this is why why it was easy before and
(29:12):
not now, is because they're saying, um, yes, do wash
your hands, but not all the time. So what they've
identified is those pathogens that they originally thought we were killing,
and um, it was having a detrimental effect on us.
The opposite is true. They found that we really should
(29:33):
keep washing our hands and killing off things like the
stuff you get from chicken juice, raw chicken and coop
and like infectious disease. We need to keep fighting that
like we are. It's actually a huge benefit we need
to keep, like getting vaccinated. We need to um defend
against colds and the flu and all this stuff like
that is something we want to keep it pay not
(29:53):
exposed kids to that. We found the opposite is true. Actually,
exposure to things like colds and flues and measles in
childhood actually increases the likelihood of developing allergies later in life,
which is the opposite of the original hygiene hypothesis. But
what they found is so we need to keep defending
against those infectious pathogens, but we need to up our
(30:15):
exposure to those friendly microbes, the ones friends, the ones
we the old friends that our bodies co evolved with
over these hundreds of thousands or millions of years, and
that we've realized now just beginning to realize, uh, make
up a symbiotic relationship with us, or at the very
least some sort of relationship. We depend on them, and
(30:36):
by not being exposed to as many microbes as we
were in decades past before everybody got obsessed with being clean. Um,
we are. Immune systems are not functioning properly, whether it's
they're not being trained early on enough or they're just
not being exposed to the right kind of microbes that
form colonies like in our gut or on our bodies somewhere. Yeah.
(30:57):
And what's really, um, sort of the newest uh concern
as the rise in food allergies. Um, it's really like
you grew up in the seventies and eighties, do you
ever remember peanut allergies being a thing? Zero? I knew
zero kids who had peanut Yeah. I mean we just
like slathered ourselves in peanut butter growing up constantly. Yeah,
(31:18):
there was a trend. Yeah, it exploded in the West
in the in the nineties and it continues to rise.
They're calling it the second wave of allergy, the second epidemic. Basically,
one in ten kids in the developed world have food allergies.
That is nuts. And that's just in the developed world.
I think in America. It's in America, it's yeah, one
(31:41):
in five has a food allergy in America. Yeah, and
like serious allergy sometimes like I have a friend whose
sisters son is. I mean, this kid's allergic to everything
you could imagine. And it's not like that's the outlier.
Like you hear about more and more cases like that. Yeah,
one in five kids has a food allergy G And
like again, in the eighties, there was no such thing
(32:04):
as a peanut allergy basically, I mean, they were, but
it was just vanishingly rare. Yeah, And it's not like
we didn't we just didn't know what to call it
back then. A kid would peanut and drop dead. We
call the balloon faced syndrome. God, that's terrible, but uh, yeah,
it's a real thing that's happening. Food allergies are just
(32:26):
off the charts now compared to how they used to be. Yeah.
So that, like you said, that's the second wave of this.
And what what they're thinking is going on is kids
are less exposed to the microbes that we used to
be more exposed to because we're spending more time inside
because we're using way more disinfectants. And it's good we're
using the disinfectants because they do kill the pathogens that
(32:49):
we do want to keep at bay, but they kill indiscriminately,
so they also kill all the friendly microbes that actually
perform wonderful benefits for like the healthy functioning of our
immune system. Yeah, the harmless bacteria that that children need
to be exposed to and adults. Right, although they do
think that when you are exposing kids to microbes, or
(33:10):
when you are being exposed to microbes like you and I, um,
it's probably not doing a lot for us. Yeah, because
our immune systems are already developed. It really counts for kids,
like from birth up to about four years of age,
because again, that's when your immune system is being trained,
and if it's being trained by a bunch of friendly
microbes saying that's okay, blaster, you can kill me, just
(33:32):
make sure you don't kill any of anyone else like
me because I'm fine, I'm not gonna do anything to you.
Then then that is what's creating the healthier immune system
and lowering the risk of allergies later on. Yeah, so
they recommend you know, getting your kids out in nature,
let them play in the dirt. Uh. If you can breastfeed,
then that helps. If you can have a vaginal birth,
(33:53):
that helps. Although I saw a study that's that showed
um children born from c set shin were swabbed in
um vaginal fluid from their mother's birth canal to give
them like this coating of micrubs like they would have
gotten from a vaginal birth. So they do that. They
did it to like four kids in this one study
(34:14):
and the results were mixed. And then another study found
six weeks after birth. They this study didn't find any
difference in um microbial makeup between kids who were born
vaginally and kids who were born through c section, So
it might not be as big of an issue as
we thought. Well, they definitely say to practice target what
they called targeted hygiene, which, like you were saying, it's
(34:36):
not like you don't clean up after the raw chickens
on the counter or wash your hands after you poop,
but um, get rid of the snotty tissues and wash
your hands after you do those things and blow your
nose right, wash your hands after you use the bathroom. Yeah,
but start washing your hands again. Everybody is the key.
But get out there and play in the dirt too.
And uh, it's like a kid. Kids should be in nature. Okay,
(35:00):
so yes, playing the dirt, go out in the woods,
go for a hike, get your kid a dog, or
a cat, ye, and let them hug and kiss take
them to a petting zoo. Like that's like you don't
have to This is the point. You don't have to
like attack your kid with the antibacterial spray on their
hands after they pet goat at the petting zoo. It's
(35:21):
actually what they're finding is that it's healthy for the
kid to pet the goat and then eat a sandwich afterward. Seriously, No,
I know, this is uh, it's all making sense now
because we have ten goats that live across the street.
Always had two dogs and two cats in the house,
except for the brief period where we didn't have the cats,
and we were very lazy parents and still don't bathe
(35:45):
our daughter with much regularity every every week or three. No,
but she uh, she's she's been like take her to
the doctor sick four times. Yeah. Well, and then hopefully
it will also mean that as she gets older, she
is going to be less far less likely to have
allergies because their immune system so trained. Like Dwayne Wade
(36:06):
and Gabrielle Union put together, that's a super couple. Yeah. Yeah,
you've seen their kids, theirs, the oldest son that's about
to start playing basketball, Brownie. They're transferring to the same
high school. So Lebron's son and Dwayne Waite cent are
gonna play basketball. And he looks just like Dwayne Wade,
does he really? Yeah, has her sleepy eyes. It's like,
no mistaking whose kid that is. That's very cool. It's
(36:28):
not the Milkman. No, it's Dwayne Waite unless the milkman
had sleepy eyes. Who was a basketball player? That was
the mailman Clive Drexler, Karl Malone. No, Karl Malone was
a mailman. Clyde Drexler was the glade. That's right. Yeah,
you're right. He also is on the just for main commercials.
Are you watching the finals? Oh yeah, pulling for Toronto
(36:49):
pretty hard? Who's not. Did you see that map of
the US and who's pulling for Golden State? And who's pulling?
Just like the Bay Area and nowhere else. It was
California and Hawaii and then the rest of the country
was pulling, pulling for another country. Yeah exactly. Wow, So
go raptors, That's what I say. If you want to
know more about the hygiene hypothesis, go back and listen
(37:09):
to this episode again, because there's real nuance there, and
I hope we got it all. Maybe we should re
record this again. Yeah, it's like now, okay, okay, anyway, Uh,
we'll see what version comes out. And in the meantime,
it's time for what Chuck Administrating Details. So if you
(37:33):
don't know what this segment is, if you're new to
the show, this is the time every few months, let's
say quarterly, where we give thanks, where we give thanks
uh to people who have sent as kind gifts over
the past few months. And for some reason we named
it administrative Details. I don't even remember any longer. But
that's that's a pretty good assessment of what we're doing
(37:54):
right now. Yes, it's a very cold name for a
very warm segment. So you want to start, Chuck, Sure,
I'll start it off with a gift of wine. Jeremy
Nelson sent us wine from Baron Moore. Very nice. Speaking
of wine, big ups to our buddy Addison Rex dude
for not just the wine. He once gave me homemade
(38:14):
olive oil too. Yes, so Addison and Cat live in
uh California, and Emily and I went and UH had
a very personal wine to her experience. He has you
a lot about your life, your fears. Yeah, and I
sent a lot about wine and how it's made. And
(38:35):
then not only that, but when we went to the
next wineries, they went with us and we end up
hanging out all day and they're just great. They're awesome,
and we have new pals and we're going to see
him again. And then he went, after a long day
of that, drove into town. Drove into town to see
you do End of the World Live, yep. And we
hung out for a little while after. Didn't go in
any winery or anything. But he's he is now a
(38:56):
friend too, And if you want to find out he's
got I did me cat, but I'm going to take
your word for it. But if you want to find
out about the wines we're talking about, his label is
Jurassic Wines because his name is Addison Rex, so he
sounds like a dinosaur, but Jurassic like the movie. Yes,
minus the park plus wine. That's right, Jurassic Wine. Thanks guys, yep,
(39:18):
you're the best. Can't wait to see you again. So
Julie Mullins from The Onion, remember back in the day
we had our o G Onion pals. We used to
be big time at The Onion did. They moved to
Chicago and we have new Onion pals now, Julie Mullins
and this the Onion Daily Counter Counter Daily Calendar and
she is an mg f X artist at the Onion. Yeah,
(39:41):
thanks a lot um. How about this? This one is
a long time coming. Do you remember our Phoenix show
like fifty years ago? I quite enjoyed that October maybe
one of the two. Yeah, well, at that show or
maybe the same as Salt Lake City show. I think
it was Sally one of those two shows. U our
friend Kathy Cathy with Kay Tosh gave us each alasso.
(40:05):
Oh yeah, that's right, like a real bona fide get
over here cow that was. I'm pretty sure I think
it was Salt Lake City. I can't remember for life me. Anyway,
Kathy right in and let us know how you're doing
and what show it was. But thank you for the last.
She also said, yeah, just go on to YouTube and
you can learn how to do it, which I have
yet to do. But I haven't either, but it's hanging
(40:25):
in my closet. It looks very cool there, doesn't It
does look very cool? Yeah? Thanks Kathy with the Kay
so our friend at Joe Barrett sent us his book
and it's called Managed Care. I have been able to
read it yet, but it's on the it's on the
stack on the desk, so check out he Managed Care
by Joe Barrett. Speaking of books, there's a guy named
Thomas ramj Ram g great last name, looks wise, but
(40:49):
I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it. He wrote
a book called Who's Afraid of a I, which I
cannot wait to read. Yes it is, and it's like
cooking it up and it just says Josh, it says
you in Yeah, it's got just a picture of a
robot holding my hand. Um, but thanks a lot Thomas
Ram's book, Who's Afraid of a I go check it out,
(41:10):
earl pal Dustin Bowens. And it's a three D printing
of our stuff you should know logo, which sits atop
my desk right now. Very awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Huge,
huge thanks to our old pal Don Kubi for the
floral photography canvases and um yeah Kube's photography is just
(41:31):
out of this world. Yeah she's really talented. Yeah, like
almost nay, exactly as good as Aaron Cooper's photography and
um she sells her stuff on her site don kubi
k d A W N k U b I E
dot com. You know, before I did the We Know
His parenting live in Brooklyn recently and Emily and I
(41:53):
both went for a little quick in New York trip.
We went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and the Freed
to Calo exhibit at the Museum m We're walking around
Batanica cill Gardens. Who wanders up but don Koby, Oh
really yep. She's like, Oh, I just happened to be falling.
I mean I just happened to be here as well.
Now we had a nice little chat. She was taking
photos and she came to the We Know show, That's
why she was there. She's great, She's very easy to
(42:14):
talk to. Serendipity. Who else Sheina and Ben send us
a wedding invitation their wedding in Burbank, And we've gotten
a few of these lately, along with invitations to officiate.
But they've all lined up against either live shows, butted
up against live shows or other travel plans, so I
have not been able to do that. No, Plus, we'd
(42:35):
have to get ordained. Are you ordained? No? Okay, but
I'll do that in five minutes. Week. Um Brad Topless
sent us a box of Runes r O n s
which is short for macarons, which his wife makes Runes
as his wife's company. And they're amazing. I can attest
and you can get them at eat Runes dot com.
(42:57):
E a t r o o n s com alright,
ar Old pal Steven Brightman send us poopy pockets for
our dogs. Uh this cool little invention. It's a two
in one poop bag dispenser and poop a pocket for
the poop and it's a veteran owned business. So big
thanks to Stephen Brightman for the poopy pockets. Nice going, Stephen.
(43:19):
Um Mark Kicks sent us you know those Simpson theme
journals and drawn Simpson's journals. Those are from Mark Kicks.
And thank you very much, Mark, because I think we
forgot to thank him last time and he he wrote
it was like dude, I was like, I'm sorry. Ar
Old pal Itan Newton from Baltimore, the Baltimore Spirits Company
(43:39):
send us their shot tower barrel gin and their bat lamarrow,
which is what does that explain with tomorrow? Ye oh man,
it's so good. Good, Yes, heat to it. Everything that
they make is really really good. Yeah, I can't remember
the name of it. He's all also send us like
(44:01):
mescal made from smoked apples. It's just the bomb. What
kind of black magic are they doing in Baltimore. They're
doing some good stuff up there, all right, support the
Baltimore Spirits Company and eating it and everyone. They're getting
creative with their spirits. So that's we're We're going to
leave it at that. We'll do the rest next episode
about that. It sounds great. Well, thanks a lot for
joining us. If you want to send us something, we're
always down with that, you can find us on social
(44:24):
Just go to stuff you Should Know dot com and
you'll find all of our links there, and you can
also send us an email to stuff podcast at I
heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hello there, it's me Josh, and I just wanted to
let you know, people living in Minneapolis or with access
to Minneapolis, I'm going to be in your city doing
my solo show, The End of the World or How
I Learned to Start Worrying and Love Humanity. It's a
gas and it's pretty interesting too. So in June I'll
be at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis, and the next
(00:23):
night I'll be at the Miracle Theater in Washington, d C.
So come see me. Go to the Miracle Theater dot
com or the Parkway Theater dot com for tickets. Welcome
to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
(00:46):
I'm justus Chuck. There's Jerry Stuff you should know. You
Jerk brad Oh, Jerry's back from vacation. Hello, Jerry, welcome back.
Welcome back, Miss Rolling. You don't look any different. You're
rolling your eyes at Josh. That means everything is normal. Normal.
I thought you might be sun kissed, but she's nodding
(01:09):
though she just wrote down helped me on the side.
I saw that. I'm sure everybody heard the paper. Russell too,
I have an announcement real quick if you don't mind.
The Bryant's are back in the Cat Game. Got two kittens.
Oh congratulations, thanks The cat Game. Yeah, the kiddie game
(01:29):
where the cats name uh Luna and leave on and
they You know, we've been planning this for a while
since we lost our cats, but we had the house renovation.
It was like, that makes no sense to get two
cats in a rental house and move them. So then
we waited, and then we were like, well, we're going
out of town on vacation for Memorial Day, so let's
wait after that. And we did. And I woke up
(01:52):
on Sunday and looked at the calendar and I said,
it's a cat day. Cat Day. So I went to
the Humane Society. But Anna got to eight month old kittens. Siblings, Oh,
matching cats. Boy and a girl wants a Luna is
a girl and she's black and uh Levin is black
and white, both short hair, which we're gonna try and
(02:14):
recreate Lauren and the Wizard a little bit, you know
that whole thing. Well rules that you have established, Well,
we're gonna get a Tabby and another main coon because
we really love those. But you're in a different direction.
That's just like, you know what, you know, these are kittens,
they're great, they need a home. Let's take them home. Well,
you know what, dude, congratulations, thanks, it's been a lot
(02:34):
of fun. Best wishes to the best of lifetime with
Luna and LEVI. Well, you start at my age with cats.
I was like, you know, this maybe one of the
last bears. And Emily was like, stop, I know, I
think it's don't even go there, stop doing mass you mean.
And I have a friend who's a neighbor and she
was like, you know, we're like, hold your dog. And
(02:56):
she's like, oh, she's like three, so we'll probably pass.
Said about the same time. I was like, why why
would you say that out loud? Well, if these cats
live a nice, healthy, longish life, they will see me
into my mid sixties and see Ruby through high school.
That's cute. That is that parts cute? So si um,
(03:18):
so it's good that you're getting these kiddies for Ruby.
In part for Ruby, I'm sure it's largely for you
guys too. Yeah, it's for all of us. But she's
going to run around growing up being exposed to cats.
Are they going to be indoor outdoor cats. No, strictly indoor.
Strictly indoor, they live longer. Still not judging, but no,
it's fine, keep your cats. They kill fewer birds too, yes, um,
(03:42):
but the fact that she's going to be exposed to
cats is a big leg up for her. Yeah. And
the fact that she was being licked in the mouth
by dogs from the moment she was born. Yep, that's
true too. But dogs cats different animals, true, which means yes,
veried microbe, varied spit. And we're gonna get into why
(04:04):
we're saying all this stuff soon enough. Just hold your horses, everybody,
But um, what we're talking about is the hygiene hypothesis today. Yeah,
and this is sort of the then diagram of several
past episodes, including are some really good ones on allergies,
the the immune system? Did we do one on the
(04:25):
immune system? Either that or just the microbiome? Like, we
definitely did that, but they may have been three, but
if not, at least those two. And the hookworms episode, sure,
yeah Southerners lazy and dumb right, Nope, it was hookworm. Um, yeah,
we did do some good ones, but this is like, yeah,
this is the stuff you should know A way is
where we talk about all the stuff that has to
(04:45):
do with the larger issue before we ever do larger issue. Yeah.
And if you listen to the show for a long time,
you're you're getting a pretty robust education. Yeah, and a
lot of silliness. Yeah. So um, let's stop the silliness here.
So uh, if you didn't realize, it's already prepared to
(05:08):
have your socks knocked off. But we in the developed
and rapidly developing world, right, Um, I'm just scanning my memory.
That's the right term, correct, I think? So Okay, um
our suffering what's known as an immunity crisis, like a
massive one, the likes of which has probably never been
(05:29):
seen before in human history. And it's happening at the
snap of a finger, the blink of an eye, the
pop of a spit bubble, right like that fast in
evolutionary terms. To be fair, Josh just said that because
I popped the spit bubble in his mouth while he
was talking. That's sort of one of my chores. I
got some stats between ninety and the year two thousand
(05:53):
rates of hay fever, eczema, asthma, and type one diabetes,
and he's all have to do with immune dysfunction, uh
sort of three D and developed and developing countries since
nineteen yep, between fifty and two thousand, and children born
in the UK in nineteen seventy were twice as likely
(06:13):
to get XIMA than those born in nineteen and there.
I mean, there are tons of stats we could keep reading,
but all of this flies in the face of what
you would think would be happening, which is, as we
get you know, more medically advanced and our world gets
more sanitized, sure like everything, people should be getting sick
less and have more robust immune systems, and the complete
(06:37):
opposite is happening. Yeah, and it really has been confounding
people because there's a couple of factors, or there's a
couple of things here that this evidence is screaming. Number
one is happening really fast. Number two is happening in
a distinct part of the world, right, the developed world. Um.
But it's also happening over time too, in the same places. Yeah.
(06:58):
But the first one is hapening so fast that rules
out genetics because genetics doesn't operate that fast. No, no,
and um, so it's clearly environmental. That's what everybody's settled
on and um again, it was confounding everybody for a
very long time. And then in nine there are a
lot of people who tried to explain this. And in
(07:20):
ninety nine there was an British epidemiologist named I think
you pronounced his last name is Strahan? Oh, really Strachen Stratching,
the Kraaken name, or Michael Strahan, one of the two,
one of those or Michael Shannon. Let's throw him in
the mix. Two. Man, he's good. So David Stratching, I'm
(07:42):
just going with that, um he. He and some colleagues
released a very short paper in the British Medical Journal
in nine and it said, we think we might actually
have this figured out. What's going on beyond behind this
confounding immune of the crisis, Why everyone's bodies are turning
(08:02):
on themselves, whether immune systems are going haywire and crazy. Um,
we think it's because things are too clean actually right.
And he didn't actually use the term, but the word
hygiene was in the title of the paper. But right
after that people said, I like the way you're thinking.
We're gonna call what you're talking about the hygiene hypothesis,
(08:23):
but first explain to us what you're talking about stretching, right,
I mean basically he was saying that if you're a
little baby that's born and raised up through your early
very important uh immunity developing years to about age four
the most important. Yeah. So, uh, if if you were
(08:44):
cleaning everything too much and slathering everything in hand sanitizer
and keeping your child inside in a in a protective,
clean play place, then they are not being exposed to
the they're too clean, not being exposed to the germs
that they need to develop a robust immune system. Right.
That was his interpretation of some evidence. The actual study
(09:06):
that the paper was based on. It was a study
he carried out of I think seventeen thousand British households
kids in particular. Yeah, and he found that kids born
into smaller families had a higher chance of developing allergies
as they grew older compared to kids born into larger families. Yeah,
(09:29):
which is supported his theory, right, which is that because
there's more people in a family, there are more people
bringing germs into the home, exposing the little kid to
the germs um more frequently at an earlier age, and
that those germs somehow protect us from developing allergies later on.
(09:52):
That's that was the basis of we have to say
the original hygiene hypothesis because a lot of people don't
know it, but it's changed dramatically since then. Yeah, and
people got on board. It made sense. Um, still kind
of makes sense in some ways. And uh, it made
a lot of news, and people really kind of got
on this train of let's not have any kids or
(10:13):
just have one, sure, and let's let them roll around
a dog poop. Right, it did get translated really quickly
into let's all stop washing our hands because initially the
thing that was identified was infections. That kids develop infections
from infectious pathogens, and that being exposed to infections early
on actually trains the immune system and makes it basically
(10:37):
bulk up. It makes it gives you a beefy immune
system later on, and more to the point, a smart one.
And really we should probably talk about what the immune
system does to really get home what's stratch And and
all of his colleagues and everybody in the world was thinking.
Was actually going on, Yeah, should we take a break
and talk about a little do a little allergy recap
(11:21):
all right, so you can refer to our allergy episode
for the full picture. But um, but here's sort of
an assessment, an overview, if you will. And that is,
and I remember when we said this in the initial episode,
an allergy is basically a mistake. It's a yeah, like,
there's nothing inherently wrong with dust or pollen. Those things
(11:43):
are great. They're not actually foreign invaders that are going
to harm your body. No, there's nothing wrong with dust.
People avoid dust because they're allergic to it. But it's
not like dust has some inherent property that gets in
your nose and makes you sick. You're allergic, Well, it
makes you allergic, it does, but it doesn't make you sick.
But it's not the dust's fall, I think, is what
you're trying to say. It's your stupid immune system's fault. No,
your immune system says this is a harmful invader, even
(12:05):
though it's really not. It's pollen or dust or something,
and let's mount a defense against this. And that is
what triggers this allergic response, which is, you know, we'll
govern that in detail, but everyone knows what that is.
It's in the case of dust and pollen, it's you know,
sneezing and inflammation in the nose. Yeah, scratchy throat redness,
(12:26):
maybe a rash, depending on what kind of allergen you're
talking about. But it's all just a big mistake. Do
you just made It's really serious, but it's okay. So
it is a mistake, and this this is why mistakes
like allergies happen. Okay. The immune system. You're born with
an immune system that says I'm ready to learn, I'm
(12:48):
thirsty for knowledge. It's remarkable, right, it actually trains and
like we said earlier, that first four years are really important.
It's basically when your immune system learns to recognize what's
a actual for an invader that I need to defend against,
a mountain immune response against. And what's just a normal,
harmless or maybe even friendly microbe in the environment like
(13:11):
dust or pollen. Such a friendly microbe, right, it really
has a good personality as far as cat hair it goes. Yeah,
So what happens is when that immune system meets uh,
something harmful, truly harmful, it creates an antibody and it's
very customized. It's not like you said earlier. It's a
very smart system. It's not just a one size fits
(13:33):
all deal. Because your body is trying to get very
specific with how it's going to deal with these invaders
for the rest of your life. Right. Um, So, when
when a foreign microbe, friendly or harmful or totally neutral,
comes into your body, you have a multi layered system
immune system. It's actually really two layers to tell you
(13:55):
the truth. There's the innate immune system and then you
have the adaptive immune system them. And the innate immune
system is basically that's what you're born with. It's the
Blaster from Master Blaster okay, okay, which was Blaster. I
think Blaster was the big like like crushed skull guy
of course, and then Master was the master the road
(14:15):
on his shoulders. So Blaster gets his meaty paws on
a microbe what seems to be a foreign invader, and
it doesn't matter what it is, Blaster does the same
thing to it. He crushes them up and eats them
and digests them and then poops out the the the
parts of that invader, that microbe that make that microbe
(14:38):
that microbe um the proteins on the outside of the
microbe called antigen's okay, and it says, look at this,
and it shows the adeptive immune system what it's got. Yeah,
so that innate immunity you're you're born with it, and
it's it's sort of like, h like mom is going
to pass on some like cobra coverage almost right, You
(14:59):
get this like temporary verry insurance that that mom is
kind enough to pass on, and that covers you for
a little while while your body is sort of learning
how to do it on its own. With Master. I'm sorry,
Blaster sort of leading the way at first. So where
you left off was it presents it to Master and says, here,
(15:19):
uh do with this? What you will start learning? Right?
What is this that I just chewed up? That's two
John Travoltas in one episode you know that was vide
Barbarino and what's the other one? I just regular John?
Why you swee so um? When Blaster spits out these antigens, says,
(15:40):
what is this? Check it out? Master's job now, Master
is the adaptive immune system. The second part, This is
a more nuanced, smarter um selective or supposedly selective part
of your immune system where it looks at this stuff
and somehow, some way, I don't understand exactly how it
(16:00):
does it. Maybe we touched upon it in our immunity episode,
but the adaptive immune system Master says, Okay, this is
actually not harmful at all. Don't worry about building in anybody.
You can forget about that. And as a matter of fact,
don't forget about it. But the next time you see
this thing, just let him on through. He's the friendliest
cat hair you're ever going to meet. Don't kill him
next time. Yeah, Or if it's an if it's an
(16:23):
actual foreign invader and everything is going smoothly and correctly,
then the adaptive immune system is going to say, well, whoa, whoa,
this is a really dangerous thing you've just presented me with.
We're going to study its weaknesses and we're going to
build a molecule that is designed to kill this thing
with extreme prejudice. Yeah, it turns into Clint Eastwood all
(16:46):
of a sudden. Yes. Um. While this is going on
in the background, we should mention that uh blaster has
already set off the He's basically walled things off with
an inflammatory response. Yeah, and not like something you know,
mean that he said to Master, Not that kind of
inflammatory response, but why are you so short? But regular
(17:09):
A regular inflammatory response is sort of the big dumb
guy's way to deal with something. It's like, all right,
while you figure this out, just let me puff up
and let me cause a rash or give give you
a fever or you know. There's all sorts of inflammatory responses. Yeah,
blasters responsible for what you think of when you think
of uh an infection. Yeah, you're fighting out like me
(17:30):
last week. Now, I had that weird virus. Yeah it's gone,
it's gone. Great, that is weird. It is weird. Um,
but I had we had Emily and I both had
all sorts of things weird bumps and lumps and rashes
and fever. Yeah it was. It was not good. But um,
so that's the inflammatory response is going on while Master
(17:50):
is working on his plan rights sort of like a
first line of defense almost. So we have to so
Julia Layton put this one together and like we have
to go or the four the four key components of
the inflammation response. Okay, okay, you've got calor, dolor, rub or,
and two more. It sounds like Game of Thrones or something.
(18:12):
It does. It's heat, pain, redness, and swelling. Yeah, and
when you put them all together, you're like, yeah, of
course it's analogy. That's an infection. That's what happens when
something tries to get my body. Blaster goes and and
brings this on. Right. Yeah, and man, every time we
study the immune system, it just blows me away. I
love it. It's just amazing that humans can do this. Yeah,
(18:32):
you know so, um yeah, we're not even trying. No,
we're just sitting around watching Well I'm not watching Thrones.
But do you watch that? No? Did you? I watched
the first few seasons and dropped off. Yeah. Apparently you
pulled out just in time. M according to Reddit, Well,
I know everyone said one through seven was great. Okay,
so you did in foresaw seven? Now I saw like
(18:53):
one through three and then just got confused and went
to sleep. It was using, Oh yeah, there's a lot
going on. Yeah, you have to keep up with the
characters and storylines, and it just got too too much.
I was just like, yeah, okay, I'm gonna go back
and watch uh Company again. Right. I can't wait for that.
(19:13):
I watched um Berry, have you been watching Barry? Now?
I need I watched a few episodes on a plane
I started. Yeah, I need to get Emily on the
on the Berry train. It's very good. It is good. Yeah,
that's a good show and VP. Of course I need
to watch the last season of V I'm not on
that same here, okay, So anyway, slight digression, Keller, Dolor,
(19:34):
rub Or, and two more Um and Blaster. The innate
um immune system is basically creating this to to keep
the infection localized. Wow, the adaptive system Master is figuring
out what to do and building the anybody. So once
all this happens, that anybody is released, it goes in
and destroys the whatever remaining microbes of that foreign invader
(19:58):
are still around, and the body is saved. And even better,
somehow your immune system remembers this. Yeah, that's the important part, right,
so that the next time Blaster comes along and comes
back with that same that same micro but the same
kind of microbe. Master says, I know just the thing
for this guy. We've met him before. We're gonna get
(20:19):
this anybody over here, and it's going to destroy them
and the body will just keep coming along with the
immune system mounting normal um appropriate responses, and your body,
all your cells are just screaming. Two men enter, one
man leave the whole time. It's very uh, it's kind
of disturbing actually under a microscope. Should we talk about
(20:42):
T cells? Yeah, didn't you say we're quickly going to
go over the immune system. I mean, we don't have
to talk about T cells. No, No, I'm just saying
we've talked about different being quick we talked about them
a lot in the past. Yeah, but not to this
this degree, and they actually are pretty important in this
all right, Well, so remember that blaster the innate immunity.
(21:05):
Uh dude, Remember any microbe it gets his hands on,
it does the same thing to Too bad for the microbe.
So he's going to present that that microbe's antigens to
these t Helper cells T cells that we've talked about before,
and they are part of Master's smarter system. And like
earlier when he said he presents it, what he's really
(21:25):
doing is presenting to those T helper cells. Right, So
there's T helper cells that are undifferentiated. There's kind of
floating a long waiting to be told what to become.
And then Master says, you turn into some th h
one cells. Because this is a bacterial or a viral infection.
Th H one cells are are um specialized to combat
that kind of microbe or if say it's a hookworm
(21:48):
infection um they would turn into th H two cells,
or if it's an allergy or an allergic response, it
means th H two cells are involved too. And this
is here the key to the original interpretation of the
hygiene hypothesis. Yeah, and the th H one it's it's
sort of a they do a lot of things, but
(22:09):
th H one generally work on the inside of cells
and th H two generally work on the outside of cells.
They sort of split up and they sort of balance
each other out too. That's a big, big key to Yeah,
like if there are more th H one cells, there
will be less th H two and the other way around. Right,
they kind of regulate one another, or more like more
(22:29):
to the point, t T regulator cells regulate th H
one and th H two cells. Yeah, the T REGs,
which we didn't find out about until like the two
thousand's right, But if there are this is the point here.
If there are a lot of th H two cells,
there's not going to be very many th H one cells,
(22:49):
and vice versa. And so the original interpretation of the
hygiene hypothesis was that kids who are not exposed to
bacterial or viral infecttions early on in life, do not
have a chance for their immune system to learn what's
good what's bad. And since their th H one cells
aren't activated because they're not exposed to pathogens, um, they're
(23:13):
th H two cells, the ones that are responsible for
allergic reactions, get to go into hyper drive and being
responsible for allergic reaction th H two cells kind of
like a hammer into a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
So to the th H two cells, everything looks like
a foreign invader, and so an allergic response is mounted.
(23:33):
So because the kids th H one cells weren't active enough,
the th H two cells were overactive, they weren't exposed
to infections, they developed allergies later in life. That's what
they thought was the crux of the hygiene hypothesis, and
that it was all because we're we were living in
a world as far too clean for our own good. Yeah,
(23:54):
And you know, there are more studies that they did
that really seem to support this in the in the nineties, UM,
really interesting one in the Germany's UH in the early
nineties they did in a study of allergy rates of
East and West German kids pre unification. Obviously, and this
was a really great idea, because what you had was
(24:15):
two populations that were genetically identical, basically just living in
two drastically different environments. Obviously, East Germany was very polluted,
it was generally more poor, um much more industrialized, and
in the West it was you know, cleaner probably and
cleaner but cleaner for sure, and kind of all the
(24:37):
way around. And so they hypothesize. There was a researcher
named Edeka von Mutious that's good enough. I think that's
exactly right. And she basically, you know, said, well, clearly,
the children from the West will be healthier and less allergic,
and she found the exact opposite again, so it was
(24:59):
just another s of some more compelling evidence that this
hygiene hypothesis kind of carried a lot of weight. Yeah,
and the fact that she was expecting the opposite was
kind of interesting too. But she was like, whoa, I
just accidentally proved this hygiene hypothesis because it doesn't again,
it makes zero sense that the cleaner the environment, the
more likely your immune system is to malfunction later in life. Right,
(25:23):
should we take a break? Yeah, all right, we'll take
a break and we'll talk about sort of where this
is now in the new understanding that hasn't gotten nearly
enough press. Right. Okay, so the world really clamped onto
(26:00):
a hygiene hypothesis because I mean it makes a lot
of sense, Like it's very appealing. It's like, yeah, just
go be dirty, you don't have to worry about all
this stuff. And yeah, pesticides are are terrible for us,
so as antibacterial soap, and you know, just everything you
can think of. Um. The idea of it was was
really or really just kind of appealing to the world,
(26:21):
especially in the nineties because that's when people started caring
about like herbs and supplements and like organic food and
stuff like that. So the timing was really good. And
the idea of looking at all these chemicals we're using
to sanitize our world is actually harmful rather than beneficial
appealed to a lot of people. But it also appealed
to people in the sense that now we had an
(26:41):
explanation for this mysterious massive explosion in in allergic um
reactions and immuno messed up function. Right. Sure, did you
know type one diabetes is a um um an immuno
efficiency Just from this, Yeah, me too. I had no
(27:02):
idea was like why did they keep talking about diabetes,
and then I realize your body has mistaken the beta
cells that produce insulin and your pancreas as a foreign
invader and attacks them. That's why you don't have insulin
enough insulin, because your body is turned on it. Very interesting,
same with like crones and um uh, any kind of
(27:22):
autoimmune disorder. Really, yeah, your body is mistaking the cells
of your own body as a foreign invader. But again,
these the incidents of these these kinds of disease just
exploded over you know a handful of decades and by
the nineties and about two thousand people had said it
was because we're overly clean. We're killing off the pathogens
that we actually need to infect our kids so that
(27:44):
their bodies can recognize a good invader from a bad
invader and they won't develop allergic reactions later on. Right, Well,
today we now know that the hygiene hypothesis wasn't quite right.
It's been It's not like they threw it all out,
but it's been revised and and it's a lot smarter now,
and they're the basic theory now is is that what's
(28:06):
missing it's not necessarily a hygiene thing, but it's nature.
And they have a name for it, which is very cute,
the old Friends theory, and this is introduced by a
fellow name Graham Rook in his Colleagues and two thousand three,
and this basically theorizes that exposure to these harmless microbes,
(28:28):
not the pathogens or what's going to protect you from
allergy sensitization. So, uh, kids playing in the dirt and
kids getting looked in the face by a dog in
the years one through three and four is actually a
really good thing. Doesn't mean you shouldn't wash your hands
after you poop or just let that chicken, pull that
(28:51):
raw chicken off the counter and don't sweat it. You
should still practice um basic hygienes. But kids being inside
all the time and not being exposed to nature like
they were for hundreds of thousands of years is the
sort of the problem, right, And it's part of the problem.
Why this is why why it was easy before and
(29:12):
not now, is because they're saying, um, yes, do wash
your hands, but not all the time. So what they've
identified is those pathogens that they originally thought we were killing,
and um, it was having a detrimental effect on us.
The opposite is true. They found that we really should
(29:33):
keep washing our hands and killing off things like the
stuff you get from chicken juice, raw chicken and coop
and like infectious disease. We need to keep fighting that
like we are. It's actually a huge benefit we need
to keep, like getting vaccinated. We need to um defend
against colds and the flu and all this stuff like
that is something we want to keep it pay not
(29:53):
exposed kids to that. We found the opposite is true. Actually,
exposure to things like colds and flues and measles in
childhood actually increases the likelihood of developing allergies later in life,
which is the opposite of the original hygiene hypothesis. But
what they found is so we need to keep defending
against those infectious pathogens, but we need to up our
(30:15):
exposure to those friendly microbes, the ones friends, the ones
we the old friends that our bodies co evolved with
over these hundreds of thousands or millions of years, and
that we've realized now just beginning to realize, uh, make
up a symbiotic relationship with us, or at the very
least some sort of relationship. We depend on them, and
(30:36):
by not being exposed to as many microbes as we
were in decades past before everybody got obsessed with being clean. Um,
we are. Immune systems are not functioning properly, whether it's
they're not being trained early on enough or they're just
not being exposed to the right kind of microbes that
form colonies like in our gut or on our bodies somewhere. Yeah.
(30:57):
And what's really, um, sort of the newest uh concern
as the rise in food allergies. Um, it's really like
you grew up in the seventies and eighties, do you
ever remember peanut allergies being a thing? Zero? I knew
zero kids who had peanut Yeah. I mean we just
like slathered ourselves in peanut butter growing up constantly. Yeah,
(31:18):
there was a trend. Yeah, it exploded in the West
in the in the nineties and it continues to rise.
They're calling it the second wave of allergy, the second epidemic. Basically,
one in ten kids in the developed world have food allergies.
That is nuts. And that's just in the developed world.
I think in America. It's in America, it's yeah, one
(31:41):
in five has a food allergy in America. Yeah, and
like serious allergy sometimes like I have a friend whose
sisters son is. I mean, this kid's allergic to everything
you could imagine. And it's not like that's the outlier.
Like you hear about more and more cases like that. Yeah,
one in five kids has a food allergy G And
like again, in the eighties, there was no such thing
(32:04):
as a peanut allergy basically, I mean, they were, but
it was just vanishingly rare. Yeah, And it's not like
we didn't we just didn't know what to call it
back then. A kid would peanut and drop dead. We
call the balloon faced syndrome. God, that's terrible, but uh, yeah,
it's a real thing that's happening. Food allergies are just
(32:26):
off the charts now compared to how they used to be. Yeah.
So that, like you said, that's the second wave of this.
And what what they're thinking is going on is kids
are less exposed to the microbes that we used to
be more exposed to because we're spending more time inside
because we're using way more disinfectants. And it's good we're
using the disinfectants because they do kill the pathogens that
(32:49):
we do want to keep at bay, but they kill indiscriminately,
so they also kill all the friendly microbes that actually
perform wonderful benefits for like the healthy functioning of our
immune system. Yeah, the harmless bacteria that that children need
to be exposed to and adults. Right, although they do
think that when you are exposing kids to microbes, or
(33:10):
when you are being exposed to microbes like you and I, um,
it's probably not doing a lot for us. Yeah, because
our immune systems are already developed. It really counts for kids,
like from birth up to about four years of age,
because again, that's when your immune system is being trained,
and if it's being trained by a bunch of friendly
microbes saying that's okay, blaster, you can kill me, just
(33:32):
make sure you don't kill any of anyone else like
me because I'm fine, I'm not gonna do anything to you.
Then then that is what's creating the healthier immune system
and lowering the risk of allergies later on. Yeah, so
they recommend you know, getting your kids out in nature,
let them play in the dirt. Uh. If you can breastfeed,
then that helps. If you can have a vaginal birth,
(33:53):
that helps. Although I saw a study that's that showed
um children born from c set shin were swabbed in
um vaginal fluid from their mother's birth canal to give
them like this coating of micrubs like they would have
gotten from a vaginal birth. So they do that. They
did it to like four kids in this one study
(34:14):
and the results were mixed. And then another study found
six weeks after birth. They this study didn't find any
difference in um microbial makeup between kids who were born
vaginally and kids who were born through c section, So
it might not be as big of an issue as
we thought. Well, they definitely say to practice target what
they called targeted hygiene, which, like you were saying, it's
(34:36):
not like you don't clean up after the raw chickens
on the counter or wash your hands after you poop,
but um, get rid of the snotty tissues and wash
your hands after you do those things and blow your
nose right, wash your hands after you use the bathroom. Yeah,
but start washing your hands again. Everybody is the key.
But get out there and play in the dirt too.
And uh, it's like a kid. Kids should be in nature. Okay,
(35:00):
so yes, playing the dirt, go out in the woods,
go for a hike, get your kid a dog, or
a cat, ye, and let them hug and kiss take
them to a petting zoo. Like that's like you don't
have to This is the point. You don't have to
like attack your kid with the antibacterial spray on their
hands after they pet goat at the petting zoo. It's
(35:21):
actually what they're finding is that it's healthy for the
kid to pet the goat and then eat a sandwich afterward. Seriously, No,
I know, this is uh, it's all making sense now
because we have ten goats that live across the street.
Always had two dogs and two cats in the house,
except for the brief period where we didn't have the cats,
and we were very lazy parents and still don't bathe
(35:45):
our daughter with much regularity every every week or three. No,
but she uh, she's she's been like take her to
the doctor sick four times. Yeah. Well, and then hopefully
it will also mean that as she gets older, she
is going to be less far less likely to have
allergies because their immune system so trained. Like Dwayne Wade
(36:06):
and Gabrielle Union put together, that's a super couple. Yeah. Yeah,
you've seen their kids, theirs, the oldest son that's about
to start playing basketball, Brownie. They're transferring to the same
high school. So Lebron's son and Dwayne Waite cent are
gonna play basketball. And he looks just like Dwayne Wade,
does he really? Yeah, has her sleepy eyes. It's like,
no mistaking whose kid that is. That's very cool. It's
(36:28):
not the Milkman. No, it's Dwayne Waite unless the milkman
had sleepy eyes. Who was a basketball player? That was
the mailman Clive Drexler, Karl Malone. No, Karl Malone was
a mailman. Clyde Drexler was the glade. That's right. Yeah,
you're right. He also is on the just for main commercials.
Are you watching the finals? Oh yeah, pulling for Toronto
(36:49):
pretty hard? Who's not. Did you see that map of
the US and who's pulling for Golden State? And who's pulling?
Just like the Bay Area and nowhere else. It was
California and Hawaii and then the rest of the country
was pulling, pulling for another country. Yeah exactly. Wow, So
go raptors, That's what I say. If you want to
know more about the hygiene hypothesis, go back and listen
(37:09):
to this episode again, because there's real nuance there, and
I hope we got it all. Maybe we should re
record this again. Yeah, it's like now, okay, okay, anyway, Uh,
we'll see what version comes out. And in the meantime,
it's time for what Chuck Administrating Details. So if you
(37:33):
don't know what this segment is, if you're new to
the show, this is the time every few months, let's
say quarterly, where we give thanks, where we give thanks
uh to people who have sent as kind gifts over
the past few months. And for some reason we named
it administrative Details. I don't even remember any longer. But
that's that's a pretty good assessment of what we're doing
(37:54):
right now. Yes, it's a very cold name for a
very warm segment. So you want to start, Chuck, Sure,
I'll start it off with a gift of wine. Jeremy
Nelson sent us wine from Baron Moore. Very nice. Speaking
of wine, big ups to our buddy Addison Rex dude
for not just the wine. He once gave me homemade
(38:14):
olive oil too. Yes, so Addison and Cat live in
uh California, and Emily and I went and UH had
a very personal wine to her experience. He has you
a lot about your life, your fears. Yeah, and I
sent a lot about wine and how it's made. And
(38:35):
then not only that, but when we went to the
next wineries, they went with us and we end up
hanging out all day and they're just great. They're awesome,
and we have new pals and we're going to see
him again. And then he went, after a long day
of that, drove into town. Drove into town to see
you do End of the World Live, yep. And we
hung out for a little while after. Didn't go in
any winery or anything. But he's he is now a
(38:56):
friend too, And if you want to find out he's
got I did me cat, but I'm going to take
your word for it. But if you want to find
out about the wines we're talking about, his label is
Jurassic Wines because his name is Addison Rex, so he
sounds like a dinosaur, but Jurassic like the movie. Yes,
minus the park plus wine. That's right, Jurassic Wine. Thanks guys, yep,
(39:18):
you're the best. Can't wait to see you again. So
Julie Mullins from The Onion, remember back in the day
we had our o G Onion pals. We used to
be big time at The Onion did. They moved to
Chicago and we have new Onion pals now, Julie Mullins
and this the Onion Daily Counter Counter Daily Calendar and
she is an mg f X artist at the Onion. Yeah,
(39:41):
thanks a lot um. How about this? This one is
a long time coming. Do you remember our Phoenix show
like fifty years ago? I quite enjoyed that October maybe
one of the two. Yeah, well, at that show or
maybe the same as Salt Lake City show. I think
it was Sally one of those two shows. U our
friend Kathy Cathy with Kay Tosh gave us each alasso.
(40:05):
Oh yeah, that's right, like a real bona fide get
over here cow that was. I'm pretty sure I think
it was Salt Lake City. I can't remember for life me. Anyway,
Kathy right in and let us know how you're doing
and what show it was. But thank you for the last.
She also said, yeah, just go on to YouTube and
you can learn how to do it, which I have
yet to do. But I haven't either, but it's hanging
(40:25):
in my closet. It looks very cool there, doesn't It
does look very cool? Yeah? Thanks Kathy with the Kay
so our friend at Joe Barrett sent us his book
and it's called Managed Care. I have been able to
read it yet, but it's on the it's on the
stack on the desk, so check out he Managed Care
by Joe Barrett. Speaking of books, there's a guy named
Thomas ramj Ram g great last name, looks wise, but
(40:49):
I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it. He wrote
a book called Who's Afraid of a I, which I
cannot wait to read. Yes it is, and it's like
cooking it up and it just says Josh, it says
you in Yeah, it's got just a picture of a
robot holding my hand. Um, but thanks a lot Thomas
Ram's book, Who's Afraid of a I go check it out,
(41:10):
earl pal Dustin Bowens. And it's a three D printing
of our stuff you should know logo, which sits atop
my desk right now. Very awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Huge,
huge thanks to our old pal Don Kubi for the
floral photography canvases and um yeah Kube's photography is just
(41:31):
out of this world. Yeah she's really talented. Yeah, like
almost nay, exactly as good as Aaron Cooper's photography and
um she sells her stuff on her site don kubi
k d A W N k U b I E
dot com. You know, before I did the We Know
His parenting live in Brooklyn recently and Emily and I
(41:53):
both went for a little quick in New York trip.
We went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and the Freed
to Calo exhibit at the Museum m We're walking around
Batanica cill Gardens. Who wanders up but don Koby, Oh
really yep. She's like, Oh, I just happened to be falling.
I mean I just happened to be here as well.
Now we had a nice little chat. She was taking
photos and she came to the We Know show, That's
why she was there. She's great, She's very easy to
(42:14):
talk to. Serendipity. Who else Sheina and Ben send us
a wedding invitation their wedding in Burbank, And we've gotten
a few of these lately, along with invitations to officiate.
But they've all lined up against either live shows, butted
up against live shows or other travel plans, so I
have not been able to do that. No, Plus, we'd
(42:35):
have to get ordained. Are you ordained? No? Okay, but
I'll do that in five minutes. Week. Um Brad Topless
sent us a box of Runes r O n s
which is short for macarons, which his wife makes Runes
as his wife's company. And they're amazing. I can attest
and you can get them at eat Runes dot com.
(42:57):
E a t r o o n s com alright,
ar Old pal Steven Brightman send us poopy pockets for
our dogs. Uh this cool little invention. It's a two
in one poop bag dispenser and poop a pocket for
the poop and it's a veteran owned business. So big
thanks to Stephen Brightman for the poopy pockets. Nice going, Stephen.
(43:19):
Um Mark Kicks sent us you know those Simpson theme
journals and drawn Simpson's journals. Those are from Mark Kicks.
And thank you very much, Mark, because I think we
forgot to thank him last time and he he wrote
it was like dude, I was like, I'm sorry. Ar
Old pal Itan Newton from Baltimore, the Baltimore Spirits Company
(43:39):
send us their shot tower barrel gin and their bat lamarrow,
which is what does that explain with tomorrow? Ye oh man,
it's so good. Good, Yes, heat to it. Everything that
they make is really really good. Yeah, I can't remember
the name of it. He's all also send us like
(44:01):
mescal made from smoked apples. It's just the bomb. What
kind of black magic are they doing in Baltimore. They're
doing some good stuff up there, all right, support the
Baltimore Spirits Company and eating it and everyone. They're getting
creative with their spirits. So that's we're We're going to
leave it at that. We'll do the rest next episode
about that. It sounds great. Well, thanks a lot for
joining us. If you want to send us something, we're
always down with that, you can find us on social
(44:24):
Just go to stuff you Should Know dot com and
you'll find all of our links there, and you can
also send us an email to stuff podcast at I
heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com