ASM211 Nutritional Labels, Epigenetics and Environmental Burials

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nutritional labels epigenetics and environmental burials all that and more on this week's episode of ask sciencemic [Music] well hello my friends in the podcast world welcome back to another episode of ask science mike i'm your host my name is mike mccarg you may have inferred from the title of this program that people also call me science mike and this is a show that i do most weeks because i believe that every sincere question deserves an honest and non-judgmental response and that's what this show is about it's not about my expertise it's not a question answer show as much as a question and response because it seems to me like we're in a place in our culture and certainly in a lot of our subcultures where people don't always have an opportunity to ask questions from a genuine place of curiosity because of taboo or fear or shame and so this podcast is about that and we have got some really fun stuff in the pipeline with this podcast i had a meeting with caitlin who's the producer of this show this week and she's been talking with the whole team behind ass science mike and there are so many wonderful ideas we're going to move into some themed shows in the near future and you'll hear me talk about that in the coming weeks so i'm just so excited about this program and the time that i get to spend with all of you every week and speaking of time that i get to spend with you i do have an event coming up uh april 25th i'll be at the first christian church in tyler texas uh for an event uh that's actually a conference and you can learn more about that event by going to ask sciencemike.com and clicking on the events tab which by the way really soon maybe even by next week i will drop a huge list of events for the rest of the year uh so i'll be going lots of places and we will have plenty of time to spend together i also let you know based on that uh kind of previewing what we'll talk about with events uh it's a big year for me i've got a new book coming out this year and april 28th my new book you're a miracle and a pain in the ass comes out and uh it's a book about how hard it is to grow and change and accept ourselves and be an intimate relationship with other people and ways that we can find those things to be easier it's a book i absolutely adore that i worked really hard on and just minutes ago i got on my website and did a little light coding so they'd be easier for you to pre-order the book so if you go to ask sciencemic.com new book that'll take you straight to my publisher's website with links to like a gazillion different places that you can buy the book and for those of you who listen to the show you are like the heart of my community and my most ardent and faithful supporters and i just want to let you know that not only is this book great and i'm really proud of it but your pre-orders make a huge difference in the trajectory of the book so already you all have been pre-ordering a lot of books and when you do that retailers start deciding how many books they want to order total they decide where they're going to put them in the store it helps my publisher decide how much resources to put around the book launch so do consider pre-ordering the book if you're considering ordering it at all i will tell you for me it's a little weird this is my second book um the reception versus my first one has been pretty cool actually as i look at some of the metrics and measurements uh this far from out out from launch for this book compared to my first book there seems to be a bigger level of excitement and attention with this book than there was with my first one which certainly feels exciting uh so thank you all for being so kind honestly and so helpful and so encouraging um with all my work including the books i also uh we are on a real uh tear on ask science mike um you know i think the show is coming out more regularly thanks to the team that works on it and them guiding and helping me but i'm also seeing a lot of reviews come back in uh for the podcast for a while you would start but i didn't get a lot of reviews and the reviews help people find it so we had a just a bunch a bunch of reviews coming in january and uh they were so kind one that really struck me uh was from uh some of the d brookshire is their username and it says voice of reason well i don't always agree with science mike on personal issues he brings a voice of reason to hard topics and breaks down difficult topics into very digestible information uh gosh what a kind thing to say and i do strive to my goal is to not get you to agree with me but to help you understand things and make your own choices which we will really lean into as we get into this show this week because you asked some very very difficult uh topics here's another uh review from um eric berger is the uh the the username these are not people's names these are just little nicknames they give themselves on itunes and it says one of the best shows for sparking curiosity i can't think of another podcast that i've listened to that covers such a wide range of topics in his gentle atone as this one i've been listening to the podcast for the past three years and has had a profound impact in pushing me to think about my worldview and how it could be more inclusive thank you oh all right that's uh just had to take a moment to take that in i always like to cry in the first five minutes of the podcast so your reviews uh they they really help people find the show i've noticed that downloads are going up and the reviews are a big part of that so if you if you enjoy this this this space that we have together and you want it to grow and more people to be involved a review on itunes and apple podcast is a great way to do that and then finally of course don't forget to send in your questions so you ask sciencemike.com you can send emails that you write out via the website you can record a voicemail that goes to the team and that's how the shows questions uh happen people send them in and then the patrons they all vote they pick the questions that that make it to you every week sometimes they pick questions i would have never picked by the way including uh this week because they're too hard um but yeah that's that's uh this is your show so you decide where it goes by what questions that you send in and then the patrons work together to really apply the editorial lens they're the ones who uh pick how the show is structure which by the way if you want to join the patrons you can do that on ask sciencemike.com as well we have a lot of fun together uh so what do you say let's get it started hi science mike this is robbie and i'm calling you from the netherlands first let me say i really appreciate your work and perspective and it's helped me in many ways over the last few years as i've worked through my own journey in reforming my personal world view my question today is a very personal one as it involves my 12 year old son who my wife and i adopted at birth ever since he was a baby he struggled with behavioral issues and we've struggled to understand what often feels like an alternate reality that he inhabits the specific challenges are too complex and numerous to share here but my question is about a recent explanation we received from a new psychiatrist he is seeing he spoke to us about the concept of epigenetics which is a field that studies how the supporting structures around the dna can cause certain traits to be either suppressed or enhanced based on the environment and that this metadata can sometimes be inherited in other words my son's behavior is very likely inherited based on the stressful environment of his birth parents i'd never heard of this before but the explanation seems to fit the evidence so i'm very curious to hear your perspective on this thanks again for all you do well robbie um i listened to your question in order to research it as i always do and i focused on the epigenetics component but now that i'm listening again i hear parents who love their child and are having a hard time and i don't want to skip over that that sounds really difficult it sounds like you're in a process of searching for solutions to a difficult problem as a parent and i just wanted to take a moment to give that some space i think that many people can identify with that and i'm happy to offer you a little bit of amateur research into epigenetics as that is helpful and as you've asked i wanted to call out first the far more important topic and that's the love and affection that you have for your child is obvious in your question now as i did a little not a little a lot of research i'm really into epigenetics this is something i've already studied in pretty significant detail this was going to be a pretty sizable part of the book that i have coming out in april but it ended up getting cut pretty early in the process um epigenetics is kind of a newer thing in science and in biology and it's the study of changes in organisms or life forms that are caused by the modification of gene expression rather than the alteration of genetic code itself so it's distinct from genetics in that it's like the mechanisms that surround genetics and the expression of genes and epigenetics allows cells to do things in response to the environment so for example it allows cells to differentiate between despite having the same dna so you have brain cells and skin cells and muscle cells and they have the same dna yet they're different types of cells epigenetics is what enables that they also handle structural issues for a cell for example dna would be too long to fit in a cell so there are epigenetic mechanisms that keep it folded up so that it can stay inside of a cell's nucleus which is neat you want your dna inside your cells and not outside or sticking through the cell membrane that would be a disaster uh so epigenetic factors do that um and we're learning that epigenetic factors seem to allow cells in a given organism to respond to environmental pressures which is actually makes a lot of sense you know there are there are animals in the world that don't have nervous systems multicellular animals there's not many but there are a few multicellular organisms that don't have nerves at all and yet they can respond to environmental pressures epigenetics plays a role in that and scientists have identified that environmental pressures on complex organisms specifically human beings they do play an epigenetic role so we have seen the way for example that famine affects epigenetics and gene expression in humans and we've also seen that child abuse affects epigenetics and therefore impacts gene expression so that's a that's a big deal um and that is relatively new science now when we get to the question of heredity in epigenetics the picture gets less clear you know if we were to ask the question are epigenetic traits passed down my answer would be maybe it's important to note that the science of inherited or heritable epigenetics is new and we know that it's possible for epigenetic markers and cells to show up and be transmitted to human sperm and egg cells from the organism producing them but it seems like those markers get reset when those cells combine when you have germination there's this moment where everything kind of gets reset and so the question is are there exceptions to that that would allow epigenetic transmission and you will hear people speak with great confidence that this occurs and they do that because some studies do seem to indicate epigenetic inheritance occurs and yet other studies of similar rigor and methodological soundness don't support that so we have conflicting findings and so this is an unanswered question in the sciences and one that has a lot of studies in progress i would imagine that at some future date um i don't know if that's five years or 25 years will have a much much better understanding of epigenetic inheritance now but back to your question separate from inheritance it is less of a stretch to say that factors that happened during prenatal development and environmental stressors especially for the mother could impact epigenetic factors and therefore impact gene expression that is plausible for sure now what do you do about that as a parent now that's difficult i'm glad that you're talking to the right professional support team to work through those factors if you're curious and want to dig a little deeper i have four pretty good resources that i'll include on the show notes at sciencemike.com this week so that you can dig deeper into epigenetics and how they impact our gene expression and how especially in early childhood those things occur [Music] this episode of ask science mike was brought to you by betterhelp one of the long-standing sponsors of the program and i love better help actually right after this recording session i have an appointment with my counselor on betterhelp i am a paying subscriber to the service now what is betterhelp betterhelp is a solution to the problem of trying to find a therapist they're an online counseling service that works with over 6 000 licensed therapists in the united states and beyond specializing in all the kinds of challenges we face in our life like grief or dealing with anger or relationship problems lgbtq issues all the kind of problems that we face in life better health has qualified counselors to help you with here's how it works if you go to betterhelp.com sciencemike they'll take you through a questionnaire that will match you with a counselor you will enjoy working with and what if you don't that's no problem better help will let you change your counselor at any time with no questions asked and one of my favorite things about betterhelp is the fact that they offer their services on a sliding scale to make them accessible to everyone so you can enjoy 10 off your first month's service with better help by going to betterhelp.com sciencemic today to get started on a new you [Music] our next question came in via email and it reads i spend a lot of time of my life close to people who are dying or mourning i spend a lot of mental energy thinking of our mother earth and i've recently been thinking a lot about soil and healthy soil composition i think it's because of these things that i find myself wondering over and over again is the fact that we don't return our bodies to the soil impacting the environment are we truly supposed to honor the idea of from dust to dust i know there are public health reasons that are impacted the way we do burials now i think cremation is a more environmentally responsible thing to do but this question turns around on a loop for me so i'm hoping you might have insight and that you haven't already answered it quinn quinn i have no idea if i've answered this question my memory of the program's uh questions is not good you know we're we're getting into the 200s on episodes most episodes have had four or more questions and then uh it's a lot of questions um so i don't know if i've answered this on the program or not but not recently enough that i can recall so um we'll we'll dig through it i've thought about this a lot too um there's no question that the way we handle burials in the united states is troublesome it is very expensive first of all which is an economic hardship on people that i don't think should be subjected to at such a difficult time embalming chemicals are gross they're not just gross they're uh they're toxic they're actually toxic and uh we put a lot of embalming fluid in bodies to prepare them for burial um and this is all part of the ritual of having you know a wake or a visitation or a viewing of the body embalming chemicals make that um more palatable although 32 percent of people um indicate that they don't find that to be a positive experience even with embalming um which is interesting that's a that's a high percentage um and so we embalm a body and we we then put it in a coffin and then bury it eventually uh formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals do make it into the ground soil and potentially into the ground water over time so that's troublesome cremation has its own problems one crematoriums don't typically have very good filtration systems on their exhaust so they release a lot of carbon they also release mercury into the atmosphere so neither of the most common ways that we handle our remains following death are environmentally sound or friendly now why do we do it this way it is a profit center for a major industry um and i i don't i wouldn't mean that in a way uh to you know minimize the hard work that anyone working for a funeral home does um i'm not accusing any particular person of acting in bad faith here what i'm doing is describing a system of which the outcomes aren't great um so in my opinion the most environmentally sound way to handle human remains is just direct burial so that's a minimal uh casket or a burial shroud um that the body's lowered into a grave and buried and there's not health risks associated with that the cdc has validated that um the current process is mainly centered around you know being able to see a loved one who has died again before they're buried and we just have to ask ourselves each person um is that our wish um and i think it's on each person to make that decision for themselves and to leave a clear directive in their will for their families i don't want my family to undergo significant burial expenses i don't want to be cremated i don't want to be embalmed i'd prefer a simple direct burial to save money and to lower my environmental impact and that's important to me and i've made that choice so i think you're on to something here about impact on soil now i think in terms of things that impact our soil we have much bigger fish to fry and climate change and deforestation desertification uh there are many many more problems uh industrial agriculture and monoculture and crops poor crop rotation cycles the soil is under many many threats more significant than human burial but it's still something we're thinking about and it's something you have a lot of control direct control over because whatever you put in your will typically is what will happen to your remains when you die so i i do laud you for thinking about this it's something i've thought about a lot as well and i've got two links in the show notes here on this question this will be episode 211 of ask science mike [Music] hello science mike i was wondering how accurate are the nutrition labels on the backs of food products when something says it has 100 calories is there some kind of acceptable standard deviation that it might have 110 or 90 how accurate are those things and who is looking out for that kind of stuff thanks so much nutritional labels on our food uh is handled by the food and drug administration in the united states and there are they do so in accordance with the law called the nutrition labeling and education act of 1990 and that made a standardized format for specific nutrients to be reported on food labels um and they're wildly imprecise um and that's i don't think that's some big conspiracy i think in order to be flexible the fda allowed five different methods to estimate calories and understanding that that was an inexact science they allow a variance of up to 20 um and this makes some sense for example how many calories are in an apple do you have to you know create a unique label for every apple or for a pack of apples um that would be very difficult apples vary in size and so immediately even if we had a very accurate count we know that a given apple or carrot or sweet potato will have different amounts of calories the same thing for something like steak how marbled it is it's going to wildly impact the amount of calories in a given piece of that steak um so we have we have a lot of variants here and that means we can actually have a variance of beyond twenty percent uh because of the variance in the food item so when you take the twenty percent allowed for two apples to be the exact same size and then add the difference you can have in the size of apples or in the the fatty content in a piece of meat you're getting up to a 50 variance in calories now that's a lot uh we also have the issue of even if we have you know a fairly accurate label we don't absorb all of the calories that we consume so depending on the food item um you're gonna you're gonna actually absorb less calories than is on the label which you know some people might view as good um and sometimes you'll you'll absorb more so for things like nuts you tend to absorb a smaller amount but for high fiber vegetables you absorb more and then when we cook food cooking dramatically increases the amount of calories in a food that are available for us to absorb with our bodies so the act of cooking food raises the effective calories of a piece of food beyond what was measured because it was sold raw right and then you add on that that you know these these portion sizes on the labels are specific and when we eyeball that we do a really bad job very consistently um if you ask someone to get a teaspoon of peanut butter a tablespoon of peanut butter and they eyeball that they're gonna do a pretty bad job of it right so that's that's normal and to be expected so you know i understand nutritional labels are important i do look at nutritional labels but not for calories i tend to look for the amount of fiber that's in food and the amount of sugar and the amount of nutrients i don't know you know i personally uh i've done the calorie counting model i've used it to lose a lot of weight where i meticulously track my portion sizes and the amount of calories in food and then we have calories that i'm spending and exercises and exercising and it's exhausting and it's not sustainable i lost like 100 pounds that way and i gained a bunch back real yoyo cycle because you you just get tired of it and you get inaccurate so then you have to add another factor which i always did i would estimate the amount of calories consuming and burning and then i would use regular trend analysis of my weight on the scale over time to see how much i needed to tighten or loosen my calorie intake and see how much i needed to change my physical exercise regimen a very very data-driven approach that just for me was not sustainable so even though i know there's variance in what the labels allow i understand the legal framework that the fda is working with and the food companies in compliance with the fda i've just given up on that whole cycle [Music] these days i just i've gone to a mostly plant-based diet i do a lot of plant fiber i don't do added sugars or simple carbs or i try to do so in a very limited way i don't weigh myself anymore because i've seen having a daughter who struggled with anorexia and understanding i have some of my own tendencies to try to control my food intake on a kind of obsessive basis the scale is a bad thing for me i just take a measuring tape go around my belly button once a week that kind of gives me an estimate of oh wow maybe uh maybe i'm eating popeye's fried chicken sandwiches more than i thought or or something some some kind of external accountability and then i just i dropped the whole calorie thing completely i don't pay any attention to how many calories i eat and i don't pay any attention to how many calories i burn in exercise i just try to be physically active and i eat a lot of fibrous vegetables a bit of fruit and very very sparingly eat meat until i'm full and i've gotten off the hunger cycle the it is true there's no way around it calories in calories out works it's physics right if you burn more calories than you consume you will lose weight if you flip it you'll gain weight over time for sure but what i'm learning is the type of calories matter a lot in our health and how hungry we feel i realized now that i've had heart problems and i was on the way to diabetes and i made these diet changes i realized i was never hungry ever i had blood sugar crashes that made me miserable and could only be addressed by eating but i didn't actually have hunger i'm learning now that when i don't eat foods that are high in sugar or simple carbohydrates and replace them with foods that are high in dietary fiber i just don't really get hungry ever and so when i sit down to eat a meal it's satisfying and i enjoy it and i eat until i'm full and then i i really don't have to think about food until i sit down to eat again and i can feel that difference you know if i uh if i go to a nice restaurant and i eat bread and i eat i drink a cocktail i really really really like old fashions and they they have just straight up sugar water added to them it tastes great but then i get that kind of blood sugar fluctuation later and i'll get i'll start craving those foods that don't support my health goals as well again so i have to be really mindful of that you know i'm gonna go to a restaurant tonight my mom's in town and i know i'm gonna have an old fashioned and i know that a couple hours after dinner i'm gonna want ice cream or something and it's going to be this varying sugar in my bloodstream and so we have to be careful with a calorie-centered approach to eating and i've gotten just a lot more comfortable with um just ignoring calories and my health outcomes have really improved from that i i think the type of calories we eat is just a lot more important now finally i recognize that voice i don't play a role in picking the questions for the program but i am delighted when i hear friends and uh that is my friend cameron who asked that question and is the dungeon master in a weekly game of dungeons and dragons uh that i play uh with some listeners of the liturgist podcast uh so it was great to hear your your voice cam and uh i'll talk to you again soon and thanks for the great question [Music] our last question came in via email and it reads hi mike and team thanks for all you do i'm wondering if you could help us compare and contrast the various plans and proposals that each presidential candidate has put forward each plan sounds great in a vacuum but it's difficult to differentiate between each plan there are just so many important details and data to wade through i know you're not but if you could imagine that you were a single issue voter focused exclusively on climate change which plan or candidate would you find the most compelling thanks for your time and effort zach zach i did not want to answer this question at all this is a really hard question this is a tremendous opportunity for people to get angry with me for having my own opinions because people get really charged when we talk about politics and i think honestly rightly so the stakes are high for people right now especially people of color in american politics it also this question isolates our international listeners a little bit i know you all get tired of hearing about what's happening in the united states but i'm going to answer the question because that's how the show works it is a sincere question i can tell by reading it that it's sincere and that means it deserves an honest and non-judgmental response so that is what you're going to get from me today zach i'll start at the end if i was a single issue voter on climate i probably would have voted for jay inslee because jay had a terrific plan for climate unfortunately jay inslee is no longer in the race also jay ensley was never my front runner um i'm just gonna tell you you asked this is just my opinion i can't help you compare all the plans in detail that would be um we would probably need a show per candidate as a series and suddenly this would be a politics podcast which might be fun you know uh william matthews and i kicked around the idea of doing a politics podcast together and and if our schedules allow someday we might do that i think it'd be a lot of fun i love talking politics with william but um in the meantime i just don't think we have the bandwidth and i i i think it's important that i enable you to do your own research and not just get you convince you that my process for going through their platforms is best i'll tell you in the beginning of the primary i was torn between kamala harris and elizabeth warren why were those my candidates number one i want a woman president you'd be like what we're selecting president based on gender science mike how is that objective i just think it's time i think our collective imagination we need to see people other than white men in the presidency as an a form of imagination casting and storytelling for our culture it tell it sends a message message to our world uh we've had one president who's not a white guy and he was a black man and that's it it's just white guys i am ready to see a woman in the highest office in the land assuming there are qualified women i wouldn't vote for a woman who is not qualified to be president but here's the great news there's literally millions of women who are qualified to be president of the united states literally millions so uh that we don't have to worry that we're in some way compromising by intentionally choosing a woman there are a lot of women qualified to be president and so i looked at kamala harris and elizabeth warren i had two different approaches for kamala harris i thought she would be an extraordinary president i thought that she agreed with enough of the progressive positions that i value while her background as a prosecutor would allow her to appeal to voters who aren't me i represent a very tiny slice of the electorate i am a very very very very far left voter i'm extremely progressive these days not only on social issues but on notions of economics and i represent that i understand that i don't represent any kind of majority or plurality of the american public so being pragmatic i thought cambly harris was someone who would get me a lot of what i wanted in policy but also be plausible to more voters and then didn't happen so then there's elizabeth warren who when i look at her platform just agrees with me the most she just is the closest to me on the issues now she is to the right of me to be clear i told you i'm wildly progressive but elizabeth warren i just thought she has really detailed plans she's articulate she's intelligent she seems like a good leader and she's not doing great in polling right now uh but it's still right now at this stage in the game it does feel like uh there's there's four or five candidates who could plausibly get there and when i've looked at projections right now no one having a majority of the vote is almost as likely as any one person getting a majority vote by the time of the democratic convention so that means i'm still kind of hanging in there for liz um i've got my my mail-in ballot for the california primary on my desk and i haven't bubbled in the president yet i'm gonna see how the next couple of primaries go but i'm i'm almost certainly gonna vote for liz um i like i like bernie i get a little concerned um with the energy around bernie's campaign um i don't know there's there's some online abuse from bernie supporters of the people supporting other candidates um i like bernie bernie supporters sometimes make me uncomfortable i'll just name that i'm not particularly interested in a biden presidency but i also i'm very concerned about donald trump as as our president uh and so i will absolutely regardless of how the primary plays out whoever gets the nomination on the democratic side i will enthusiastically support because wow i'm sorry i think president trump is extraordinarily dangerous in american society and i know that there are political conservatives and theological conservatives who listen to this program and you disagree with me and you have a right to but it is my opinion that donald trump is extremely dangerous now the heart of your question was about being overwhelmed with data there's all these candidates with all these policies how do you compare them and how do you see which ones line up best with your beliefs so i have one two three four five links in the show notes on this one that are going to help you dig through that where in a single article you don't see the plans in a vacuum but you see the plans compared and a presidential quiz that you can fill out from i side with it's pretty good uh that will help you score the candidates on issues that you personally care about and what i like about the i side with quiz is they include how they got the result and links for you to go research more to see if you agree with their assessment of your choices so you have my picks and i would encourage you to ignore them and instead use the resources down at the bottom of this page to um to go make your own decision and now for those of you listening who like donald trump i'm amazed that you listen i have not been shy with my distaste for this president or the way that i think this president represents a significant threat to all kinds of people who have some kind of marginalized identity to people of color to women to lgbtq people to immigrants including legal immigrants or as i would typically say documented immigrants regardless of whether you support trump or not there are credible concerns that our current president is trying to invite foreign powers into our electoral process and that the integrity of our voting system and therefore our democracy democracy is starting to come into question and that is very very troubling so the most important thing to me is that in 2020 voter turnout is very high that people from both parties participate in the process and that we all send a message to our elected leaders of both parties that voter interference is not okay so we've just had this fight in the senate about impeachment and i want to make sure that we turn the table on that and we make it a public dialogue again about what we will and won't allow in our democratic process so trump got acquitted he did not get impeached and what i don't want to see happen is the republicans and especially the trump administration to take that as a signal that tampering with elections is okay or politicizing the justice system is okay because that is not okay and is a significant and even existential threat to american democracy so if you support trump fine support trump and hold trump and republicans accountable for meddling in the election process because only you can donald trump and the republicans in the senate do not care what i as a california liberal has to say about the way they participate in democracy they will only listen to you my dear friends who support donald trump [Music] and you've survived another episode of ask science mike thank you so much for listening it is such a joy for me to speak with you every week i want to thank andrew golucki greg nordine caitlyn hermstad and brett cradle for their involvement in ask science mike i want to thank my patrons for making the show possible and thank you for listening i can't wait to speak with you next week