Every year the flu virus makes the rounds, laying up young and old alike for days before moving on to another hapless victim. But flu viruses can mutate and once in awhile they turn into something much deadlier, a pandemic that can kill millions. Learn all about it with Josh and Chuck in this classic episode.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Oh, God. Hi, everybody. It's Chuck here. Oh, boy. My selection this week is How the Flu Works. And I'll give you one reason why. This is from November 14th, 2017. I hope you like it. I'm going back to bed.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Chapter 2: How can you tell the difference between a flu and a cold?
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. This is stuff you should know about the flu, which I have. You don't have the flu, do you? I don't know, man. I can't. I've been on the planet for 41 years. Okay. I still can't really tell the difference between a flu and a cold.
I think the difference that I can tell, and I don't get the flu much. You know, I always get the stomach bug, which, as it turns out, is not a flu. I just learned. But I don't get the flu flu much. But I can always tell, though, when I'm super achy. Like, the flu just makes me feel like dog doo-doo. Right. Whereas a cold is just a big inconvenience.
Yeah, I've had, no, I've definitely had like lots of aches and I woke up like shivering one night. Oh, so you had a fever for sure. I guess so. I guess it must have just been one night in the middle of the night. So that's the flu, right? Probably. So I guess I do have the flu. No joke, everybody.
Well, I'm erecting the clear glass in between us.
Yeah, I think that I've had it long enough now based on the research from this article that I'm not contagious or else I would have called this off. So did you get it in New York, I wonder? I think so. Yeah. Dirty, dirty New Yorkers.
Right, yeah.
Which I was like, I was just walking around like with my hands inside of a couple of like plastic Duane Reade bags. And it still didn't work. Well, that was your problem probably right there. Right. Duane Reade. Because I didn't take them off when I ate. Gross. Yeah. So, yes, we were in New York for some Bell House shows, right? Those went pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. Thought they were great.
All right. So the flu. We won't reminisce about past victories. We'll just talk about the flu instead.
Yeah. How about a stat right off the get-go here? Okay. The flu, the CDC.
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Chapter 3: How does the flu virus infect your body?
Man, that's rough. I was on the john with a bucket. Oh, God. It's so rough. Well, the worst time I ever had it, I may have told this story before, I was sick at a friend's house, which is the worst, when I was not living in Atlanta, but I was in Atlanta. Oh, no. And I was like, I just got to get to my mom's house.
Mom.
Yeah. I was like, I just was much more comfortably being sick there.
Yeah.
And he was working. It was just one of those things. And so I got in my brother's car that I was borrowing while I was in town. I don't like where this story's going. And I drove... No lie, probably about 100 miles an hour to Snellville from Atlanta. Yeah. Thinking – and I pooped in my pants in the car.
And I remember thinking if a cop pulls me over, he would have to be a cold, heartless individual to give me a ticket because I would just say, sir – Don't take me to prison. Take me to a hospital because I'm dying. Yeah. So I drove 100 miles an hour. It was kind of fun. So you made it home. You showed up with poopy pants and your mom took care of you? Yep. Showed up to Diane's house and I lived.
But anyway. That was a long way of setting up this, which is that is actually not a flu. The stomach flu is not because the flu is 100% a respiratory illness. Right. And it's not something that happens in your stomach or in your butt.
Right. And let's talk first before we talk about the actual effect of the flu. Let's talk about the virus a little bit for a second, okay? Okay. So back in 1931, there was this Iowa farm physician, which is to say he was a human physician of humans, but he probably lived on a farm because it was Iowa in 1931.
His name was Richard Shope, and he was trying to figure out what this bug that was getting people was. And he investigated with pigs first because there are plenty of other animals that can come down with the flu, not just humans, right? Right. And he finally isolated it. He isolated the flu virus in swine, and it led to this discovery of the isolation of the flu virus in humans too.
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Chapter 4: What are the different strains and subtypes of the flu?
So, I mean, that's a good little factoid. I don't think anyone really understands what those letters mean. That's what they mean. You know? Yeah. But as far as you're concerned, just pay attention to the news and when they talk about the scary ones. they'll mention those letters and numbers and then you can impress your friends.
Yeah, you can be like, oh, well, they're talking about hemagglutinin and neuraminidase. And they'll say, shut up, nerd. I hope you get sick.
So as far as the standard flu that we're talking about here, the virus. It gets into your body and it kind of makes a beeline to your respiratory tract. And it binds with your cells. It's viruses. Did we do a general one on viruses?
The one I think we really went in depth on was HIV where we talked about how a virus enters the body and takes over. It's just vicious. It is, but it's also kind of like admirable in a really deadly efficient way, you know?
It is. So they bind to the surface of the cells in that respiratory tract. And then they say, hey, I'd like you to meet my little friend, RNA. Why don't I inject my genetic information into your nucleus and see how you like it?
Right. And when it does that, the cell has been officially hijacked. And the virus uses the cell's own RNA transcription process to— create the proteins that are needed to make new versions of the virus. So the virus is using this host cell in your respiratory tract to make copies of itself. And suddenly, before the cell knows what's going on, it's made millions of copies of these viruses, right?
And apparently, when you talk about it step by step, it seems like this takes a little while. Right. No. In seconds. Right. Seconds after that the virus has entered your respiratory cell, millions of copies of it have been made.
Yeah, like this is happening so fast. It moves in there. It says, I'm in charge now. Yeah, out of the way. Yeah, completely out of the way. I'm running the show here. We're copying each other, and we're going to move out to the cell membrane because this cell is going to die very quickly. And then that's just going to poof me out into the body further to infect other cells.
And it's scary how quickly this happens.
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Chapter 5: Why is hand washing important during flu season?
Yeah, and if you have the flu, stay home. Yeah. Everybody but me. Stay home. Well, we're up against it. We had to record today. And also wash your hands just constantly. Like if I'm about to touch anything, I'll wash my hands first. Right. If I'm going to go somewhere outside of the hot zone, which is whatever room I'm sequestered in, you know, I will wash my hands.
I appreciate that. I mean, trust me, we're in this tiny studio now, the three of us. I know. I'm trying not to breathe. You've done all this on one breath. It's impressive. I know. Well, quickly, before we take a break so you can breathe again, we're going to talk about symptoms afterward.
Before you get these symptoms, though, what's happening is your respiratory system is going to become inflamed. And this inflammation might stick around for a few weeks. But from there, it moves into your bloodstream. And then that's when you're going to get these symptoms once it sort of moves into the bloodstream. Right. And we're going to talk about the symptoms as promised right after this.
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Chapter 6: What are common symptoms and complications of the flu?
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