December 8, 2011 • 45 mins
The digestive system uses mechanical and chemical processes to absorb and transport all the nutrients your body needs to survive -- but how does it work? In this episode, Josh and Chuck take you through all 30 feet of the average digestive system.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that's uh, that's good, Chuck,
(00:27):
even just in jazz hands everybody, that's what you have
to do? That? Yeah, I think it's either that or
like pump your elbow right right, maybe like flick the
bottom of your chin like I can't wait to hear
your intro. Uh. Okay, I've been gnawing on this one. Okay,
(00:50):
I don't know what to say. I have, I have
an idea. I'll try it, all right, this man get
edited out, all right? Probably not though, because it's not bad.
But Chuck, yes, did you know that? I think probably
the worst thing humans ever invented? Not the nuclear bomb,
not saren gas, not reality TV. The second stall in
(01:15):
the men's bathroom, the second one in our bathroom, in
any public bathroom, what do you mean my second? I
think the worst thing that male human being can do
to another male, and I'm just speaking for my gender,
is to come in and sit down in the stall
next to an already occupied stall. You know what I mean? Second,
(01:38):
you just mean more than one? Yeah? Ok, the second
through infinity exactly. Yeah, I don't you know me, I
don't do that either. I know you are a courteous,
fine person who opens the bathroom door, sees one stall occupied,
turns around. I guess it's not my time. Maybe I
should go find another bathroom. There are other things you
can do, so you just hand of one thing, like
(02:00):
what what's the terminology we're gonna use here? I like poop? Okay,
Poop's fine with me. Two feces, fecal matter Okay, poop
is way like easier to I'm gonna say either swallow.
Excrement sounds gross, Yeah, excrement is gross sometimes the fun word.
I mean, this article uses the word fart. But I
(02:21):
haven't gotten the article. You are you still in my intro?
Uh So I think that that's a horrible assault on
a person's humanity to sit down and already occupiestall to
sit down in the stall next to it. Um, you
must hate the airport, but I don't. I don't us
just stall in the airport like I literally an emergency,
like tin guys pooping next to each other and every
(02:42):
airport never never, I think maybe one time in my
entire life. Anyway. Uh, I hate it just as much
as before. But now that I've read this article, I
understand what's going on next door a little better. That's
my intro. I like it. We're talking about the digestive system. Yes,
who we are, which there's some amazing facts right off
(03:05):
the bat that Melissa Jeffreys, who I'm not familiar with
her work, but this is a pretty quality article. If
you ask me to use the word for it she did.
I that may be the only article on the site
or that word comes in I find that. Is there
a no that's in the that's in this article, which
we'll get to that later. Huh. She also has what
(03:26):
I think maybe one of the best sentences on our website,
which is, h the digestive team is composed of a
bunch of hollow passageways that start at your mouth and
end at your anus. Pretty much does it all? Yeah,
Food goes in one end, waste comes out the other,
and we're going to tell you how. Yeah. But let's
talk a little bit about the digestive system, like how
long is it man about thirty ft. Yeah, that's good
(03:49):
long length. I mean, if you think about it, what
you're six ft five nine eleven okay, so five ten,
but your entrails are thirty ft long. That pretty impressive. Yeah.
And the one that nailed me was the oh I
know what this is. Yeah, the small intestines surface area
is the size of a tennis court. Yeah. So basically,
(04:09):
if you splayed your small intestine and if you put
it loose from the rest of your bowels, splaited it
and unfolded it because it's the folds that that gets you.
If you've straightened it out, you could pretty much play
tennis on it and it be regulation size. You've got clay,
asphalt and intestine. Alright. So the cool thing about this
(04:36):
article and the digestive system period is that there's a
beginning and there's an end. And they used ham sandwich
in the article, so let's go with that. Yeah, it
makes sense, like like basically we're going to now follow
what happens to ham sandwich the moment you not even
the moment you eat it, starting when you pick it
up and bring it to your mouth and it hits
(04:57):
the area where your nose can smell it and so
begin the journey to your anus. So, so we can
do this one man, I've done way way more tawdry,
potentially explosive topics in this man, we can do this.
I'm a shame that I'm a grown man and I
so uh you. As the sandwich comes to your to
(05:20):
your mouth, Um, your nose smells that ham right, and
it sends a signal of the brain. It says it's
chow time. Let's get this party started. And your brain
sends a signal of your salivary glands in your mouth
and they start pumping out saliva. Yeah. Like when you
say my mouth was watering when I smelled that, That's
exactly what's going on. It's exactly right, um. And I
think my brain is overactive. You know how people are
(05:42):
always like it sounds like Josh is eating a piece
of candy. No, I'm just I overproduced spit because I'm
always hungry and I can smell anything and be like,
well I could go for that right now? Well not
an right? Um. So you've got your mouth watering, your
saliva and the reason you salivate is because it has
digestive routines in it called with like amlas and Emily's
(06:03):
is the reason you don't lick your lips. Did you
know that? That's why your lips chap when you look
them too much, because you're actually destroying the very thin,
delicate skin of your lips with this protein that is
designed to break down food. Boy, my lips are a mess.
Always looking at him that man. Uh so, yeah, Josh,
the amlaise gets to work immediately on the carbs and
(06:25):
the bread. Uh. When you swallow, it's gonna go down
your throat, your farynx. Yeah. And we covered a lot
of this in the sword swallowing episodes, So if you
want to even more in depth, look at that. Go
listen to that one. Yeah, but it takes the same
path because you don't want a sword going down into
your lungs and you don't want bread going into your
lung So thank you. Epiglottis. It's a little a little flap.
(06:49):
It's gonna guide it in the right direction almost all
the time, unless there's a malfunction. Anytime you swallowed, the
epiglottis covers the trichia, leaving the esophagus to open up
except your spit or your bullus. Remember bullus is chewed food.
So your sandwich is no longer considered sandwich. It's bullus. Now,
that's right. And I actually choked last week on a
(07:12):
sandwich like Mama Cass, I did uh, and I uh
ended up blowing it through my nose for the next
ten minutes. Is it even possible? It is? That's horrific.
Something happened. I choked and coughed, and it, you know, went,
I guess entered my nasal passageway and I was literally
(07:33):
blowing sandwich out of my nose. It was not fun.
You have mustard, Okay, you're lucky it didn't have mustard.
All right, So now we are well. We got to
point out at the the top of the esophagus is
the upper esophical sphincter. At the bottom there's a lower
lower esophical sphincter, and they let food in and then
(07:57):
they let it right back out, which is exactly how
it should work. Right, And along the way, you have
these muscle contractions, remember called parastalis sees parastalsis parastalsis. That
is just basically like the rings and your esophagus and
rings and muscles contracting and relaxing, and they are contract
above and relax below and push the bowls down and
(08:20):
then when it hits that lower esophageal sphincter, that opens
up and it pops into your stomach, and parastalsis is
the key to everything. Yeah, throughout the entire process of digestion,
basically your whole, your guts and your stomach are just
like contracting and expanding and stirring things up, and it's
all just basically a bunch of spasmodic muscle contractions and
(08:42):
it will get the gird later. But if you have
heartburn or genuine gurd, then that means you're lower esophical
sphincter is not working right and some of your stomach
acid is getting back up in there right. As Melissa
Jeffreys puts it, you have a lazy lower esophageal sphincter
ingurd his gastro esophageal reflux disease. I've got it, a
(09:05):
k heartburn. Do you have it? My brother in law
had it um so bad that he they they first
diagnosed him misdiagnosed him with a panic attack because his
chest was so tight. But it hurts so bad that
it just like covered his entire chest and it felt
like a like a heart attack. That's what mine would
be like if I didn't take take my pill. That's awful,
(09:27):
Like a good boy didn't know that. Yeah, it's terrible. Um,
the way you have him sandwich coming out your nose,
you have bile and other stuff coming up into your esophagus. Okay,
I got problems with it with my digestive system. Let's
just say that. Okay, Okay, So we're in the stomach.
Uh in your stomach is gonna you basically basically, the
(09:50):
stomach is gonna get everything ready to go to the
next step, which is a small intestine by producing all
kinds of enzymes and acids to break stuff down and
also uh, mucus to coat the stomach, because the acid
would damage your stomach as well if it wouldn't for
this protective mucus. Yes, which is very good that that's there. Yeah,
(10:11):
and if you don't have the protective mucus or your
acid can beat your mucus in a wrestling match. That's
how you get ulcers in one way. One way. Yeah, Um,
twenty seconds, every twenty seconds to the stomach is going
to go through the parastalsis Yeah. I think you can
do that more frequently because I looked up why your
stomach growls, rumbles, gurgles, that's just the sounds of digestion.
(10:37):
The reason it happens when you're hungry is because your
brain is not only sent a message to your salivary
glands to start salivating, it's also sent it to your
stomach to start the digestive process because there's food to
come in. So that's why you gurgle when you're hungry.
It also happens when you eat too much or after
you've eaten. Your gurgling it's that's your stomach contracting, all right. So, uh,
(11:01):
if if everything goes well and all the stuff in
there can be liquefied in the clime and by the way,
don't google image that. Yeah, bolus converts to cime so
sandwich into bolus into kime now, and that's if it
can be converted into the kind which is liquefied. Um,
it's gonna get out of your stomach in about twenty minutes.
It's a liquefied blob. That's that's a good definition of time. Uh.
(11:25):
And not everything can can turn into kime though, so
that's gonna remain. It's gonna take a little longer. It
takes about an hour to get the more solid stuff out.
And that's not a liquefied blob, is more pasty, a
pasty blob. And it's not called time. That's called yield.
So you get the come in's out of your stomach, right,
(11:46):
it's now in the duodenum. Yeah, it's it's entered the
small intestine, which, as we said, the small intestine is
considered the small intestine because the circumference of it is
is narrower than the large intestine. But the small intestine
is broken into three parts, and the entire point of
the small intestine is digestion and absorption breakdown of the
(12:08):
food materials, and then the absorption of the particles that
are broken down. Right, So the first part of the
small intestine is what the duodenum is. How we're pronouncing it,
maybe do it in um. I think that's what I
was doing in my head, but I like duoten um uh.
And that that's basically a big burst of um enzymes
(12:30):
from the pancreas and the liver from the Yeah, and
it starts really breaking down food like the foods like
no more, no more, And then it leaves the stomach
for the small intestines, and it's like out of the
frying pan and into the fire for this stuff. That's right. Yeah.
The next two parts are the jum and the ilium,
and they don't do a lot of breaking down the food.
(12:52):
They mainly are absorbing the nutrients before you send it
to the large intestine. Yeah. And here's this is what
gets me, man, I love this UM. The large intestines
also about absorption to some parts of it are but
it's also the biggest function it provides is um preparing waste.
It seems like UM that I've always wondered, like how
(13:14):
do you get your nutrients oude of food? And this
article explains it. It's awesome, man, think about this. So
this breakdown process, and you have specialized enzymes, like some
enzymes from your liver are meant to break down like fats, right,
and proteins your pancreas is meant to break down like
(13:36):
um uh carbohydrates. So you have specialized enzymes that break
down certain things UM. And then you have billy, like
you said, these little tiny hair like projectiles that cover
the folds of your small intestines. And then you have microvilli,
which are projectiles on the small projectiles, and these things,
like you remember, taste buds are or taste receptors are
(13:59):
two into certain tastes. These things are attuned to certain nutrients,
so they pick up certain types of nutrients and then
absorb them through the cell, through the wall of your
intestines and into your bloodstream to be delivered throughout your body.
That is amazing. Is it's amazing. That's an amazing process.
I'm glad you're knocked out by this. And so basically
(14:20):
along the way this food is traveling down and like
it just gets hit by all like hit and run
by all these different proteins that just go into the
walls of your intestines, leaving what's left over. That's right.
I'm just amazed by that. That's great. Uh. Now you're
in the large intestine um, the indigestible parts that is,
(14:42):
and this is the last stretch here you're gonna get.
You know, fluid is going to be extracted to produce
what you want in the end, which is a solid
fecal matter. You don't want it to solid. You don't
want it too solid either. That there's like a there's
a balance to ext and uh, the large intestine, you
(15:02):
know the bottom, there's three parts of that. The bottom
is that the scum, and the little appendix dangles off
the end of that. Then there's the ascending ascending colon
which goes up obviously, the transverse colon which shoots across
your body, and then it drops back down to the
descending colon. The first two sections salts and fluids are
(15:25):
absorbed from the food electro lights has electro lights, that's right.
And uh, also bacteria, good bacteria in the colon. They're
gonna ferment and absorbed fiber, which is that's how you
get your fiber. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, Chuck. We know
a little bit about bacteria. Remember the little video we made.
(15:48):
I don't think it's out yet. Yeah, about healthy bacteria
and how you have really good, like really beneficial colonies
of bacteria in your intestines. And um, if your bacteria
is not doing the trick or you lose it, you
can get a poop transplant, that's right, which is poop
taken from another healthy person, ground up in a blender
(16:12):
with uh sailing solution maybe, and then injected into the
ailing patient. That's right. Basically, get a good colony of
bacteria going in the intestine, which is a great thing.
It works, man, Uh, poop is going to move about
a centimeter per hour do your large intestine, so it's
(16:32):
a lot slower than your small intestine. And it does
this with the help of more mucus produced on the
inside of your large intestine to help the poop move through.
And then you know, at that point you basically have
one in the chamber. As they say, So that's the
that's the that's the path. Yeah, if you're if you're
a bite of ham sandwich, that's what happens to you. Um,
(16:56):
that's all you see. But there's other things that play
there's other factors. Are other organs um involved in this.
And I looked at the spleen spleens immune system. I
thought for sure the spleen had something to do with digestion.
It has like almost no role in digestion whatsoever. Basically,
the two big organs outside of the actual digestive system
(17:16):
that play a major role in digestion are the liver,
which by the way, makes up what two and a
half percent of your body weight? Did you know that?
I had no idea and do not look up cirrhosis
and google images either. Yeah, you realize, you know you
say that a lot. You tell people not to look
things up. You know that every time you do, people
(17:38):
go look things up. That's why I talk. Um. So,
the liver, like we said, creates bile, which is a
brownish yellowish fluid that's designed to break down fats and
proteins UM, and the liver stores this extra bilot produces
in the gallbladder. And you say, well, wait a minute,
(17:58):
I have my gall bladder taken out. That's worry. The
liver has it covered. It's just stores extra bile and
bile ducks, right, that's right. The pancreas. Pancreas creates enzymes
that are designed to break down things like carbs, I believe,
um also fats and proteins as well. But for the
most part UM the liver handles that. So basically, both
(18:20):
of these these organs are producing these proteins, they're shooting
them into your intestines, particularly you're small intestine, and um,
they're helping break down your food. That's right, But that's
not all. In parastalsis is helping this whole time. It's
making everything move around involuntarily contracting, relaxing. It's all about
(18:43):
and especially in the stomach too. It's basically like a
washer on the washed cycle. Yeah, you know, washing machine.
Glands are very important. If you didn't have glands, then
you wouldn't be secreting anything, right, and you need all
these juices, acids, enzymes. The glands basically start in your
(19:04):
mouth with saliva and go all the way you know,
through the stomach. Not I mean it doesn't go all
the way. I don't think you well an glands. I
think those are just in dogs. I don't think humans
have those, and not just in dogs. But you know,
I don't think we have a normal glance. You should
look that up. And hormones are really important, like super important.
(19:25):
They basically control everything. Yeah, as far as starting off
each process so well, a hormone it doesn't matter what
you're what your body is doing. A hormone is a
chemical signal, and specifically with digestion, you've got gastron um.
It tells the stomach to produce acid. Secreting um tells
(19:45):
the pancreas to do its thing. Same with the liver.
Um and uh, what is it talked to the stomach
so basically secret and says, go start secreting your juices, right,
And then c c K, which, if I may coali
cisto kinan, col colcist cold, colocister kinan. It was very close.
(20:10):
You're much better at pronouncing things than me. Well, I
look it up. C c K basically says, hey, pancreas, hey,
gall bladder, we need some more stuff, and they give
it to them. So basically, the hormones are running throughout
the body, saying you you you start. That's right, there's
food a foot. There are other hormones. And we covered
these grellan and pep tide y y, where do we cover? That?
(20:33):
Was that? And I don't remember, but I got it
totally backwards. What the first time we did it? Yeah,
I said that grellan um was the stomach signal that
it was full. It's the exact opposite means you're hungry. Yeah.
The stomach and the small intestine produce the hormone grilling
and that communicates to the brain to say, get some
food in here. Did we get listener mail on that
(20:53):
or a lot of it? And then pep tide why
why does the opposite says whoa we're very full, or
is I like call it peptide Why why I don't
eat until I hurt any longer? Do you? Uh No, Yeah,
it's just it's just I don't get it. It's so American. Yeah,
it just pretty growth. Yeah, peptide y y says, whoa,
(21:16):
we got enough to stop stop feeding fat boy? That's right. Uh.
Nerves play a big part um. Extrinsic nerves are in
the unconscious part of the brain and the spinal cord.
And here you know the main fun You got acetocoline
and adrenaline. The main function of a ctocoline is to
signal all this parastalsis, all this muscle contraction, and basically
(21:40):
adrenaline shuts it down when there's no food, saying you
don't need to keep contracting and relaxing and moving around.
Just take a take a chill, bill, right, And those
are conducted by extrinsic nerves, which are in the brain
and spinal cord. Right. The intrinsic nerves are located in
the actual guts. And what's cool is they circumvent the brain.
(22:02):
They're activated by basically the pressure of food in your intestine. Yeah,
I thought that was a little weird. Usually the brain
isn't bypassed. It's generally the seed of everything, agreed. So
you know that's digestion. We should talk about all the
stuff in your food. What it means like carbs. This
(22:25):
is this is the amazing part that I was talking
about earlier, where it's just absorbed. You know, this is
where it happens somewhere this molecular level. Carbs are broken
down by all these juices absorbed into the small intestine
and then eventually the blood um starch in the bread.
If you're eating bread, the same thing is going to
happen to that. But it's also going to produce a
(22:46):
byproduct called glucose, which will give you some energy. They're
in your liver. Yep, we'll give your whole body energy,
but stored in the liver at least it will give
your whole body energy eventually when your liver releases and
burns it. That's right, it's a car aren't a dirty word. Now.
You just have to be careful what kind of carves
you're you're taking in. Some are definitely better than others.
(23:06):
Complex carbohydrates are generally better than simple carbo hydrates. But remember,
you know not too long ago, everyone thought bread was
like an evil thing on the planet, all the stuff. Well,
if you want to lose weight really fast, stop eating bread.
It's as simple as that. Doesn't make it evil though.
That's one way. Um protein. Remember you've got um, so
(23:29):
you're you're specialized enzymes, some coming from the pancreas, but
most of it coming from the liver in the gall
bladder to break the stuff down ultimately into amino acids.
And the amino acids are what are absorbed and taken
throughout your body. Amino Acids are the building blocks of
all life, that's what they say. And then vitamins, as
(23:52):
my English friends say, you have an English friend, I've
got more than one. What do you collecting them? How
many English friends do you have? I got dozens. Vitamins
are there's a couple of kinds, water soluble and fat soluble.
B and C are the ones that are water soluble,
(24:13):
and they are easily absorbed along with water and the
small intestine. But they also are easily gotten rid of
past through your urine. And then you got the fat
soluble which we're talking about A D and K, and
they're absorbed just like fat. And then they are stored.
Once they're absorbed, they're stored. And uh, liposytes, I think
(24:36):
it's lipus sites like LiPo. You say liposuction or liposuction,
I say liposuction. Do you always go with the lie.
That's one I didn't look up. Actually, I looked up
all these other pronunciations. Lip sites like lipids, fats. Yeah,
they're like LiPo like lipids. Um. So that's it, man,
(24:58):
That's that's the digestive a process as it's ideally meant
to function. It doesn't always function like that though, you know,
it doesn't function like that for me. Ever. There's a
lot of problems that can arise. Apparently you have all
of them. No, not all, Um, there's also some uh,
I guess impoliteness that can arise is just a matter
(25:18):
of course, just a normal normal doing business like belching. Right,
if you eat especially quickly, uh, you're gonna get a
lot of air trapped in your stomach or obviously. Yeah,
basically any anything that has to do with air getting
trapped in your stomach ends up as a belt or
(25:39):
burt because that's that's good stuff. That's how that's what
usually does it for me. Yeah, all it is is UM.
Basically your esophagus pushing this air from your stomach out
of your mouth rather quickly. Three to four burps is
normal after a meal. Yeah, anything more than that, you
(26:01):
might have an altar perhaps, or maybe you're just gassy.
Well gas is something different, all right, Yeah, we'll get
to that in a minute. UM vomiting, that's normal. It's
considered normal to vomit three or four times after each meal.
That's not true at all. That's very dangerous. Yes, vomiting
(26:22):
is normal if you have UM. It's usually bad bacteria
irritating your system and a signal ascent, Hey, you gotta
get this out of here. And it's really that easy.
He's ruining the party. Sure. I heard Jim Brewers a
little bit about all the different alcohol coming into your
stomach and finally like I can't remember which one comes
(26:43):
in and it's like everybody and I think that might
be what it is. UM. And then we talked a
little bit about GURD before. Chuck, you're one of twenty
two million Americans. You know that. I'm a good company
who has GURD seven a thousand trips to the hospital
each year in the US alone. Yeah, I don't I
just manage it to over the counter stuff and it
(27:05):
it handles it for you for the most part. But
it's not good to I mean my doctor told me,
He's like, yeah, this isn't good to live with this
for your life. So what are you gonna do? I
don't know. You get a new esophageal sphincter. I'm gonna
do nothing, like I always well, I mean, what can
you do? I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know.
(27:26):
There are surgeries, but I don't know what you know,
how involved that is? I don't want. I will study
and you find the lowest price for surgery, I'll beat
it by half. What are you in Costa Rica? They're
big for a dentistry now Costa Rica like good dentistry.
(27:46):
That's a lot cheaper. How else do you get big
at something you gotta be really cheap? Um peptic ulcers, man,
that's another problem that actually we walked right past and
the ten scientists who used themselves as guinea pigs episode,
so peptic ulcers. You remember when when we were kids,
(28:07):
like Toms and roll Ads, was like I'm stressed out
or I got a lot of I got a deadline
at work I got. Yeah, not true. Ulcers. It turns
out are caused largely most of the time by a
bacteria called helio Bacter pylori H. Pylori. Uh. And there
(28:29):
was a guy in Australian um physician. I think he's
a physician, or at least a biologist, I can't remember,
maybe a bacteriologist. We'll find out. I'm sure this is
like listener mail on listener mail, that's how bad this is. Anyway,
his name is Barry Marshall, and he figured out that
it was H. Pylori that was probably causing peptic ulcers.
(28:51):
To prove it, he drank a culture of that bacteria
and then cured himself with antibiotics, and he developed heeptic
ulcers in the interim and showed like, yeah, that's what
it is. You want a Nobel Prize for it? Really? Yep? Wow? Uh.
Anti inflammatory sometimes can cause those as well, and I
think that's probably like an abundance of anti inflammatories. Really yeah.
(29:17):
I don't think if you take like an anville you're
gonna get a peptic culture. But an ulcer of any
kind basically is something has gone into, uh, your stomach
and has compromised your stomach or your intestines and has
compromised the lining that mucus. Right, and while all those
acids are then allowed to eat through and you have
(29:38):
holes in it. It's right, not fine? Uh, stomach bug?
I get once a year once usually once? Which way
does it come out both at the same time. I've
you ever done that? I have had as awful. That's
so awful. Yeah, that happened to me once. Um, I
guess I probably get those, man, I would think more
(30:00):
them once a year. It seems like I need to
start paying attention. Yeah, yeah, I don't know it always
tell you next year. My my flu always comes by
way of the stomach. It seems like I don't I
don't have like the regular flu that much. It's right.
You don't you get like septic flus, that's right, peptic flus? No, septic.
(30:21):
Wasn't it like a septic stomach bug? Or I don't know,
you were green. I've never seen a human being green before.
Oh you poor guy, forgot about that. Lactose intolerant. I
am also that, yeah to a certain degree. Really yeah,
like if I eat pizza, yeah, then I'm having troubles.
(30:41):
So here, this is a rare try trifecta trivergence will
call it of this episode the cheese episode and the
gluten episode the Celiac episode, right, because in the Celiac episode,
I say, we were talking about casin, and I was like, casin,
(31:02):
that's probably just another word for lactose, and that's what
people are in taller enough. Well, that was totally incorrect,
as we found out in the cheese episode. Because the
cheese episode, remember, casin is the main fat and cheese
right right. Uh So now we're here and I'm correcting it. Great. Yeah,
all three are conjoined by mistakes and regret. Um, did
(31:24):
we even say what it was? Lactose? And taller means
you can't digest milk sugar? Yeah, lactose yeah, not everyone
knows what that is. Have you ever had the milk,
the lactose free milk. No. I drink a lot of
almond milk these days, though it's really good. YEA. Emily
is on the soy she's been on that food. Tell
her to try almond milk. I think it's better. I
don't think she ever wouldn't tell her to try it. Emily,
(31:46):
try it. I call it soy juice. So it bugs her. Yeah,
because it's not milk. It's well, coconut milk. It's considered milk.
Don't you consider coconut milk milk that same thing, same thing,
coconut juice. No, it's coconut milk, and everybody calls it that. Well,
everyone calls soy milk, soy milk. But it ain't milk
(32:09):
to me unless it comes out of a heat. Byson teeth,
Byson teeth. Um, all right, so we should cover the
other end of the problems, um, near your bottom end.
Like this is like ib D inflammatory bowe disease. It's structural,
(32:31):
not to be confused with IBF. Ib D is really
like I thought there was one I didn't have. I
was pretty excited there for a second. Um, there's two
types of major types of ibduh all sorts of colitis
and Crohn's disease. About six hundred thousand Americans or or
(32:51):
afflicted by this each year. And basically there are ulcers
in the intestines that lead to cramps, diarrhea, intestinal eating,
not fun. No did you know that there? And it
may be like local law in some place, but they're
trying to pass legislation that if you are a Crone's patient,
(33:12):
and you tell somebody, like in a public like a
business or something that doesn't provide public restrooms, that you
have CRONES and you need to use the restroom. This legislation,
this legislation would make it a crime to not let
a person with Crones disease seriously use the bathroom. No,
I think if somebody tells you I have Crone's disease,
(33:32):
that I guess they the assumption would be that you
would just have to be a total jerk to use that.
But even if even if you are encountering a jerk,
it's worth having to put up with that jerk than
to like not let a person with crones use your bathroom. Federal.
That's last I heard. Here's the thing, though, You do
(33:53):
that and they're like whatever, dude, I don't I've never
heard of that. They kick you out right, so what
you can go back, can have them find or something.
But then no, it doesn't right then, But then the
news picks it up and start talking about it, and
then awareness develops, it starts. It takes a village. Um yeah,
(34:16):
IBS so IBD Inflammentary bowel disease is structural like there's
something structurally wrong with your intestines. Like you said, IBS
is functional where there doesn't appear to be anything wrong,
you know, have any cysts or there's not like a
hole in it or something like that, but it's not
(34:38):
functioning properly at all. So you have like cramps and
gas and yeah, just the whole, the whole nine um.
And it's apparently it's it responds to stress, hormonal changes antibiotics,
which makes me think that it would have something to
do with that healthy beneficial bacteria colony in your when
(35:02):
they think your brain isn't communicating with your intestines properly,
but they're not sure. No, we don't know. So in
the meantime, people with IBS have to probably medicate. Do
we need to talk about Celiac? Well, no, go listen
to the sea how Celiac disease works. What was it called? Uh,
(35:25):
something about gluten? Should I not eat gluten or something? Yeah?
Good one, that's what it is called. Yeah, let's go
listen to that one. You'll learn all about celiac and
you'll hear my now famous mistake about casin flatulence. Whereas
Melissa Jeffrey says farting. Ah. The digestive process produces gases,
(35:46):
as we all know, methane of course, also a little
hydrogen and CEO two and uh. When the rectum senses
that there's some gas in there taken up space, sends
the signal to the brain. The sphincter relaxes and out
it comes, thank you. And what is normal? Uh, normal
is something like three pints of gas per day that's
(36:08):
built up and then released in ten to twenty five
instances a day. A lot. I don't think I shoot
ducks that often. We should keep count. Okay, we'll start tomorrow,
start the first thing in the morning. But you gotta
give me like stay up all night though, And you know,
(36:30):
because it's some of some of the stuff happens while
you're sleep. Oh yeah, I hadn't. I hadn't considered set
up a microphone or a smellometer. Do you have a smellometer.
I do. It's attached to um my chest and it
shocks me every time. It's sense of something constipation, something
(36:51):
actually I've never been afflicted with. That's good, man, that's good.
That's what they call a reprieve. It is um constipation
is be straightforward and functionally. It just means that your
intestine is not moving very fast. I mean you remember
when you're in your lower intestine, especially in the colon,
(37:11):
the the caime or whatever it's called. By that time,
the waste is being stripped of water and salts um.
And if it makes too long, right, but also to
recycle that stuff um. And if it if it stays
in there too long, it can become dry and hard
and difficult to pass. Hard poop m than our household
(37:36):
hard poop. And then this one is so gross. And
then the opposite, diarrhea um is just the well, it's
just the opposite. It means you have an overactive lower
intestine that is passing stuff too quickly and is not
absorbing fast enough. So you have wet poop. And I
(37:57):
don't want to get into it. But there is a
thing called the Bristol stool scale and it is you
me's favorite poster in the world. There's ant like you
have the illustration of the digestive system. There is a
medical illustration poster of like I think it's seven six
(38:17):
or seven different types of poop, from stuff that just
like is like nothing but floating fats to a very
hard like black poop and the different types are you
want to hit somewhere in the middle. Yeah. I had
a doctor to say once that soft service cream is
what you're looking for. I didn't. I always thought I
(38:39):
would be a little harder than that. Yeah, yeah, soft
service cream. I don't think so. I think your doctor's
full of it. Well, this is one of those doctor's
fullest stool. This is one of those wacky dietician guys.
You know, it's like, oh, you can you change everything
you eat? Which he's probably right. Probably. Um and diarrhea
apparently happened um to most Americans about four bouts a year,
(39:04):
which I was astounded to hear that. How many a day? No,
I mean I just I figured people got diary and
more than four times a year. Ye not not. Most
people don't need as much crystals as you and I do.
What does that mean? Oh, crystal crystal burgers, white Castle
for our northern friends. So our apologies to Crystal and
(39:28):
white Castle, and our apologies really to every single one
of your mother's because I'm sure you laughed at this.
We said poop a bunch of times to part you
said the F word. Yeah, T was in there. Um,
so I'm glad everybody made it through this one. Good going.
Hopefully you learned a little bit about your own digestive system.
(39:49):
It's a miracle how it functions. It is. It is
amazing how the whole thing happens. So, uh, if you
want to learn more about digestion, there's even some stuff
we didn't touch in here, like coward digestion type, indigestive
system in the search bar how stuff works dot com
and it will bring up this fine, fine article. And
I said search bar, So it's time now for listener mail. Um,
(40:15):
you want to give a This is Kiva based. Yeah,
so you want to give a quick overview there, okay.
Kiva is an organization a website that allows schmos like
us who have an extra bucks slaying around to lend
it two people and say the third world, who can
actually buy a substantial amount of supplies or um clothing
(40:37):
or whatever and then use it to sell and in
their business to become well off enough so that they
don't have to take loans anymore and can in turn
a peaceful democracy, loving times. And where is our team?
Our team is k I v A dot org slash
(40:58):
team slash stuff You should know, and we are team
has gotten pretty crazy. Well yeah, where are we financially?
Oh gotcha? Yeah, so we have a team of that's
also third third in size, behind the Christians and the well, no,
behind the Atheists and the Christians and then team stuff.
You should not that crazy. Yeah, that's pretty not. That
(41:18):
makes us a pseudo religion. I didn't want to say it,
but I'm glad someone did. Um so our team with
their religious fervor his loan Chuck, I'm gonna let you
say it more than I didn't get the exact number,
but we surpassed seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in
loans in loans in in like two years, two years
(41:40):
or one year two Yeah, you're right, I think. Yeah,
we just had our second anniversars and Glenn and Sonja
are our awesome I'm gonna call them official team captains.
We if they weren't official, Chuck, I say we officially
at this moment designate them our CIVA team captains. Glen
and Towner. And they're awesome and they keep up with it,
and they said our goals. Uh he actually Glenn figures
(42:02):
and stuff out like by the month when we can
hit this goal and our next one is obviously a
million bucks, which is staggering. And he's calling it the
million dollar March because it's due in March. If we
have a nice holiday giving season, and I think we are, Like,
I saw a couple of people out there that had
like some really amazing stats about their own their own landing. Yeah,
(42:25):
I got a few sitting there. Actually I need to
re loan. Yeah, I just they've caught up to me. Yeah,
well you just had real loan day and I haven't
gone and looked. Yeah, it's always nice. Uh And a
special um shout to Josiah and Janelle. They are on
our team. They are a US couple living in Korea,
(42:46):
I think the English. Yeah, so they're not they're not
raking in money here. They have loaned four hundred times
due to the tune of ten thousand dollars, and yeah,
that's a lot. That makes me feel really bad. Ten
thousand dollars in loans in Kiva. That's making a significant difference.
(43:06):
But the cool thing is is they are loans and
if they so decided, they could get their money back.
But it doesn't look like they are well because the
retirement plan so that's I mean, if you're not joining
KIVA at this point, then you've got something wrong with
something's wrong with you, for sure. And like the fact
(43:28):
that that who is it Janelle and uh Janelle and Josiah.
Janelle and Josiah, thank you so much for doing that.
The fact that they loaned ten thousand dollars is not like,
that's not the standards. That's incredible, It's mind blowing. There's
a lot of people on the team have loaned a
couple of times here or there. But uh, if you
go and look at you know what it takes for
(43:49):
a loan to be fulfilled, twenty five bucks, like makes
a difference, be quick. The people who are looking for
loans often are asking for far less than a thousand
dollars and they can take that again, what what a
grand here? Twenty five dollars here is exponentially more in
another country. That's right, um, even in this economy. So
(44:11):
if you want to join our kVA team, we're always
happy to have new people, especially if you actually provide
a loan and not just join the team. I've never
gotten that of you. You can do that, Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, Um,
you can go to k I v A dot org
slash team slash Stuff you Should Know and join. Yeah,
(44:32):
you can buy a Christmas gifts gift certificates. Yeah, they're
great gift certificates because after they're repaid, the person can
either loan them or they got the twenty five bucks.
So you you can be helping two people at the
same time. But you can also find a lot out
about your nephew, what kind of person heeded, what he
does when re loan Day happened? Yea um again, k
(44:55):
I v A dot Org Slash Team slash Stuff you
Should Know. And if you want to talk to us,
you want to communicate with Chuck and I, you can
tweak to us at s Y s K podcast. You
can join us on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash Stuff
you Should Know. You can join the fifty thousand on Facebook,
or you can email us at stuff podcast at how
(45:17):
stuff works dot com for moral this and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. To
learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon
in the upper right corner of our homepage. The How
Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.
(45:39):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And that's uh, that's good, Chuck,
(00:27):
even just in jazz hands everybody, that's what you have
to do? That? Yeah, I think it's either that or
like pump your elbow right right, maybe like flick the
bottom of your chin like I can't wait to hear
your intro. Uh. Okay, I've been gnawing on this one. Okay,
(00:50):
I don't know what to say. I have, I have
an idea. I'll try it, all right, this man get
edited out, all right? Probably not though, because it's not bad.
But Chuck, yes, did you know that? I think probably
the worst thing humans ever invented? Not the nuclear bomb,
not saren gas, not reality TV. The second stall in
(01:15):
the men's bathroom, the second one in our bathroom, in
any public bathroom, what do you mean my second? I
think the worst thing that male human being can do
to another male, and I'm just speaking for my gender,
is to come in and sit down in the stall
next to an already occupied stall. You know what I mean? Second,
(01:38):
you just mean more than one? Yeah? Ok, the second
through infinity exactly. Yeah, I don't you know me, I
don't do that either. I know you are a courteous,
fine person who opens the bathroom door, sees one stall occupied,
turns around. I guess it's not my time. Maybe I
should go find another bathroom. There are other things you
can do, so you just hand of one thing, like
(02:00):
what what's the terminology we're gonna use here? I like poop? Okay,
Poop's fine with me. Two feces, fecal matter Okay, poop
is way like easier to I'm gonna say either swallow.
Excrement sounds gross, Yeah, excrement is gross sometimes the fun word.
I mean, this article uses the word fart. But I
(02:21):
haven't gotten the article. You are you still in my intro?
Uh So I think that that's a horrible assault on
a person's humanity to sit down and already occupiestall to
sit down in the stall next to it. Um, you
must hate the airport, but I don't. I don't us
just stall in the airport like I literally an emergency,
like tin guys pooping next to each other and every
(02:42):
airport never never, I think maybe one time in my
entire life. Anyway. Uh, I hate it just as much
as before. But now that I've read this article, I
understand what's going on next door a little better. That's
my intro. I like it. We're talking about the digestive system. Yes,
who we are, which there's some amazing facts right off
(03:05):
the bat that Melissa Jeffreys, who I'm not familiar with
her work, but this is a pretty quality article. If
you ask me to use the word for it she did.
I that may be the only article on the site
or that word comes in I find that. Is there
a no that's in the that's in this article, which
we'll get to that later. Huh. She also has what
(03:26):
I think maybe one of the best sentences on our website,
which is, h the digestive team is composed of a
bunch of hollow passageways that start at your mouth and
end at your anus. Pretty much does it all? Yeah,
Food goes in one end, waste comes out the other,
and we're going to tell you how. Yeah. But let's
talk a little bit about the digestive system, like how
long is it man about thirty ft. Yeah, that's good
(03:49):
long length. I mean, if you think about it, what
you're six ft five nine eleven okay, so five ten,
but your entrails are thirty ft long. That pretty impressive. Yeah.
And the one that nailed me was the oh I
know what this is. Yeah, the small intestines surface area
is the size of a tennis court. Yeah. So basically,
(04:09):
if you splayed your small intestine and if you put
it loose from the rest of your bowels, splaited it
and unfolded it because it's the folds that that gets you.
If you've straightened it out, you could pretty much play
tennis on it and it be regulation size. You've got clay,
asphalt and intestine. Alright. So the cool thing about this
(04:36):
article and the digestive system period is that there's a
beginning and there's an end. And they used ham sandwich
in the article, so let's go with that. Yeah, it
makes sense, like like basically we're going to now follow
what happens to ham sandwich the moment you not even
the moment you eat it, starting when you pick it
up and bring it to your mouth and it hits
(04:57):
the area where your nose can smell it and so
begin the journey to your anus. So, so we can
do this one man, I've done way way more tawdry,
potentially explosive topics in this man, we can do this.
I'm a shame that I'm a grown man and I
so uh you. As the sandwich comes to your to
(05:20):
your mouth, Um, your nose smells that ham right, and
it sends a signal of the brain. It says it's
chow time. Let's get this party started. And your brain
sends a signal of your salivary glands in your mouth
and they start pumping out saliva. Yeah. Like when you
say my mouth was watering when I smelled that, That's
exactly what's going on. It's exactly right, um. And I
think my brain is overactive. You know how people are
(05:42):
always like it sounds like Josh is eating a piece
of candy. No, I'm just I overproduced spit because I'm
always hungry and I can smell anything and be like,
well I could go for that right now? Well not
an right? Um. So you've got your mouth watering, your
saliva and the reason you salivate is because it has
digestive routines in it called with like amlas and Emily's
(06:03):
is the reason you don't lick your lips. Did you
know that? That's why your lips chap when you look
them too much, because you're actually destroying the very thin,
delicate skin of your lips with this protein that is
designed to break down food. Boy, my lips are a mess.
Always looking at him that man. Uh so, yeah, Josh,
the amlaise gets to work immediately on the carbs and
(06:25):
the bread. Uh. When you swallow, it's gonna go down
your throat, your farynx. Yeah. And we covered a lot
of this in the sword swallowing episodes, So if you
want to even more in depth, look at that. Go
listen to that one. Yeah, but it takes the same
path because you don't want a sword going down into
your lungs and you don't want bread going into your
lung So thank you. Epiglottis. It's a little a little flap.
(06:49):
It's gonna guide it in the right direction almost all
the time, unless there's a malfunction. Anytime you swallowed, the
epiglottis covers the trichia, leaving the esophagus to open up
except your spit or your bullus. Remember bullus is chewed food.
So your sandwich is no longer considered sandwich. It's bullus. Now,
that's right. And I actually choked last week on a
(07:12):
sandwich like Mama Cass, I did uh, and I uh
ended up blowing it through my nose for the next
ten minutes. Is it even possible? It is? That's horrific.
Something happened. I choked and coughed, and it, you know, went,
I guess entered my nasal passageway and I was literally
(07:33):
blowing sandwich out of my nose. It was not fun.
You have mustard, Okay, you're lucky it didn't have mustard.
All right, So now we are well. We got to
point out at the the top of the esophagus is
the upper esophical sphincter. At the bottom there's a lower
lower esophical sphincter, and they let food in and then
(07:57):
they let it right back out, which is exactly how
it should work. Right, And along the way, you have
these muscle contractions, remember called parastalis sees parastalsis parastalsis. That
is just basically like the rings and your esophagus and
rings and muscles contracting and relaxing, and they are contract
above and relax below and push the bowls down and
(08:20):
then when it hits that lower esophageal sphincter, that opens
up and it pops into your stomach, and parastalsis is
the key to everything. Yeah, throughout the entire process of digestion,
basically your whole, your guts and your stomach are just
like contracting and expanding and stirring things up, and it's
all just basically a bunch of spasmodic muscle contractions and
(08:42):
it will get the gird later. But if you have
heartburn or genuine gurd, then that means you're lower esophical
sphincter is not working right and some of your stomach
acid is getting back up in there right. As Melissa
Jeffreys puts it, you have a lazy lower esophageal sphincter
ingurd his gastro esophageal reflux disease. I've got it, a
(09:05):
k heartburn. Do you have it? My brother in law
had it um so bad that he they they first
diagnosed him misdiagnosed him with a panic attack because his
chest was so tight. But it hurts so bad that
it just like covered his entire chest and it felt
like a like a heart attack. That's what mine would
be like if I didn't take take my pill. That's awful,
(09:27):
Like a good boy didn't know that. Yeah, it's terrible. Um,
the way you have him sandwich coming out your nose,
you have bile and other stuff coming up into your esophagus. Okay,
I got problems with it with my digestive system. Let's
just say that. Okay, Okay, So we're in the stomach.
Uh in your stomach is gonna you basically basically, the
(09:50):
stomach is gonna get everything ready to go to the
next step, which is a small intestine by producing all
kinds of enzymes and acids to break stuff down and
also uh, mucus to coat the stomach, because the acid
would damage your stomach as well if it wouldn't for
this protective mucus. Yes, which is very good that that's there. Yeah,
(10:11):
and if you don't have the protective mucus or your
acid can beat your mucus in a wrestling match. That's
how you get ulcers in one way. One way. Yeah, Um,
twenty seconds, every twenty seconds to the stomach is going
to go through the parastalsis Yeah. I think you can
do that more frequently because I looked up why your
stomach growls, rumbles, gurgles, that's just the sounds of digestion.
(10:37):
The reason it happens when you're hungry is because your
brain is not only sent a message to your salivary
glands to start salivating, it's also sent it to your
stomach to start the digestive process because there's food to
come in. So that's why you gurgle when you're hungry.
It also happens when you eat too much or after
you've eaten. Your gurgling it's that's your stomach contracting, all right. So, uh,
(11:01):
if if everything goes well and all the stuff in
there can be liquefied in the clime and by the way,
don't google image that. Yeah, bolus converts to cime so
sandwich into bolus into kime now, and that's if it
can be converted into the kind which is liquefied. Um,
it's gonna get out of your stomach in about twenty minutes.
It's a liquefied blob. That's that's a good definition of time. Uh.
(11:25):
And not everything can can turn into kime though, so
that's gonna remain. It's gonna take a little longer. It
takes about an hour to get the more solid stuff out.
And that's not a liquefied blob, is more pasty, a
pasty blob. And it's not called time. That's called yield.
So you get the come in's out of your stomach, right,
(11:46):
it's now in the duodenum. Yeah, it's it's entered the
small intestine, which, as we said, the small intestine is
considered the small intestine because the circumference of it is
is narrower than the large intestine. But the small intestine
is broken into three parts, and the entire point of
the small intestine is digestion and absorption breakdown of the
(12:08):
food materials, and then the absorption of the particles that
are broken down. Right, So the first part of the
small intestine is what the duodenum is. How we're pronouncing it,
maybe do it in um. I think that's what I
was doing in my head, but I like duoten um uh.
And that that's basically a big burst of um enzymes
(12:30):
from the pancreas and the liver from the Yeah, and
it starts really breaking down food like the foods like
no more, no more, And then it leaves the stomach
for the small intestines, and it's like out of the
frying pan and into the fire for this stuff. That's right. Yeah.
The next two parts are the jum and the ilium,
and they don't do a lot of breaking down the food.
(12:52):
They mainly are absorbing the nutrients before you send it
to the large intestine. Yeah. And here's this is what
gets me, man, I love this UM. The large intestines
also about absorption to some parts of it are but
it's also the biggest function it provides is um preparing waste.
It seems like UM that I've always wondered, like how
(13:14):
do you get your nutrients oude of food? And this
article explains it. It's awesome, man, think about this. So
this breakdown process, and you have specialized enzymes, like some
enzymes from your liver are meant to break down like fats, right,
and proteins your pancreas is meant to break down like
(13:36):
um uh carbohydrates. So you have specialized enzymes that break
down certain things UM. And then you have billy, like
you said, these little tiny hair like projectiles that cover
the folds of your small intestines. And then you have microvilli,
which are projectiles on the small projectiles, and these things,
like you remember, taste buds are or taste receptors are
(13:59):
two into certain tastes. These things are attuned to certain nutrients,
so they pick up certain types of nutrients and then
absorb them through the cell, through the wall of your
intestines and into your bloodstream to be delivered throughout your body.
That is amazing. Is it's amazing. That's an amazing process.
I'm glad you're knocked out by this. And so basically
(14:20):
along the way this food is traveling down and like
it just gets hit by all like hit and run
by all these different proteins that just go into the
walls of your intestines, leaving what's left over. That's right.
I'm just amazed by that. That's great. Uh. Now you're
in the large intestine um, the indigestible parts that is,
(14:42):
and this is the last stretch here you're gonna get.
You know, fluid is going to be extracted to produce
what you want in the end, which is a solid
fecal matter. You don't want it to solid. You don't
want it too solid either. That there's like a there's
a balance to ext and uh, the large intestine, you
(15:02):
know the bottom, there's three parts of that. The bottom
is that the scum, and the little appendix dangles off
the end of that. Then there's the ascending ascending colon
which goes up obviously, the transverse colon which shoots across
your body, and then it drops back down to the
descending colon. The first two sections salts and fluids are
(15:25):
absorbed from the food electro lights has electro lights, that's right.
And uh, also bacteria, good bacteria in the colon. They're
gonna ferment and absorbed fiber, which is that's how you
get your fiber. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, Chuck. We know
a little bit about bacteria. Remember the little video we made.
(15:48):
I don't think it's out yet. Yeah, about healthy bacteria
and how you have really good, like really beneficial colonies
of bacteria in your intestines. And um, if your bacteria
is not doing the trick or you lose it, you
can get a poop transplant, that's right, which is poop
taken from another healthy person, ground up in a blender
(16:12):
with uh sailing solution maybe, and then injected into the
ailing patient. That's right. Basically, get a good colony of
bacteria going in the intestine, which is a great thing.
It works, man, Uh, poop is going to move about
a centimeter per hour do your large intestine, so it's
(16:32):
a lot slower than your small intestine. And it does
this with the help of more mucus produced on the
inside of your large intestine to help the poop move through.
And then you know, at that point you basically have
one in the chamber. As they say, So that's the
that's the that's the path. Yeah, if you're if you're
a bite of ham sandwich, that's what happens to you. Um,
(16:56):
that's all you see. But there's other things that play
there's other factors. Are other organs um involved in this.
And I looked at the spleen spleens immune system. I
thought for sure the spleen had something to do with digestion.
It has like almost no role in digestion whatsoever. Basically,
the two big organs outside of the actual digestive system
(17:16):
that play a major role in digestion are the liver,
which by the way, makes up what two and a
half percent of your body weight? Did you know that?
I had no idea and do not look up cirrhosis
and google images either. Yeah, you realize, you know you
say that a lot. You tell people not to look
things up. You know that every time you do, people
(17:38):
go look things up. That's why I talk. Um. So,
the liver, like we said, creates bile, which is a
brownish yellowish fluid that's designed to break down fats and
proteins UM, and the liver stores this extra bilot produces
in the gallbladder. And you say, well, wait a minute,
(17:58):
I have my gall bladder taken out. That's worry. The
liver has it covered. It's just stores extra bile and
bile ducks, right, that's right. The pancreas. Pancreas creates enzymes
that are designed to break down things like carbs, I believe,
um also fats and proteins as well. But for the
most part UM the liver handles that. So basically, both
(18:20):
of these these organs are producing these proteins, they're shooting
them into your intestines, particularly you're small intestine, and um,
they're helping break down your food. That's right, But that's
not all. In parastalsis is helping this whole time. It's
making everything move around involuntarily contracting, relaxing. It's all about
(18:43):
and especially in the stomach too. It's basically like a
washer on the washed cycle. Yeah, you know, washing machine.
Glands are very important. If you didn't have glands, then
you wouldn't be secreting anything, right, and you need all
these juices, acids, enzymes. The glands basically start in your
(19:04):
mouth with saliva and go all the way you know,
through the stomach. Not I mean it doesn't go all
the way. I don't think you well an glands. I
think those are just in dogs. I don't think humans
have those, and not just in dogs. But you know,
I don't think we have a normal glance. You should
look that up. And hormones are really important, like super important.
(19:25):
They basically control everything. Yeah, as far as starting off
each process so well, a hormone it doesn't matter what
you're what your body is doing. A hormone is a
chemical signal, and specifically with digestion, you've got gastron um.
It tells the stomach to produce acid. Secreting um tells
(19:45):
the pancreas to do its thing. Same with the liver.
Um and uh, what is it talked to the stomach
so basically secret and says, go start secreting your juices, right,
And then c c K, which, if I may coali
cisto kinan, col colcist cold, colocister kinan. It was very close.
(20:10):
You're much better at pronouncing things than me. Well, I
look it up. C c K basically says, hey, pancreas, hey,
gall bladder, we need some more stuff, and they give
it to them. So basically, the hormones are running throughout
the body, saying you you you start. That's right, there's
food a foot. There are other hormones. And we covered
these grellan and pep tide y y, where do we cover? That?
(20:33):
Was that? And I don't remember, but I got it
totally backwards. What the first time we did it? Yeah,
I said that grellan um was the stomach signal that
it was full. It's the exact opposite means you're hungry. Yeah.
The stomach and the small intestine produce the hormone grilling
and that communicates to the brain to say, get some
food in here. Did we get listener mail on that
(20:53):
or a lot of it? And then pep tide why
why does the opposite says whoa we're very full, or
is I like call it peptide Why why I don't
eat until I hurt any longer? Do you? Uh No, Yeah,
it's just it's just I don't get it. It's so American. Yeah,
it just pretty growth. Yeah, peptide y y says, whoa,
(21:16):
we got enough to stop stop feeding fat boy? That's right. Uh.
Nerves play a big part um. Extrinsic nerves are in
the unconscious part of the brain and the spinal cord.
And here you know the main fun You got acetocoline
and adrenaline. The main function of a ctocoline is to
signal all this parastalsis, all this muscle contraction, and basically
(21:40):
adrenaline shuts it down when there's no food, saying you
don't need to keep contracting and relaxing and moving around.
Just take a take a chill, bill, right, And those
are conducted by extrinsic nerves, which are in the brain
and spinal cord. Right. The intrinsic nerves are located in
the actual guts. And what's cool is they circumvent the brain.
(22:02):
They're activated by basically the pressure of food in your intestine. Yeah,
I thought that was a little weird. Usually the brain
isn't bypassed. It's generally the seed of everything, agreed. So
you know that's digestion. We should talk about all the
stuff in your food. What it means like carbs. This
(22:25):
is this is the amazing part that I was talking
about earlier, where it's just absorbed. You know, this is
where it happens somewhere this molecular level. Carbs are broken
down by all these juices absorbed into the small intestine
and then eventually the blood um starch in the bread.
If you're eating bread, the same thing is going to
happen to that. But it's also going to produce a
(22:46):
byproduct called glucose, which will give you some energy. They're
in your liver. Yep, we'll give your whole body energy,
but stored in the liver at least it will give
your whole body energy eventually when your liver releases and
burns it. That's right, it's a car aren't a dirty word. Now.
You just have to be careful what kind of carves
you're you're taking in. Some are definitely better than others.
(23:06):
Complex carbohydrates are generally better than simple carbo hydrates. But remember,
you know not too long ago, everyone thought bread was
like an evil thing on the planet, all the stuff. Well,
if you want to lose weight really fast, stop eating bread.
It's as simple as that. Doesn't make it evil though.
That's one way. Um protein. Remember you've got um, so
(23:29):
you're you're specialized enzymes, some coming from the pancreas, but
most of it coming from the liver in the gall
bladder to break the stuff down ultimately into amino acids.
And the amino acids are what are absorbed and taken
throughout your body. Amino Acids are the building blocks of
all life, that's what they say. And then vitamins, as
(23:52):
my English friends say, you have an English friend, I've
got more than one. What do you collecting them? How
many English friends do you have? I got dozens. Vitamins
are there's a couple of kinds, water soluble and fat soluble.
B and C are the ones that are water soluble,
(24:13):
and they are easily absorbed along with water and the
small intestine. But they also are easily gotten rid of
past through your urine. And then you got the fat
soluble which we're talking about A D and K, and
they're absorbed just like fat. And then they are stored.
Once they're absorbed, they're stored. And uh, liposytes, I think
(24:36):
it's lipus sites like LiPo. You say liposuction or liposuction,
I say liposuction. Do you always go with the lie.
That's one I didn't look up. Actually, I looked up
all these other pronunciations. Lip sites like lipids, fats. Yeah,
they're like LiPo like lipids. Um. So that's it, man,
(24:58):
That's that's the digestive a process as it's ideally meant
to function. It doesn't always function like that though, you know,
it doesn't function like that for me. Ever. There's a
lot of problems that can arise. Apparently you have all
of them. No, not all, Um, there's also some uh,
I guess impoliteness that can arise is just a matter
(25:18):
of course, just a normal normal doing business like belching. Right,
if you eat especially quickly, uh, you're gonna get a
lot of air trapped in your stomach or obviously. Yeah,
basically any anything that has to do with air getting
trapped in your stomach ends up as a belt or
(25:39):
burt because that's that's good stuff. That's how that's what
usually does it for me. Yeah, all it is is UM.
Basically your esophagus pushing this air from your stomach out
of your mouth rather quickly. Three to four burps is
normal after a meal. Yeah, anything more than that, you
(26:01):
might have an altar perhaps, or maybe you're just gassy.
Well gas is something different, all right, Yeah, we'll get
to that in a minute. UM vomiting, that's normal. It's
considered normal to vomit three or four times after each meal.
That's not true at all. That's very dangerous. Yes, vomiting
(26:22):
is normal if you have UM. It's usually bad bacteria
irritating your system and a signal ascent, Hey, you gotta
get this out of here. And it's really that easy.
He's ruining the party. Sure. I heard Jim Brewers a
little bit about all the different alcohol coming into your
stomach and finally like I can't remember which one comes
(26:43):
in and it's like everybody and I think that might
be what it is. UM. And then we talked a
little bit about GURD before. Chuck, you're one of twenty
two million Americans. You know that. I'm a good company
who has GURD seven a thousand trips to the hospital
each year in the US alone. Yeah, I don't I
just manage it to over the counter stuff and it
(27:05):
it handles it for you for the most part. But
it's not good to I mean my doctor told me,
He's like, yeah, this isn't good to live with this
for your life. So what are you gonna do? I
don't know. You get a new esophageal sphincter. I'm gonna
do nothing, like I always well, I mean, what can
you do? I'm not sure. I don't know. I don't know.
(27:26):
There are surgeries, but I don't know what you know,
how involved that is? I don't want. I will study
and you find the lowest price for surgery, I'll beat
it by half. What are you in Costa Rica? They're
big for a dentistry now Costa Rica like good dentistry.
(27:46):
That's a lot cheaper. How else do you get big
at something you gotta be really cheap? Um peptic ulcers, man,
that's another problem that actually we walked right past and
the ten scientists who used themselves as guinea pigs episode,
so peptic ulcers. You remember when when we were kids,
(28:07):
like Toms and roll Ads, was like I'm stressed out
or I got a lot of I got a deadline
at work I got. Yeah, not true. Ulcers. It turns
out are caused largely most of the time by a
bacteria called helio Bacter pylori H. Pylori. Uh. And there
(28:29):
was a guy in Australian um physician. I think he's
a physician, or at least a biologist, I can't remember,
maybe a bacteriologist. We'll find out. I'm sure this is
like listener mail on listener mail, that's how bad this is. Anyway,
his name is Barry Marshall, and he figured out that
it was H. Pylori that was probably causing peptic ulcers.
(28:51):
To prove it, he drank a culture of that bacteria
and then cured himself with antibiotics, and he developed heeptic
ulcers in the interim and showed like, yeah, that's what
it is. You want a Nobel Prize for it? Really? Yep? Wow? Uh.
Anti inflammatory sometimes can cause those as well, and I
think that's probably like an abundance of anti inflammatories. Really yeah.
(29:17):
I don't think if you take like an anville you're
gonna get a peptic culture. But an ulcer of any
kind basically is something has gone into, uh, your stomach
and has compromised your stomach or your intestines and has
compromised the lining that mucus. Right, and while all those
acids are then allowed to eat through and you have
(29:38):
holes in it. It's right, not fine? Uh, stomach bug?
I get once a year once usually once? Which way
does it come out both at the same time. I've
you ever done that? I have had as awful. That's
so awful. Yeah, that happened to me once. Um, I
guess I probably get those, man, I would think more
(30:00):
them once a year. It seems like I need to
start paying attention. Yeah, yeah, I don't know it always
tell you next year. My my flu always comes by
way of the stomach. It seems like I don't I
don't have like the regular flu that much. It's right.
You don't you get like septic flus, that's right, peptic flus? No, septic.
(30:21):
Wasn't it like a septic stomach bug? Or I don't know,
you were green. I've never seen a human being green before.
Oh you poor guy, forgot about that. Lactose intolerant. I
am also that, yeah to a certain degree. Really yeah,
like if I eat pizza, yeah, then I'm having troubles.
(30:41):
So here, this is a rare try trifecta trivergence will
call it of this episode the cheese episode and the
gluten episode the Celiac episode, right, because in the Celiac episode,
I say, we were talking about casin, and I was like, casin,
(31:02):
that's probably just another word for lactose, and that's what
people are in taller enough. Well, that was totally incorrect,
as we found out in the cheese episode. Because the
cheese episode, remember, casin is the main fat and cheese
right right. Uh So now we're here and I'm correcting it. Great. Yeah,
all three are conjoined by mistakes and regret. Um, did
(31:24):
we even say what it was? Lactose? And taller means
you can't digest milk sugar? Yeah, lactose yeah, not everyone
knows what that is. Have you ever had the milk,
the lactose free milk. No. I drink a lot of
almond milk these days, though it's really good. YEA. Emily
is on the soy she's been on that food. Tell
her to try almond milk. I think it's better. I
don't think she ever wouldn't tell her to try it. Emily,
(31:46):
try it. I call it soy juice. So it bugs her. Yeah,
because it's not milk. It's well, coconut milk. It's considered milk.
Don't you consider coconut milk milk that same thing, same thing,
coconut juice. No, it's coconut milk, and everybody calls it that. Well,
everyone calls soy milk, soy milk. But it ain't milk
(32:09):
to me unless it comes out of a heat. Byson teeth,
Byson teeth. Um, all right, so we should cover the
other end of the problems, um, near your bottom end.
Like this is like ib D inflammatory bowe disease. It's structural,
(32:31):
not to be confused with IBF. Ib D is really
like I thought there was one I didn't have. I
was pretty excited there for a second. Um, there's two
types of major types of ibduh all sorts of colitis
and Crohn's disease. About six hundred thousand Americans or or
(32:51):
afflicted by this each year. And basically there are ulcers
in the intestines that lead to cramps, diarrhea, intestinal eating,
not fun. No did you know that there? And it
may be like local law in some place, but they're
trying to pass legislation that if you are a Crone's patient,
(33:12):
and you tell somebody, like in a public like a
business or something that doesn't provide public restrooms, that you
have CRONES and you need to use the restroom. This legislation,
this legislation would make it a crime to not let
a person with Crones disease seriously use the bathroom. No,
I think if somebody tells you I have Crone's disease,
(33:32):
that I guess they the assumption would be that you
would just have to be a total jerk to use that.
But even if even if you are encountering a jerk,
it's worth having to put up with that jerk than
to like not let a person with crones use your bathroom. Federal.
That's last I heard. Here's the thing, though, You do
(33:53):
that and they're like whatever, dude, I don't I've never
heard of that. They kick you out right, so what
you can go back, can have them find or something.
But then no, it doesn't right then, But then the
news picks it up and start talking about it, and
then awareness develops, it starts. It takes a village. Um yeah,
(34:16):
IBS so IBD Inflammentary bowel disease is structural like there's
something structurally wrong with your intestines. Like you said, IBS
is functional where there doesn't appear to be anything wrong,
you know, have any cysts or there's not like a
hole in it or something like that, but it's not
(34:38):
functioning properly at all. So you have like cramps and
gas and yeah, just the whole, the whole nine um.
And it's apparently it's it responds to stress, hormonal changes antibiotics,
which makes me think that it would have something to
do with that healthy beneficial bacteria colony in your when
(35:02):
they think your brain isn't communicating with your intestines properly,
but they're not sure. No, we don't know. So in
the meantime, people with IBS have to probably medicate. Do
we need to talk about Celiac? Well, no, go listen
to the sea how Celiac disease works. What was it called? Uh,
(35:25):
something about gluten? Should I not eat gluten or something? Yeah?
Good one, that's what it is called. Yeah, let's go
listen to that one. You'll learn all about celiac and
you'll hear my now famous mistake about casin flatulence. Whereas
Melissa Jeffrey says farting. Ah. The digestive process produces gases,
(35:46):
as we all know, methane of course, also a little
hydrogen and CEO two and uh. When the rectum senses
that there's some gas in there taken up space, sends
the signal to the brain. The sphincter relaxes and out
it comes, thank you. And what is normal? Uh, normal
is something like three pints of gas per day that's
(36:08):
built up and then released in ten to twenty five
instances a day. A lot. I don't think I shoot
ducks that often. We should keep count. Okay, we'll start tomorrow,
start the first thing in the morning. But you gotta
give me like stay up all night though, And you know,
(36:30):
because it's some of some of the stuff happens while
you're sleep. Oh yeah, I hadn't. I hadn't considered set
up a microphone or a smellometer. Do you have a smellometer.
I do. It's attached to um my chest and it
shocks me every time. It's sense of something constipation, something
(36:51):
actually I've never been afflicted with. That's good, man, that's good.
That's what they call a reprieve. It is um constipation
is be straightforward and functionally. It just means that your
intestine is not moving very fast. I mean you remember
when you're in your lower intestine, especially in the colon,
(37:11):
the the caime or whatever it's called. By that time,
the waste is being stripped of water and salts um.
And if it makes too long, right, but also to
recycle that stuff um. And if it if it stays
in there too long, it can become dry and hard
and difficult to pass. Hard poop m than our household
(37:36):
hard poop. And then this one is so gross. And
then the opposite, diarrhea um is just the well, it's
just the opposite. It means you have an overactive lower
intestine that is passing stuff too quickly and is not
absorbing fast enough. So you have wet poop. And I
(37:57):
don't want to get into it. But there is a
thing called the Bristol stool scale and it is you
me's favorite poster in the world. There's ant like you
have the illustration of the digestive system. There is a
medical illustration poster of like I think it's seven six
(38:17):
or seven different types of poop, from stuff that just
like is like nothing but floating fats to a very
hard like black poop and the different types are you
want to hit somewhere in the middle. Yeah. I had
a doctor to say once that soft service cream is
what you're looking for. I didn't. I always thought I
(38:39):
would be a little harder than that. Yeah, yeah, soft
service cream. I don't think so. I think your doctor's
full of it. Well, this is one of those doctor's
fullest stool. This is one of those wacky dietician guys.
You know, it's like, oh, you can you change everything
you eat? Which he's probably right. Probably. Um and diarrhea
apparently happened um to most Americans about four bouts a year,
(39:04):
which I was astounded to hear that. How many a day? No,
I mean I just I figured people got diary and
more than four times a year. Ye not not. Most
people don't need as much crystals as you and I do.
What does that mean? Oh, crystal crystal burgers, white Castle
for our northern friends. So our apologies to Crystal and
(39:28):
white Castle, and our apologies really to every single one
of your mother's because I'm sure you laughed at this.
We said poop a bunch of times to part you
said the F word. Yeah, T was in there. Um,
so I'm glad everybody made it through this one. Good going.
Hopefully you learned a little bit about your own digestive system.
(39:49):
It's a miracle how it functions. It is. It is
amazing how the whole thing happens. So, uh, if you
want to learn more about digestion, there's even some stuff
we didn't touch in here, like coward digestion type, indigestive
system in the search bar how stuff works dot com
and it will bring up this fine, fine article. And
I said search bar, So it's time now for listener mail. Um,
(40:15):
you want to give a This is Kiva based. Yeah,
so you want to give a quick overview there, okay.
Kiva is an organization a website that allows schmos like
us who have an extra bucks slaying around to lend
it two people and say the third world, who can
actually buy a substantial amount of supplies or um clothing
(40:37):
or whatever and then use it to sell and in
their business to become well off enough so that they
don't have to take loans anymore and can in turn
a peaceful democracy, loving times. And where is our team?
Our team is k I v A dot org slash
(40:58):
team slash stuff You should know, and we are team
has gotten pretty crazy. Well yeah, where are we financially?
Oh gotcha? Yeah, so we have a team of that's
also third third in size, behind the Christians and the well, no,
behind the Atheists and the Christians and then team stuff.
You should not that crazy. Yeah, that's pretty not. That
(41:18):
makes us a pseudo religion. I didn't want to say it,
but I'm glad someone did. Um so our team with
their religious fervor his loan Chuck, I'm gonna let you
say it more than I didn't get the exact number,
but we surpassed seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in
loans in loans in in like two years, two years
(41:40):
or one year two Yeah, you're right, I think. Yeah,
we just had our second anniversars and Glenn and Sonja
are our awesome I'm gonna call them official team captains.
We if they weren't official, Chuck, I say we officially
at this moment designate them our CIVA team captains. Glen
and Towner. And they're awesome and they keep up with it,
and they said our goals. Uh he actually Glenn figures
(42:02):
and stuff out like by the month when we can
hit this goal and our next one is obviously a
million bucks, which is staggering. And he's calling it the
million dollar March because it's due in March. If we
have a nice holiday giving season, and I think we are, Like,
I saw a couple of people out there that had
like some really amazing stats about their own their own landing. Yeah,
(42:25):
I got a few sitting there. Actually I need to
re loan. Yeah, I just they've caught up to me. Yeah,
well you just had real loan day and I haven't
gone and looked. Yeah, it's always nice. Uh And a
special um shout to Josiah and Janelle. They are on
our team. They are a US couple living in Korea,
(42:46):
I think the English. Yeah, so they're not they're not
raking in money here. They have loaned four hundred times
due to the tune of ten thousand dollars, and yeah,
that's a lot. That makes me feel really bad. Ten
thousand dollars in loans in Kiva. That's making a significant difference.
(43:06):
But the cool thing is is they are loans and
if they so decided, they could get their money back.
But it doesn't look like they are well because the
retirement plan so that's I mean, if you're not joining
KIVA at this point, then you've got something wrong with
something's wrong with you, for sure. And like the fact
(43:28):
that that who is it Janelle and uh Janelle and Josiah.
Janelle and Josiah, thank you so much for doing that.
The fact that they loaned ten thousand dollars is not like,
that's not the standards. That's incredible, It's mind blowing. There's
a lot of people on the team have loaned a
couple of times here or there. But uh, if you
go and look at you know what it takes for
(43:49):
a loan to be fulfilled, twenty five bucks, like makes
a difference, be quick. The people who are looking for
loans often are asking for far less than a thousand
dollars and they can take that again, what what a
grand here? Twenty five dollars here is exponentially more in
another country. That's right, um, even in this economy. So
(44:11):
if you want to join our kVA team, we're always
happy to have new people, especially if you actually provide
a loan and not just join the team. I've never
gotten that of you. You can do that, Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, Um,
you can go to k I v A dot org
slash team slash Stuff you Should Know and join. Yeah,
(44:32):
you can buy a Christmas gifts gift certificates. Yeah, they're
great gift certificates because after they're repaid, the person can
either loan them or they got the twenty five bucks.
So you you can be helping two people at the
same time. But you can also find a lot out
about your nephew, what kind of person heeded, what he
does when re loan Day happened? Yea um again, k
(44:55):
I v A dot Org Slash Team slash Stuff you
Should Know. And if you want to talk to us,
you want to communicate with Chuck and I, you can
tweak to us at s Y s K podcast. You
can join us on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash Stuff
you Should Know. You can join the fifty thousand on Facebook,
or you can email us at stuff podcast at how
(45:17):
stuff works dot com for moral this and thousands of
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. To
learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast icon
in the upper right corner of our homepage. The How
Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it today on iTunes.
(45:39):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready, Are you
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
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
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.