2:00

I like to call it phlegm.

2:02

Mucus? Mucus? Sputum. Hey,

2:04

look, the list goes on. Gob. Gob.

2:07

I think if we're going to talk about what to do with

2:09

it, we need to talk about what it is first. What is

2:12

the recipe for phlegm? So

2:15

the recipe for phlegm is a

2:17

mixture of proteins and fats in

2:20

a matrix. It's actually quite complicated.

2:23

And it's in a matrix actually sounds

2:25

like something tasty. Well, in

2:28

fact, you probably taste it all the time. So

2:31

mucus is incredibly important for your

2:33

lung health. So just

2:35

a little bit of an anatomy lesson.

2:37

So essentially, the cells in the lining

2:40

of your lungs produce mucus,

2:42

which is this complicated substance.

2:45

And you've got these tiny little

2:47

hairs called cilia, which beat up

2:49

the mucus and lift it up

2:52

into our throat. So despite

2:54

Rose's question, we actually don't have any

2:56

choice in the matter. On a day

2:58

by day basis, mucus comes up, picks

3:01

up all the garbage, literally the physical

3:03

garbage in our lungs, takes

3:05

it into our throat, and we swallow it. Swallowing

3:07

my lung garbage. Swallowing your lung

3:10

garbage on a daily basis. And

3:12

breathing does it as well. So

3:14

then you've got a situation where

3:16

these cilia are really important for

3:18

health. And what

3:20

damages cilia is smoking. Any plants, doesn't

3:22

matter what the plant is, it

3:25

damages cilia. Air pollution damages your

3:27

cilia. And there's certain diseases that damage your

3:29

cilia. And when mucus

3:32

is not allowed to be circulated back

3:34

up into your throat, it

3:37

gathers, it gets

3:39

infected, and the lungs become inflamed,

3:42

and your lungs become damaged. That's

3:44

really interesting. So if you're smoking, you're

3:46

damaging those tiny hairs. And that's one

3:49

of the reasons why smoking can lead to

3:51

lung disease. Smoking is this vicious cycle where

3:53

the hairs get damaged, mucus production

3:55

isn't as good, it gets thicker, it's not

3:58

as fluid as it was. and

4:00

it gets stuck there and then

4:02

you get damage and inflammation which

4:04

then causes chronic bronchitis, open

4:07

up cavities in the lung, we warned you this

4:09

was adults only, and that's the

4:11

smoking cycle. And in fact, smoking plants

4:13

will do it, cannabis will do it

4:16

and inhaling fine particulates can do it.

4:19

So you mentioned that there's diseases that

4:21

can do this as well, so you

4:23

can damage a healthy cilia or

4:26

sometimes you said there's diseases that cause this

4:29

damage. Yeah, so the key here

4:31

with Rose's question is, we

4:33

don't know this is happening on a daily basis.

4:36

So this is all happening without us knowing it, this

4:39

gob is coming up, we

4:41

swallow it and we just

4:43

don't know about it. If you produce sputum,

4:46

then that's actually a sign of disease.

4:49

I've always heard that the

4:51

colour matters, like if

4:53

it's green that's bad and if it's

4:55

white that's okay. Yeah, and

4:58

parents of children want to know if stuff

5:00

coming out of their nose is green, does

5:02

that mean they need antibiotics? There's

5:05

very poor correlation between the colour

5:07

of your gob and

5:09

whether or not you need antibiotics. What

5:11

about if it's red? If it's

5:13

red, that's a sign that you absolutely need

5:15

to go and see your GP because

5:18

blood in your sputum is bad news.

5:20

So it can be an infection causing

5:22

blood and sputum, TB notoriously causes blood

5:24

and sputum, but cancer does too. It's

5:27

not a symptom you ignore. Okay,

5:29

so tuberculosis, it comes back to

5:31

Rose's question about whether you swallow

5:33

it or not. And I've

5:36

seen signs around saying like no spitting, it was

5:38

sort of a thing back in the day and

5:40

part of the reason for that was because of

5:42

tuberculosis. TB, absolutely. So

5:45

TB is highly infectious and

5:47

it can be spread by the sputum. It's

5:49

probably more spread through the air,

5:51

but there are rules and fines for

5:54

people who spat in

5:56

public. Lovely topic, but

5:58

the... I

8:00

am. I think you're pretty sanguine. I

8:02

think so too. They're the cool ones right. I

8:05

reckon you're choleric. Yeah, I'm very choleric. Yeah, I'm

8:07

not phlegmatic. Well,

8:09

yeah, being phlegmatic I think is associated with

8:12

being like relatively chill person. So maybe

8:14

maybe a bit more phlegm in your body is a good

8:16

thing after all. And I discovered something

8:18

that I had some people call this gob, by

8:20

the way, you know, you mentioned that before it

8:22

makes it sound even. Irony is one

8:25

of the cells that produce mucus in the

8:27

lungs called the goblet cell. So

8:29

that's obviously where it comes from. Game

8:31

set match. It's like it was meant to be.

8:33

So any parting words for Rose? For

8:35

Rose. Cough it up, Rose. Just keep on coughing

8:37

it up, clear those lungs. All right, cool. Rose,

8:40

did we answer your question? Yes, thank you very much.

8:43

So that was us at World Science

8:45

Festival Brisbane. And a reminder that it

8:47

was my sister who read the question

8:50

submitted by Rosie. She did not in fact

8:52

go to the event with COVID. Please don't at me. So

8:54

as always, we're getting a lot of feedback.

8:56

We've had a huge amount of feedback on

8:59

the so-called sleep elite, people who can get

9:01

by on not very many hours a day.

9:04

And we've had an email from

9:06

the assistant treasurer,

9:10

economist, Dr. Andrew

9:12

Lee. So some prefacing here.

9:14

So we did an episode on how to train

9:16

yourself. Is it possible to train yourself to sleep

9:18

less? And there was sort of a

9:20

bit of an addendum in there about a

9:23

small proportion of people who seem to be able to

9:25

get by on not very much sleep. And

9:27

a large proportion of our audience

9:29

seems to fall into this category

9:31

because we've gotten so many emails. Andrew

9:34

Lee writes, he was fascinated to

9:36

listen to our episode on the sleepless elite. And

9:39

he had no idea why

9:41

in the past, but he's quite comfortable with

9:43

six hours of sleep each night. If

9:46

he has less, he can replenish with a 15 minute

9:48

nap in the middle of the day. And

9:50

he is very productive. As you said, he

9:52

is a politician and economist

9:54

and he writes, and I

9:56

quote, I do a fair bit of exercise. on

10:00

to detail how he's done it,

10:02

his third Ironman triathlon and is

10:04

now training for the Canberra Ultra

10:06

Marathon 100K. That's a fair bit

10:08

of exercise I'd say. Yeah,

10:11

so six hours still seems to work, says Andrew.

10:13

Even if I'm doing two to four hours of

10:15

training a day, I

10:17

reply to Andrew Lee's email saying,

10:19

Andrew, why am I not surprised?

10:23

But Andrew's not the only person that has emailed

10:25

us about this because so, for people who

10:27

don't know, What's That Rush is a podcast

10:29

which you can and should listen to on

10:32

the ABC Listen app. And we also play

10:34

it as part of the Health Report on

10:36

the radio, which also plays in Canada on

10:39

their equivalent to the ABC there. And the time

10:41

that it plays in Canada is three o'clock in

10:43

the morning. And we have

10:45

had so many Canadians email

10:48

us about being sleepless at least.

10:50

It's almost self-defining. If

10:52

you're listening to us on CBC at

10:55

3am, then you're probably part

10:57

of the sleep elite. So we got an email

10:59

from Mark and Frank. They both said that they're

11:01

short sleepers and they never had any issues with

11:03

it. And Danny from British Columbia. Danny

11:06

says that they can run on six

11:08

hours sleep and has been an early

11:10

morning birder for much of their adult

11:12

life. They often wake up at 3am

11:14

and listen to the ABC and other

11:16

programs. And right now he's writing a

11:18

magazine article on birding in Portugal.

11:20

So I think we need to put Danny in

11:22

touch with Andrew Lee. They've obviously got things together.

11:24

So a big shout out for all our Canadian

11:26

listeners. There's actually quite a lot of Canadian listeners

11:29

and our podcast audience everywhere. And send

11:32

any questions to that thatrush at

11:34

abc.net.au. Subscribe, tell your friends about

11:36

it. Tell your friends about it.

11:38

About it. It's Canadian. About it.

11:41

About it. But we'll

11:43

get Sanne Kadar in, who's our colleague

11:45

on All in the Mind to give

11:47

us proper training in the Canadian accent. In time,

11:49

see you next week. See you then. you