Episode 260 of TRC is a thrill ride. First Darren investigates whether wood fires pose a danger to your health. Then the gang takes on not one but two listener requests! Elan looks into the question of whether it is better to sit or squat when going to the bathroom and Pat tackles the question of whether cracking your knuckles leads to arthritis.
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SHOW NOTES
Wood Smoke
Sam Harris – The Fireplace Delusion
Sitting vs Squatting
Slate – Don’t Just Sit There! How bathroom posture affects your health.
Japanese Study – Influence of Body Position on Defecation in Humans
Study – Etiology and pathogenesis of diverticulosis coli: a new approach.
Medical News Today – What are Hemorrhoids?
Wikipedia – Human Defecation Postures
NPR – For Best Toilet Health: Squat Or Sit?
Toilet Related Ailments – Colon Cancer
Natures Platform – health_benefits – colon_cancer
Cracking Knuckles and Arthritis
LA Times: Ig Nobel Prizes 2009
JABFM 2011 Study on Knuckle Cracking
I was a confident pooper until I heard your podcast; now I have anirectia nervosa.
I wish the administration of Montreal the best of luck with their ban on wood stoves and fireplaces… All the feedback I’ve heard on the matter (I work for the Fire Dept) is heavily against it and with reason…
Many if us remember the ice storm of 1998 and had it not been for wood stoves and fire places, much of Montreal would I have become uninhabitable and what was an inconvenience would have become a major disaster.
I foresee serious legal challenges to this municipal by-law as well as it becoming an electoral hot potato in the upcoming municipal elections.
As for your point that breathing in the product of any combustion is not good for us, you are right on the money… Even we who eat smoke for a living try to minimize our exposure with the use of our SCBA, even in minor situations where there is barely any smoke.
Pat