0:01

Opposits attract. That's why the sleep number

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couples. You can each choose what's right

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for you. Whenever you like. You like

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to feel warm. Sleep number does that

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and Hawaii. Exclusively at a sleep number

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store near you. See store or sleep? I'm

0:31

for details. Share your

0:33

perspective. Time for that

0:36

big appointment with the naked

0:38

scientist. It's 936. And of course,

0:41

your opportunity to get those questions

0:43

that keep you out of sleep

0:45

at night. Welcome back, Dr. Chris

0:48

Smith. I missed you. Yeah, well

0:50

I could say the same to

0:52

you. You've been a wife for

0:55

quite a while. Where have you

0:57

been off to then? You missed

1:00

class. I did. and

2:12

AB, so we've got four main

2:15

blood groups. Some animals, like dogs and

2:17

sheep, have many more. And

2:19

it's all down to the markers. There

2:21

are sugar molecules on the surfaces

2:23

of our blood cells that the immune

2:25

system can recognise. Those sugar molecules

2:27

are encoded in our genes and you

2:29

inherit your genes from your parents

2:31

and depending upon what constellation of genes

2:33

you inherit, you have a different

2:35

blood group, same for those other animals

2:38

I mentioned. So we have different

2:40

blood groups just because of genetic diversity.

2:42

There's a range of different people

2:44

in the population with different genetic make

2:46

-ups. We happened to, as humans, have

2:48

centred on those four potential groups with

2:50

two markers, A and B, and out

2:52

of those A's and B's we make

2:54

the four blood groups because you can

2:56

have all A or all B or

2:58

neither A nor B, and that's group

3:00

O, or a mixture of A and

3:02

B, which is how you get the

3:04

four groups and they're encoded by our

3:06

genetics. And then a question

3:08

from Lou to Dr. Smith. What is

3:10

the chemical composition of libido and

3:12

how does it affect men and

3:15

women in different age groups? How

3:17

can it be improved and what

3:19

products do you recommend for improvement

3:21

from Lou? Lou, the

3:23

normal driver for your sex

3:25

drive, otherwise known as libido,

3:28

is testosterone, or hormones

3:30

that have an androgenic effect like testosterone.

3:32

It's a myth that women don't

3:34

have testosterone, only men have that. Both

3:36

men and women have testosterone, but

3:38

women have much lower levels of it

3:40

than men do. They're more sensitive

3:42

to its effects, but the amount of

3:44

testosterone is strongly linked to your

3:46

sex drive. And if you have no

3:48

testosterone, you have a loss of

3:50

libido. If you have too much testosterone,

3:52

this doesn't mean you have an

3:54

uber libido. It can actually have the

3:56

opposite effect. And people who abuse

3:58

sex steroids like - do body

4:00

building, it can shrink your testes. So

4:02

do be mindful of that before you

4:05

go abusing testosterone. But the way it

4:07

works is that this is a hormone,

4:09

it goes into the brain, and it

4:12

goes to parts of the brain, particularly

4:14

the hypotheramus, and the hypotheramus is concerned

4:16

with a lot of unconscious thoughts and

4:18

control, and it stimulates various aspects that

4:21

are concerned with, say, reproduction. and that

4:23

makes us have our sex drive. And

4:25

as you get older your testosterone level

4:28

falls, you tend to find that therefore

4:30

the libido falls in sync. So things

4:32

that push up the testosterone level will

4:35

increase libido again, but there are many

4:37

factors to this. It's not just down

4:39

to one particular hormone, one single hormone

4:41

in women. Estragen also plays a role

4:44

because it keeps everything well nourished with

4:46

blood and this means if you lose

4:48

your estragen supply, things can become a

4:51

bit more uncomfortable. which can put people

4:53

off and in men also you can

4:55

lose the ability to perform because as

4:58

you get older if you have damage

5:00

to blood vessels and this is all

5:02

about blood flow If you have damage

5:04

to blood vessels, this can also lead

5:07

to impaired performance, which can also affect

5:09

your libido psychologically. So there's a healthy

5:11

helping of both hormones, but also psychology

5:14

in this and aging. So best advice

5:16

is a healthy body gives your healthy

5:18

mind and healthy body. So eating well,

5:21

exercising well, keeping your blood vessels healthy.

5:23

but those those go so far you

5:25

might need a bit of hormonal help

5:27

if you get beyond a certain age

5:30

and if you are noticing a change

5:32

male or female it's worth getting your

5:34

hormone levels tested because if they are

5:37

wildly off kilter usually too low you

5:39

can take supplements to push them back

5:41

up artificial forms those hormones which can

5:44

reset the balance a bit and can

5:46

restore normality for you. Then a question

5:48

from Keith. Keith wants to know, do

5:50

you get tipsy quicker or does it

5:53

just feel like it when you're drinking

5:55

alcohol on an aeroplane in the air?

5:57

The claim is you do get drunk.

6:00

different rate. There's claims, I'm not sure

6:02

if it's just apocryphal or true, that

6:04

people down in Russia who used to

6:07

drink vodka in these deep minds did

6:09

not get inebriated to the same extent

6:11

as when they then came back to

6:13

the surface and all of the alcohol

6:16

then produced the effect and the reverse

6:18

being true on an airplane the higher

6:20

you go the more quickly you get

6:23

drunk. I'm not sure if that's actually

6:25

true or it's just claimed. There are

6:27

some suggestions that in fact this this

6:30

can make a difference because the way

6:32

in which the alcohol partitions between the

6:34

bloodstream and into your nervous system... produces

6:36

effects may well differ with pressure and

6:39

may well also differ with the tension

6:41

of other gases like oxygen. And so

6:43

it might be that you drive more

6:46

alcohol into the blood and then out

6:48

of the blood into your tissues under

6:50

different pressure and other gas concentrations. But

6:52

I'm not sure I've seen any evidence

6:55

that how true this isn't actually seen

6:57

this put to the test. So I

6:59

think this is an excellent opportunity for

7:02

me to do a bit of homework.

7:04

I'm going to take this away and

7:06

see what the actual evidence is for

7:08

this, because I have heard the claim,

7:10

but whether it's actually really true and

7:13

true in a really functional way, as

7:15

in you can really see a difference

7:17

or whether it's just a very subtle

7:19

effect. I don't know, and I'm going

7:22

to go and have a look. Dr.

7:24

Chris, how long is an artificial

7:26

valve for the heart meant to

7:28

last? Can it be replaced more

7:31

than once? It definitely can. many

7:33

different types of artificial valves. There

7:35

are some valves which are based

7:38

on animal tissue. They usually use

7:40

the pericardium, the outer tough coating

7:42

of the heart, usually from a

7:45

pig, which you form new leaflets

7:47

which form a new valve

7:49

because they have a characteristic

7:51

very similar to your native

7:53

valve. Those are pig-heart pericardium

7:56

valves. They have a shorter lifetime

7:58

than metal valves. The difference is

8:01

that the pericardium tends to be

8:03

not needing any kind of thinning

8:05

of the blood, or to a

8:07

much greater, much lesser extent. If

8:09

you have one of these metal

8:11

valves, which have a longer lifetime,

8:13

you do have to make sure

8:15

you stay on blood thinners. Historically,

8:17

we've always used wafrin for this.

8:19

This can be a headache to

8:21

control, and you have to make

8:23

sure you get the limits. set

8:25

just right so that you don't

8:27

over thin the blood or under

8:29

thin the blood but because these

8:31

things are much more robust they

8:33

tend to last longer they absolutely

8:35

can be replaced sometimes we have

8:37

to replace them because they get

8:39

infected other times we have to

8:41

replace them just because they wear

8:44

out because you think how many

8:46

times your heart beats in a

8:48

day it beats about once a

8:50

second so every hour it's done

8:52

3,600 beats in a day times

8:54

that by about well let's go

8:56

20 you're doing tens of thousands

8:58

of beats a day and over

9:00

a year it's millions of beats

9:02

so these things have to be

9:04

very robust and they do eventually

9:06

clap out and it just goes

9:08

to show how good your own

9:10

native heart is when you think

9:12

that the average person who doesn't

9:14

have a heart valve replacement gets

9:16

through their whole expected lifetime of

9:18

75 to 85 years and this

9:20

thing never goes wrong until obviously

9:22

the day you die which is

9:24

just extraordinary as a piece of

9:26

bio engineering if only we could

9:29

match that and we're trying. Then

9:31

Kay O'Neill has sent this voice

9:33

note. Let's take a listen Joe.

9:35

This is Neil from Somerset West.

9:37

If Dr Chris needs a volunteer

9:39

to test getting drunk in different

9:41

conditions, I'm his man. I've already

9:43

beaten you to it. I'm going

9:45

to get started straight after the

9:47

show. Okay, it's got a K.

9:49

Morning question for Dr Chris. Do

9:51

taste but change or is the

9:53

taste different. the high with the

9:55

high altitude. For example, there was

9:57

an article saying that flavors of

9:59

food that is offered on airplanes

10:01

are enhanced to make the flavor.

10:03

because the higher the altitude. the

10:05

more the taste bars are affected

10:07

so the taste is different with

10:09

the higher altitude. Fascinating, I just

10:12

thought it was bad food Dr.

10:14

Chris. He's absolutely right that the

10:16

aircraft companies do tend to choose

10:18

menus which have stronger flavours and

10:20

they very often put spicier ingredients

10:22

into foods. If you notice you

10:24

tend to have those sorts of

10:26

spicy ingredients more often on airplane

10:28

food than you might perhaps anticipate

10:30

and the reason for this is...

10:32

in studies people have found that

10:34

there is a dulling of your

10:36

sense of smell and taste when

10:38

you fly. Now you might say,

10:40

oh this is something to do

10:42

with the pressure. They pressurize the

10:44

aircraft so it's at an altitude

10:46

of close to the ground. It's

10:48

not ground level, it's about 7,000

10:50

feet, but it's certainly not the

10:52

hugely high altitude that the rest

10:54

of the plane is experiencing outside.

10:57

So we don't think it's down

10:59

to just the pressure. Psychologists think

11:01

that the reason food tends to

11:03

be a less enjoyable experience in

11:05

an aircraft is because of the

11:07

environment. Often it's a bit cramped

11:09

and fancy business class. Often it's

11:11

very noisy. and also you can

11:13

have very dry air on an

11:15

aircraft with hundreds of people sharing

11:17

that air it's filtered and all

11:19

the water is scrubbed out of

11:21

it because people are breathing out

11:23

liters of water during a long

11:25

flight and the place would be

11:27

saturated in a wash with water

11:29

by the time you got to

11:31

your destination if you didn't do

11:33

this. So therefore the air we're

11:35

breathing is dry, it's bit artificial,

11:37

there's lots of noise, there's lots

11:39

of other things that would make

11:42

your dining experience less... fun and

11:44

less enjoyable, this has the effect

11:46

of detracting from the prominence and

11:48

the attention you would normally focus

11:50

just on the eating experience. And

11:52

for this reason, we think that

11:54

this distracting effect makes the food

11:56

taste less good and you don't

11:58

enjoy or experience it in quite

12:00

the same way. So by putting

12:02

stronger flavors in and using other...

12:04

psychological tricks. What do you do?

12:06

You give people stronger flavoured wines

12:08

if you're in business class nice

12:10

heavy cutlery and fancy kind of

12:12

nice heavy crockery and that kind

12:14

of thing and this has the

12:16

effect of reinforcing the dining experience

12:18

and people tend to say all

12:20

the food was lovely when I

12:22

had ex-wise because it uses the

12:24

psychology to reinforce the dining experience

12:27

and focus your attention back on

12:29

the food flavours and the the

12:31

food overall so you enjoy it

12:33

more. So I don't think it

12:35

is that the altitude affects your

12:37

taste buds. so much as the

12:39

other factors diminish your ability to

12:41

enjoy your dining experience the way

12:43

you otherwise would, you can compensate

12:45

for this by making the food

12:47

stronger flavors and spicier, which activates

12:49

other parts of the sensory system,

12:51

like your sensory nerves in your

12:53

tongue and mouth. And another voice,

12:55

nothing, from Geno, let's go there

12:57

Joe. Dr Smith, I just wondering

12:59

choir. I am moving over to

13:01

Superfoods, Mauringa, Cheer Seeds. Florida, or

13:03

what I'm saying right, Spirillina, Macha,

13:05

and mainly to avoid taking multivitiments.

13:07

There's obviously precautions, but is that

13:10

way better to get the full

13:12

spectrum of my micros and micros,

13:14

I would take it, if you

13:16

have any more information? So I

13:18

guess the question is, should I

13:20

take multivitamins or isn't that what

13:22

food is for? And the answer

13:24

is, it's the latter. We've evolved

13:26

over millions of years and our

13:28

ancestors for millions of years before

13:30

that in order to get all

13:32

of the things we need to

13:34

be as healthy as we possibly

13:36

can and we've selected ourselves during

13:38

our evolutionary time to get these

13:40

sorts of micro nutrients from our

13:42

diets. Now this is not to

13:44

say, there aren't people living on

13:46

earth who for reasons often of

13:48

poverty, but perhaps the environment they

13:50

live in, who might have a

13:52

diet that is deficient in... things

13:55

and they will definitely benefit if

13:57

this is identified from having supplementation

13:59

of things like iron if they

14:01

don't have enough meat in their

14:03

diet or they eat things that

14:05

are poor in iron they might

14:07

be a shorter vitamin A for

14:09

example people who don't eat enough

14:11

fresh fruit and vegetables don't access

14:13

those might be be vitamin division

14:15

people with deficiencies they can definitely

14:17

benefit from some kind of supplementation.

14:19

But if you have access to

14:21

a healthy diet and you can

14:23

represent all the main food groups

14:25

at the right amounts and in

14:27

the right frequencies to have a

14:29

healthy diet, you will definitely be

14:31

much better off in terms of

14:33

being replete with all the right

14:35

vitamins and micro nutrients than someone

14:37

popping a pill. Because pills are

14:40

one thing, but they are not

14:42

the way that your body has

14:44

evolved to acquire these things. They're

14:46

in the wrong context at the

14:48

wrong times. And all they do,

14:50

as some cynics have said to

14:52

me, is turn these pills into

14:54

very expensive urine, because many of

14:56

these vitamins do not stay long-term

14:58

in the body. They are water-soluble

15:00

and you weave them down the

15:02

toilet. Most of them, because the

15:04

body just ditches all this excess

15:06

stuff it doesn't need. And so

15:08

you're paying a lot of money

15:10

for these supplements, and they just

15:12

turn into expensive urine. So, eat

15:14

a healthy diet. It obviously takes

15:16

steps to supplement the thing you're

15:18

deficient for, but otherwise just get

15:20

your food from your diet. Just

15:23

get your vitamins and nutrients from

15:25

the food. That's what it's for.

15:27

Jordi wants to know what scientists

15:29

call the area beyond space. And

15:31

is there an actual physical end

15:33

to space? No. This universe that

15:35

we're living in is everything. It's

15:37

13.8 billion years old and in

15:39

fact this week there was an

15:41

amazing paper I spoke to the

15:43

guy yesterday who did the work

15:45

who has seen one of the

15:47

first galaxies in the universe just

15:49

a few hundred million years after

15:51

the Big Bang when our universe

15:53

started. It was an amazing piece

15:55

of work and they used the

15:57

James Webb Space Telescope to see

15:59

all the way back. light that's

16:01

been traveling to us for 13.5

16:03

billion years. It's absolutely incredible. And

16:05

you can see these initial galaxies

16:08

glowing very hot and very bright,

16:10

but it was from that point

16:12

that the universe has grown and

16:14

expanded ever since, and we know

16:16

the universe continues to expand, and

16:18

it's expanding faster. as it grows.

16:20

We don't know exactly why we

16:22

invoke a concept called dark energy,

16:24

which is that as you make

16:26

more universe, more space, you get

16:28

more dark energy and the dark

16:30

energy is pushing things apart faster.

16:32

So the faster you go, the

16:34

faster it grows. And therefore the

16:36

universe is inflating and expanding all

16:38

the time. and that may carry

16:40

on infinitely, which means that even

16:42

if you could travel at the

16:44

speed of light, you'd never get

16:46

to the edge of the universe,

16:48

because it will have already outgrown

16:50

you by the time you got

16:53

to where it was previously, so

16:55

we don't think there is an

16:57

edge to this universe. But that

16:59

may change. Maybe the universe will

17:01

go into a reverse and it

17:03

will begin to shrink back inside

17:05

and contract in on itself. We

17:07

don't know. And there was even

17:09

speculation in the last week or

17:11

two that perhaps we're living in

17:13

one universe, which was effectively, to

17:15

put it bluntly, the ass end

17:17

of a black hole in another

17:19

universe, perhaps we are inside the

17:21

black hole effluent of another universe.

17:23

We just don't know. And in

17:25

theoretical physics, you can often prove

17:27

all these things of possibilities, whether

17:29

they really... exist or not, that's

17:31

a different matter. Another snake oil

17:33

related question then, hi there Doc,

17:36

please can you tell me what's

17:38

your opinion on the copper or

17:40

brass spangles? Are they of any

17:42

benefits, positive negative polarity, or please

17:44

explain? I can say that it

17:46

makes a difference to me and

17:48

a few other folks can swear

17:50

by it, thanks, says Paolo. Hi

17:52

Paolo, well the answer is almost...

17:54

placebo effect in the case of

17:56

these things you just wear your

17:58

skin is keeping out what's on

18:00

the bangle if it didn't we'd

18:02

all die of overwhelming metal poisoning

18:04

and there's enough heavy metal in

18:06

your bracelet to poison you into

18:08

next week so there's nothing moving

18:10

out of the bracelet and into

18:12

you that doesn't mean it doesn't

18:14

make a difference to you though

18:16

there's a strong psychological element here

18:18

and the placebo effect almost certainly

18:21

will help And in fact people

18:23

have looked at this, there was

18:25

a paper published in one of

18:27

the, I think it was the

18:29

British Medical Journal, about 20 years

18:31

ago, they actually did a study

18:33

not with... the copper ones but

18:35

with magnetic bracelets and they gave

18:37

people who I think might have

18:39

been patients with arthritis. They gave

18:41

them either a magnetic real bracelet

18:43

to wear or just a placebo

18:45

bracelet. It was basically a phony

18:47

one that wasn't magnetic and they

18:49

asked them to rate their signs

18:51

and symptoms of how badly or

18:53

well their arthritis was going. Everyone

18:55

improved during the study. Everyone had

18:57

about the same level of improvement

18:59

and there was no evidence. The

19:01

genuine therapeutic and invertecomers magnetic one did

19:04

anything different to the placebo one. So

19:06

clearly there's a lot of power of

19:08

mind here and almost certainly these things

19:11

are not affecting your blood chemistry they

19:13

are affecting your brain chemistry and everyone

19:15

when you tell people you're doing them

19:18

some good will usually report they're feeling

19:20

better because of the power of mind

19:22

and the placebo effect which is very

19:25

very powerful indeed. And then a question

19:27

I couldn't quite answer this morning because

19:29

list, I think very aware of the

19:32

fact that he's entering his middle age,

19:34

is getting up at four o'clock to

19:36

older people, sleep less than younger people?

19:38

Yep, they absolutely do. We do have

19:40

a change in sleep demand as we

19:42

go through life. Very young infants will

19:44

spend 18 hours a day of sleep

19:46

and by the time you get to

19:48

your... elderly years and anecdoteage, then you

19:50

may need as little as six hours

19:53

sleep, or at least you may get

19:55

as little as six hours sleep. Older

19:57

people often nap, and we all do

19:59

this as we Opposits

21:06

attract. That's why the sleep number smart

21:08

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21:10

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21:12

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21:14

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21:16

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21:19

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21:21

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21:23

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21:25

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21:27

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