- "Cells At Work" season one
told us how the body works. "Cells At Work! Season Two Code Black" tells us what we do to our
bodies and how we hurt them. Episode one, "Smoking, Bacteria, And
The Beginning Of The End". I hope it's not the beginning of the end. (speaks in foreign language) This is so funny because not
only is this very accurate, in that, an immature red
blood cells and erythroblasts, and now that they become red blood cells, they are fully matured. They are also presenting this like a true med school situation, where some people in the classroom are sleepy and yawning, me. Some people are taking notes
and being very aggressive. What do we know about red blood cells? Main job is to carry
oxygen throughout the body and deliver it to its vital tissues. Brain, the lungs, the heart, kidneys. These are vital organs that keep us going. In fact, they have blood
vessels, little tunnels that, red blood cells travel
through are ever blocked, that's when you have a problem. If one of those arteries
or blood vessels starts to get blocked in the heart,
you have a heart attack. One of them gets blocked in
the brain, you have a stroke. All about maintaining good plumbing, and allowing these red
blood cells to do their job. So I hope you're paying attention. (speaking foreign language) (laughs) Oxygen, O2. (speaking in foreign language) Red blood cells unfortunately, all they do is circulate
throughout the body, no matter what time of
day it is, day, night. When a person's sleeping,
you're still circulating blood. You gotta feed the brain, you
gotta recover the muscles, all that good stuff. Now that being said, red blood cells are only
around approximately 120 days. And throughout that time, they're constantly getting refreshed and new ones are being made. (speaks in foreign language)
(machine buzzing) Basically when they aortic valve opens, the heart beats and all the red blood cells
starts shooting out to the body. Whether they go to the top
of the body and the brain, or to the bottom of the body to the kidneys and legs, et cetera. The goal is to get as much oxygen quickly to that part of the body, and then to bring back the red blood cells that are now deoxygenated, need to be refreshed by the lungs, back through the venous system. Now, I know a lot of
times in textbooks we draw the arterial system is red
and the venous system is blue. If you cut someone's veins, I promise the blood is still gonna be red. It's just simply about
the tint of the blood when it's below your skin, but in reality, it is
still red, I promise. (speaking in foreign language) (yells in foreign language) Platelets. (speaks in foreign language) Oh, does this person have an ulcer? An ulcer is an opening inside the stomach from the gastric acid
or perhaps an infection. And as a result, bleeding can occur. (speaking in foreign language) I would make a small correction there, is not the first stage of digestion, because the first stage of digestion, is a funny word known as mastication. So when you chew, that is the
chemical breakdown of food. That is where digestion begins. In fact, you have salivary amylase, which is an enzyme that
starts breaking down sugars inside the food that you're eating, immediately in your mouth. In your mouff. That's right, so digestion
is happening here first, that's the first step of digestion. Not in the stomach. (yells in foreign language) Oh wow, angry stomach. (speaking in foreign language) Can you imagine if every time, you didn't take care of your body, you underslept, you
overworked, overate, underate, ate something unhealthy,
overdrank, smoked a cigarette, did something wrong in general, that your body cells
actually went on strike and got mad at you. Like, imagine your stomach was like, (doctor mumbling) (guy groaning)
Oh, no. (yells in foreign language) Oh no, carbon monoxide poisoning. (speaking in foreign language) This is a very accurate description of how carbon monoxide
poisoning actually happens. Because it has a higher affinity, meaning it's more likely to
bind with this red blood cell, it actually blocks the
ability to carry oxygen. So what happens if you have a
slow leak of carbon monoxide into a small area, like
a garage or a home, you actually start getting sleepy. You get a little nauseous, a
headache starts developing. And what's really dangerous is if you do end up falling
asleep, you could die. Also knowing that the treatment for carbon monoxide poisoning
if you get to the hospital, is getting a full blast
of O2 in your face, Why? Because if you overload the
amount of oxygen you're getting, hopefully that will
create enough competition that your red blood
cells will actually get some of this oxygen as opposed
to the carbon monoxide. Does that make sense? (huge leg lashes) (speaking in foreign language) Oh, pneumococci. (yells in foreign language) So this is why whenever
a patient is diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia one
of the first things we do is institute antibacterial
treatment with antibiotics. The invention of antibiotics has really gone a long
way in extending life and preventing unnecessary death. However, now we're kind of in the state where we're overusing antibiotics, and are not only killing healthy bacteria in our bodies, by mistake
that we need to live, but also you can create resistance. Where if you don't take antibiotics for a long enough period of time, or let's say you take them and you eradicate 99% of the bacteria, you leave the 1% that are
genetically resistant to it. And as a result, when they reproduce each time
you take the antibiotics, your body bacteria actually
start building up a resistance to those antibiotics. Why does that become problematic? Well guess what, a patient
comes in with a pneumonia, let's say a sepsis where the
bacteria is now in the blood. And then you realize, for all the antibiotic
options that you have, which we don't have millions of, you actually have no choices
on what to give that patient because all the bacteria is resistant and you've created a superbug. This thing looks like a superbug, but I hope antibiotics will
still work in this case. (speaks in foreign language) (sword swooshes) (speaking in foreign language) Whoa! That white blood
cell got some moves. (speaks in foreign language) Reminds me of Michonne
from "Walking Dead". Who's a "Walking Dead" fan here? (speaking in foreign language) It's funny that they're
going to the carotid artery. There was some plaque there, visible. This does happen. And in fact, one of the causes or potential causes of
strokes is when you have, such a bad occlusion of
the carotid arteries, you actually impede
blood flow to that area. So imagine if you have a lot
of plaque, it's blocked off, you can't get blood to the
brain, boom, stroke happens. Now you do have two carotid arteries, which makes it a little bit better. So you want to keep your carotid arteries as (mumbles), as open as possible. And how do you do that? Living a healthy lifestyle,
going for preventive screenings, making sure your cholesterol
is under control. And know that just because
your cholesterol is high, or the LDL cholesterol, the
bad cholesterol is high, it doesn't mean that you might necessarily be
doing something wrong, because there are cases where
genetics play a huge role, so much so that your
cholesterol is so high, that you could never even get
it that high with a bad diet, as a result of your genetics. This is known as Familial
Hypercholesterolemia. There are specific medications that are recently been released, called PCSK9 Inhibitors. Again, we don't like
jumping to medications, but if you have such a dangerous LDL that it's causing you a risk to have a premature heart
attack at a young age, maybe it's worth being on that medication. (speaking in foreign language) Smoking, is bad for you. I don't feel like I need to say that, but at the same time I'm gonna, because I want you to know that, smoking increases risk
of not only cancers, not just lung cancer, all cancers like so many
cancers throughout your body. Other lung diseases like COPD,
chronic bronchitis, emphysema increases and heart disease,
strokes just by smoking. We lose approximately half a
million lives due to smoking in the United States every year. We in the medical community know that, cigarettes contain over 600 ingredients. And when you light them
on fire and burn them, that creates over 7,000 chemicals that you're inhaling into your body. And while nicotine may make
you feel good temporarily, it goes away and it's
highly, highly addictive. It's one of the most
addictive things out there. That's why it's so dangerous. (speaking in foreign language) I hope this episode helps
you quit smoking if you do. If you're not gonna do it for yourself, do it for these little red blood cells. They don't deserve the stress
that we're putting on them. Quit smoking, if you need
help, talk to your doctor, 'cause we actually have so many
options of helping you quit, not only from a behavioral
therapy perspective, we have some medications that can help, group counseling, et cetera. Talk to your doctor. If you have that
motivation, share it with us and we'll be happy to help you out. This is a great medical show. These are bad medical games, like really bad embarrassingly,
bad one-star games. Click that to check me playing them. "Check me playing them?" Check me out playing them. And as always stay happy and healthy. (upbeat music)
My favorite of your Reacts series