Day 11 | 12 Body Parts of Christmas
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Welcome everybody to our 12 days of Christmas special edition of Dr. Matt and Dr. Mark's medical podcast. We are on day 11. We're so close to Christmas, Matt. Day 11. Uh,

I'm just looking forward to leaving this studio. Oh, no, it's been a long 11 days. A one, a two, a one, two, three, four. On the 11th day of Chris, that's my true love sent to me. 11 body systems. 10 functions of the liver. 9 abdominal regions. 8 B vitamins. 7 cervical vertebrae. 6 extraocular muscles. 5 layers of skin. 4 heart chambers. 3 ear bones. 2 carotid arteries. And a spleen that is keeping us healthy.

Okay. We've got 11 body systems. You've chosen for 11, 11 body systems. So we're going to go through 11 body systems for Christmas. You need to make 11 body systems relevant for Christmas. How are you going to do that? This takes us back, takes me back to my time as a ski instructor. Right. Okay. Wait, you were a ski instructor. I was. In America. That for some reason is unsurprising. So this particular day. Where, like Colorado? This particular day. Where? New England. Okay. Okay.

Massachusetts? Yes. Oh. So I was skiing this particular day. Makes sense. I was flying down the hill. Okay. Were you very good? I was reasonable. I probably wouldn't be very good. Pizza, french fry? I wouldn't be very good now. That's the way I used to teach it. Really? Wedge or sometimes they wedge or pizza or french fry, beans, straight. So went around a corner, crashed, went into a stream. What? In Tampines.

Into a stream. No, that's a lake. A stream. Like a river. Like a small river. A river? Yeah, so it was frozen over. Ocean. But I went head first into the river. And your legs were just dangling out. That's right. And so I... Like a cartoon. Yeah, that's right. Well, it's hard to see because I wasn't outside my body. I was actually head first in the river or stream. So you could see fishes. I was trapped. It's fishes, correct? Fish is plural? Fish. Fish. Fish.

I think it's fish as if it's more than one species. Exactly. Okay. And because you were in a stream, there are multiple species of fish. There we go. So head underwater. Luckily, I did under the ice. I encountered a big air bubble. What do you mean you encountered a big air bubble? Well, there's a whole lot of air trapped under the ice once where my head was. Oh. So I was able to breathe that, but I couldn't get out. So my-

Legs are down. Head, thorax, underwater, leg out. And so I was trapped there for approximately 80 minutes. 18 minutes? 18. Did you maintain consciousness? An hour and 20 minutes. No, I went into a cardiac arrest. Wow. Yeah, and so then that's what I remember. So I was transported to hospital. Luckily, I had some doctor friends that were...

On scene. On slope. On slope. So they tried CPR, called the paramedics, flew in, took me to hospital where for the next, I don't know, 24 hours, let's say, a hundred odd medical staff worked on me. Sorry, say that again? A hundred odd medical staff worked on you? Yeah.

Did they know who you were? Did they think that you were somebody else? So I was put onto a heart-lung bypass machine. I was warmed up and...

Miraculously, I came to and survived. And I'm here to live this day and tell you the story. Wow. Now, I'm going to walk through this story with you and tell you what my 11 body systems were doing. Sure. All of them. I'll do my best. Okay. Actually, should I go through the 11 body systems first? Great idea. 11. Here we go. In no particular order. Yeah. Okay.

On the earth. Okay. Number one, integumentary system. Skin. Also known as skin. I'll give the colloquial term. Thank you very much. Scleetal system. Bones. And joints. Three, muscular system. Muscles. Good. Four, nervous system. Brain and nerves. Five, endocrine. Hormones and glands. Six, cardiovascular. Blood and heart. And vessels. Very good. Seven, respiratory. Lungs and breathing. Okay.

Anyway. Yeah. Eight, digestive. Poo. Eating, swallowing. It's too much. Nine, urinary. Kidneys, bladder, ureters, urethra. Ten is... You've got to make me guess it. Immune. Yeah, immune. Okay. That's all you're saying? Immune system. Okay. And then 11, reproductive. And that's...

Reproduce... Offspring. Producing... The band? The band? Gammicks. Fight for a white guy. Did you say lymphatic? That's immune. Oh, okay. Okay, so...

The first thing that I noticed being underwater. Let me guess. It was cold. It was cold. Yeah, that's good. So that's probably a combination of nervous system. So it's saying, ooh, this is chilly. We need to try to deal with this. You were calm. But the integumentary system was probably the first system that really kicked in to try to deal with this extreme temperature. How so? So the skin, what it does when it's usually at...

a colder temperature. It will try to retain heat. Well, I guess the cardiovascular system is shunting blood away from it. So that would be a combination of cardiovascular. So vasoconstriction to the skin, that's why you go wide. Yeah. But I'm trying to produce or hold on to temperature or heat with my body. So I produce what we call goosebumps. Yep. And that's like little muscles at the end of the base of the hair, which makes them stand on end and trap air. Erectile pili.

Trap air in my skin. Yeah. Now, so that was one of the first things I encountered. That's a bit pointless because you're in water. That's right. Okay. So it did it anyway. That's right. So I am losing a lot of heat through conduction. Yes. Into the water. Yeah. Then my muscular system kicks in and I start shivering. Yeah. Do you need muscles to do that? Okay. Yes. So the muscle. So your arms weren't really doing much. Yeah.

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With over a million industrial-grade products and fast delivery, the product you need now is never far away. So you can turn that dishwasher back into a lean, clean washing machine. Call, click ranger.com or just stop by. Ranger, for the ones who get it done. So I was producing quite a lot of involuntary muscle contractions. Okay. And that is generating heat.

And that heat is warming blood, which is hopefully shunting away from the external, the periphery, and keeping more centrally. Okay. So this would then be the cardiovascular. My heart rate's going up to trying to deal with this. And muscle. Okay, muscle. And my breathing. It's going to be difficult underwater. Yeah. But... You had a little bubble. I had a little bubble. What my respiratory system is doing with...

So when you're in cold temperature and what your respiratory system is trying to do is air condition. Okay. Because your lungs do not like cold, dry air. No. They like warm, moist air. That's right. So what you usually find when you are in a colder environment, not with your head underwater, is your nose runs. Now, the reason for that is it's trying to moisten the air as it's coming in. Did your nose run? Well, as I said, I was underwater, so it's hard to tell. Okay. But...

But, I mean, that side of things is probably okay, but the temperature not as good. Yeah. That's probably – do you cough when you encounter cold temperature? No. No? No. What about if you're exercising in, like, the middle of winter? I usually cough. Do you? Yeah. Maybe because it's a bit dry and it irritates the airways. And because you're getting a lot down into the deeper depths and it has less time to – What about when you do a diver's reflex? Don't you have an automatic gasp?

Isn't that the first thing that happens for a diver's reflex? Maybe. That's why some people drown if they hop into cold water because they might reflexively gasp. Oh, like they're submerged? Yeah. Okay, I'm not sure about that. Okay, so you've done a couple of systems there. Anything else happening? So cardiovascular is vasoconstricting, heart rate's up, blood pressure's up. What's happening with your reproductive system? Second belly button.

So, got a second belly button, which means, oh, so the detrusor muscle has been activated, but also the cremaster reflex. So it's pulling the gonads right back into the body. So that's the second belly button. So we've done digestive, I would say, not a great deal. Okay, okay. Digestive system, not doing a great deal here.

No, no. Unless you're able to catch a fish. Again, blood shunted away. Yeah. So you're not really getting a great deal of blood flow to the digestive system, which is probably a good thing you need to retain that. Urinary system. Now, early on, you do get a degree of diuresis. So cold-induced. So you do do a pee. Oh. Okay. They'll try and warm you up, I suppose. Yeah.

Yeah, sometimes surfers will say they do that in their wetsuit. I'm not sure how true that is. But I have heard them say that. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. But then you will be, as the shunting continues and you're going to probably more like a shock state, you would be shunting blood away from your kidneys and you're probably more likely to get kidney failure or kidney injury. Yeah. So that would be an issue. Immune system. Well, actually...

A little bit of evidence to suggest cold air does diminish your innate respiratory tract immune function. So, you know, the old wise tale, and that's probably not the correct term to use anymore, but to keep...

You're going to get sick. Oh, yeah, you catch a cold in the winter. Yeah, yeah. So there's possibly a little bit of truth to that, that when you are exposed to cold air and so forth, you will get a degree of, you know, the blood flow to your area, but also the way that the innate respiratory tract is dealing with the temperature is not making you as proficient with your immune response.

The last one is my endocrine. Yeah. So very high stress response, lots of adrenaline, lots of cortisol, which is pumping out for one, a lot of glucose. Now, here's a side point here. Okay. There are some animals that are exposed to extreme cold temperatures that can basically freeze but still live. Now, the main concern with...

live in organisms when you freeze is because... We're filled with water. Yeah. And water expands when it's cold. Yeah. So the water expands so much that it bursts the cells that the water is contained within. That's right. And then you burst the cells, you're gone. And I think also the crystals...

Can just damage stuff. Yeah. Okay. So with these animals, they can produce almost like a syrupy-like antifreeze, which protects them in really cold temperatures. So if you want to freeze yourself, just maple syrup yourself. Yeah. And like in the – well, it's not too –

Explain. Well, in the lab, when we do histology and we want to process certain biological tissues, some of the- What do you mean by process? You mean cut up and slice and look at it? And then stain, yeah. Some of the approach that we use sometimes is called cryostatin. Yeah. And we cut the tissue using the tissue being frozen like a block and you cut it with a really thin knife.

But to protect the tissue from freezing at negative 80, you place it in a sucrose syrup. Right. And that protects the cells bursting. Oh, okay. So you're saying these animals fill their blood with sucrose? Well, maybe not quite sugar, but something along those lines that protect it.

So is that what happened to you? You were lucky that you had a liter of Coke and six donuts. That's right. That you were able to use that as antifreeze. Exactly right. So you can see that my survival here...

Utilizing my lever body systems is what kept me alive. That's great. As well as the 100 health professionals in the hospital. Now- Yeah, I wonder which one it was, but yeah. Now, obviously this was not me. Oh, I knew it. However- You're lying. This was a true story that happened in 1999 with Anna Bargenholm. Definitely haven't pronounced that one correctly. She was a 29-

year old Swedish radiologist, which I think she was wanting to specialize into orthopedic surgery. And the exact thing happened. She was skiing, went into a river. Head first. Head first. Legs down. 80 minutes underwater. All those things happened. And survived. And survived. I think her temperature got down to 13 degrees. Her actual core temperature. Her actual core temperature. From 37 to 13. That's right. And she survived. Took a little while to recover, but she recovered pretty much immediately.

Maybe with a bit of neuropathy, but otherwise. Can I just say, Matt, it took you every single one of your 12 Days of Christmas topics to end on a happy note. So congratulations. Yes. And that was the 11th Day of Christmas, the 11 Body Systems.

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