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You're listening to Brains On, where we're serious about being curious. Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Ready to start warming up, right lung? You betcha, left lung. The big track meet is today, and our body is going to need us lungs to do our breathing thing. So it can do its raining thing. You mean its running thing? Oh, yeah.
I guess that's why they call you the right lung, because you're always right. Now, let's hold this stretch for 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Great stretch, left lung. Thanks, right lung. Feeling loose as a goose. She is going to run so fast. So fast. But what if that thing happens to us again? You know, where we get all... tight and sound wheezy? The Alaska attack. I think it's called the asthma attack. Oh, yeah. But don't worry. Before she runs, she always gives us that thing. Remember?
The impaler, of course. The impaler keeps the phantasma attack away. The inhaler. And it keeps the asthma attack away? Oh, yes. Right again. Here it comes. We're ready! Let's go rail! You're listening to Brains On from APM Studios. I'm Molly Bloom and my co-hosts today are Audrey and Indy from Queensland, Australia. Hi, Molly. Hi, Molly. It is so cool that you two are here today and we have a lot in common. You guys are sisters.
I have a sister. We also all have pet dogs. Mine is named Honeybee. And ours is named Lady. And we all have asthma. I was diagnosed with asthma, actually, when I was a grown-up. I started getting allergies in college, and then they got worse. It made it hard for me to breathe sometimes. And now it's pretty much under control. But sometimes when there's lots of pollens or I'm around cats, it still feels hard.
to breathe. So Audrey and Indy, I'm wondering, when were you both diagnosed with asthma? I was diagnosed with asthma around the age of four or five. It started off... Not too bad, but I feel like it's gotten a slight bit worse over the years. And smoke and I have allergies and... laughing too hard when i'm with my friends like that can make it worse gotcha and how about you indy when were you diagnosed with asthma i was diagnosed around the same age as audrey
And it's mild, but most of the time it gets like worse when I'm sick. Gotcha. And do you both have the same kind of like medicine that you use? Yeah, we both have Ventolin inhalers. Nice. And do you have friends with asthma too? I do, yes. Yeah, only one of them though. So we all have asthma.
And it turns out lots of our listeners do too. Here are some of their questions about it. Hi, my name is Ruthie from Louisiana and I'm nine years old. I want to know how inhalers work because I use one every night. What happens inside of your body when you're having an asthma attack?
Hi, I'm Harper from Moorpark, California. My question is, how do you get asthma? And here's one that you two sent in. Hi, my name is Audrey. And hi, my name is Cindy. And we were wondering, why do some people have asthma? And what causes it? So what made you two decide to send that question in? So I was really curious about it because we have a family history of it. My dad has it. And then me and Indy both have it. I'm curious about like how...
People with asthma are diagnosed with it. Yeah, those are really good questions. So we're going to answer these questions in today's episode. But first, we need to understand how breathing works. Because asthma is a disease that can make it hard to breathe. A few years back, we actually did a whole Brains On episode about how breathing works. And we put a link to it in the show notes.
But here are the basics. When you breathe in, the air goes... Um, Molly? Yes, Audrey? Isn't the first rule of podcasting show not tell? Technically, the first rule of podcasting is never eat a giant bean burrito right before you go to the studio, which I definitely didn't learn the hard way last week.
Cool, cool, cool. Good tip. But instead of talking about how the lungs work, what if we showed how they work? Excellent idea, Indy. How about we take the atom, a.k.a. the amazing truck of minimization? It can shrink down to smaller than a freckle and take us inside a human body. And it's a convertible? Fire. All we need is a host. Around the ragged rocks the ragged rascal ran.
Pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. Isn't that Joy Doyle our host of Forever Ago? Perfect. Hey, Joy, are you busy right now? I'm just warming up to host today's episode of Forever Ago. Do you think while you're doing that you could host us in your lungs? You won't even know we're there. What a totally normal thing to say to a person. I'd be delighted to host you in my lungs. Great. We'll just hop into here. And if it's all right with you, we'll take the nose route. Boogie on.
Oh, gosh, this tickles. Don't sneeze out your friends, Joy. Don't sneeze out your friends. They must be through. So when someone first takes a breath, the air goes through their nose or mouth into their windpipe. Yeah, any chance I can put the top up you got it much better Look, up ahead it splits off into two giant caverns. Those caverns must be Joy's two lungs. Yeah, let's go check out the right lung.
Always use your turn signal, kids. Merging down to a single lane. Better slow down. We must be in one of Joy's bronchi. These are smaller tubes that bring the air from her windpipe into her lungs. Right. They're much narrower than the windpipe. And for people with asthma, us, these bronchi sometimes get...
even narrower. Narrower enough to make breathing really difficult. When this happens, it's often called an asthma attack. Usually asthma attacks are triggered by some kind of stress on the body. They can happen during exercise. Or when someone is sick. Or during allergy season. Or because of stress or other strong emotions. Sometimes when your body part reacts to something, it swells up. Like if your hand gets stung by a bee, it'll most likely swell up.
Right. And when the bronchi react, they get swollen too. This means there's less room inside. Picture a tunnel with walls getting thicker or closing in. This swelling can cause the muscles that surround the bronchi to tighten which squeezes those little breathing tubes even more so there's even less room.
One time I had an asthma attack when I was at my friend's house who had a cat. It felt like I just couldn't get a deep breath, sort of like a gulping for air kind of feeling. Indie, have you ever had an asthma? asthma attack i have had an asthma attack um usually when i'm sick um but they're not like severe asthma attacks like when I was recently in Japan it was really cold and like hard to breathe so I had to take a puff out of my inhaler.
So like when you get that feeling that you have to take a puff, like what does it feel like in your body? It feels like tight in the chest. And how about you, Audrey? Have you ever had an asthma attack? I have had multiple asthma attacks, but they're not like serious that I have to be rushed to the hospital. For example, we were at the Gold Coast for...
Easter and I had a flare up and I had to have a hot shower and I had to have some coffee and coffee can open up your airways. Oh, that's really interesting. I did not. Not with that. So the steam from the shower and the coffee helped your asthma attack go away? Yeah. Cool. And so before you got that to help you, what was it feeling like in your body?
Definitely really tight. Yeah. I remember when I was in grade school, one of my friends had asthma, and she knew it was time to use her inhaler when her, like the little thing at the bottom of her neck, you know, that little... sort of indent would go in really far. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Yes. Yeah. So like when that goes in far, you know, oh, wow, I'm having a little trouble breathing and I should probably use my inhaler.
We'll learn more about how inhalers work after the break, but first, what do you say we get out of Joy's lungs and head back to the studio so Joy can get started on her episode? Let's do it. Ah-choo! Ahoy there, friends. What a breath of fresh air to see you again. Did you have a good trip? Thanks, Joy. Your lungs are in exhalant shape. Truly breathtaking.
Oh, stop. I'm so flattered I'm out of breath. And out of puns. Okay, the lungs are great, but now it's the ears time to shine. It's time for the... Ready for the mystery sound, Audrey and Indy? Yes. Here it is. What do you guys think? I think it's something maybe being chewed. Excellent. How about you, Indy? It sounds like water dripping. Nice. Okay, so maybe chewing, water. Let's hear it again. Okay, any new thoughts?
Maybe something being played with, like, slime or... Ah, yeah. Like someone slurping something up. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like a very messy eater to me. Yes. Like the messiest eater of all time eating something very slurpy. Well, we will hear it again, get another chance to guess and hear the answer at the end of the show. So. Stick around. We're working on an episode about a time millions of years ago when birds and dinosaurs lived side by side. And we were wondering...
If you could bring a living, breathing dinosaur to show and tell, what kind would you bring and why? A gentle triceratops for all your friends to pet? A velociraptor to play hide-and-seek with on the playground? Indian Audrey, what about you? I think I would bring back a velociraptor because velociraptors are smaller than normal dinosaurs and I am smaller than my friends and I think it would have a lot in common with me. Yeah.
I like that. How about you, Indy? Probably like the same. A velociraptor? Yep. Nice. Just have to make sure the velociraptor gets fed first. Yes. Well, listeners, we want to know what dinosaur you'd bring to show and tell and why. Record your answer and send it to us at BrainsOn.org slash contact. While you're there, send us your mystery sounds, drawings, and questions. Like this one. What makes food organic?
You can find answers to questions like these on the Moment of Um podcast, a short dose of facts and fun every weekday. Find Moment of Um and more at brainson.org. So keep listening. Brains On Universe is a family of podcasts for kids and their adults. Since you're a fan of Brains On, you'll love the other shows in our universe. Come on, let's explore. It's Alien! laundry day. While I wash my nose mufflers and tummy togas, I'll listen to a new podcast. How about...
Smash Boom Best, my favorite debate podcast. Growing up, I was always a slide kid. I remember this park I went to, and it had everything. There was a miniature train. a spinning set of monkey bars, and even had a talking pig-shaped trash can called Porky the Litter Eater. Hi, kid. I'm Porky. Zork! Signal down! Stay right there, tummy togas. find Smash Boom Best now. Listen to Smash Boom Best wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey friends, Molly, Sandin, and Mark here with some very big news. Drumroll please. We're hitting the road in search of adventure, fresh air, and you. That's right. We're going to be live at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado on Sunday, April 27th. Our science-themed live stage show takes the audience on an adventure through the brain, complete with magic tricks, dance moves out of...
body experiences, mystery sounds, and a game show. Molly, you almost left out the most important part. Yeah, Molly, don't forget the big party. Oh, right. After the shows, we're throwing a brain-tastic bash. Join us afterward for a VIP party where we'll play games, guess mystery sounds, pose for photos, and give as many high fives as humanly possible. Snag a spot by purchasing a VIP party.
when you buy your show ticket. Oh, that reminds me. I've got to start training. These hands aren't going to high five by themselves. Good idea. And remember, Spots are limited, so grab your tickets today at BrainsOn.org slash events. The Sold a Story podcast is about how teaching kids to read went wrong. But now we have a story about a school district where things are going very right. Let me make sure my friends are sitting crisscross applesauce.
I've never had a child that couldn't read. How did they do it? When I tell some of my other colleagues that may be at other schools that this is what I do, and they would say, are you kidding me? New episodes of Sold a Story are available now in your podcast app. You're listening to Brains On from APM Studios. I'm Audrey. And I'm Mindy. And I'm Molly. Today we're talking all about asthma, which is a disease that can make it harder to breathe.
Before the break, we took a peek inside the lungs to figure out how they work. We saw how the windpipe in your throat leads to your lungs. Each lung is full of smaller tubes called bronchi. When someone has an asthma attack, these tubes can swell up and the muscles around them can tighten, which makes it hard to breathe. When that happens, using a rescue inhaler can help.
If you've ever seen someone use an inhaler at school or on the playground, it was probably a rescue inhaler. They're usually small plastic tubes, kind of shaped like an L. Inside the tube, there's a canister of medicine. You push down on the canister to release the spray of medicine that you breathe in. Here to explain how a rescue inhaler works is Dr. Stephanie Levinsky-Desir. She's a pediatric pulmonologist, which means she's a lung doctor for kids.
She was also in our breathing episode a few years back. Hi, Dr. Levinsky. Hi, Molly. Hi, Audrey. Hi, Indy. Dr. Levinsky, can you explain how a rescue inhaler works? Sure. So a rescue inhaler is a medication that we use for children when they're feeling symptoms of asthma. So feeling tight in their chest, difficulty breathing, tightness. So you can think about the airways.
as having muscles around them. And those muscles help to keep the structure of the airway. However, if you're having an asthma attack... Those muscles might squeeze the airway to make it more narrow. So when you take your rescue pump... what that medication does is it relaxes those muscles to open up the airway. So they're not squeezed so tight and they're nice and relaxed and open to allow air to move in and out.
episode is inspired by a question that Audrey and Indy sent in. Why do some people have asthma? And what causes it? That's a really interesting question that honestly, we don't have all the answers to. We do know that People whose parents or their siblings have asthma are more likely to have asthma, so there might be some genetic components to having asthma. We also know that factors and conditions in the environment, like...
long-term exposure to environmental air pollution might trigger the lungs to be more sensitive and those people may end up having more asthma. But it is... One of these things that has many different factors and many different causes. And scientists and researchers like myself are still really trying to figure all of that out. How are people with asthma usually diagnosed?
Wonderful question. So people are often diagnosed through many different ways. So an important factor is just asking questions. Your doctor will ask lots of questions about what your symptoms have been like, what things make the symptoms better. We also do physical exams so we can listen with our stethoscopes. And if we hear certain sounds in the chest, that might be a sign that a child has asthma.
We also do breathing tests, and sometimes those tests can also give us an indication of whether or not somebody has asthma. So oftentimes, doctors put all of this information together and use that to help figure out. Does the child have asthma or not? What made you want to be a pulmonologist?
Well, believe it or not, when I was a kid your age, I had asthma. And I think a lot of my motivation for becoming a doctor who takes care of children with asthma was because I saw how important it was For me to go to the doctor, for me to get the medication that I needed, and for my mom and dad to feel comfortable with managing when I wasn't feeling well because of the doctors who helped care for me in the office and in the hospital.
So I think that really is the key to why I became a pulmonologist. How is asthma passed down through generations? It's not really well understood. So there are some areas in people's genes that have been studied by researchers that get passed along that are thought to be potentially asthma genes. And then another thing that I think is... really important is what I was mentioning before about environmental exposure. So
You know, there are groups of people here in the States who live in neighborhoods and communities where they have lots of exposure to pollutants or allergens, and they're much more likely to have asthma. And then if their kids grow up... in those same environments, they're likely to have asthma as well. So I think that's part of the reason why it gets passed along, a little bit of genetics and a little bit of environment. So has asthma...
treatment changed since you were a kid? The kind of medicine you're giving to kids now, is it different than when you were a kid with asthma? Oh my gosh, absolutely. Well, I should say that many of the medications are the same. So we talked about rescue medications and those were around when I was a kid, but there's a whole new group of medications that have recently come out to help.
treat asthma. And those are injections. Sometimes they're given once a month. Sometimes they're given once every two weeks. And those medications really do quiet down the immune system and help to make your immune system less reactive to things in the environment that might trigger asthma. It's really making a big difference in the lives of many children. And do you still have asthma?
Actually, I've outgrown my symptoms. So this is another thing area that's super interesting, which are people like me who had asthma throughout childhood. And then as they turned into adolescence, no longer have symptoms. asthma. And we're still trying to uncover why is that? What do you want kids to know out there who do have asthma? Overall, I just want kids to know that asthma is...
Pretty common. Many athletes have asthma and they're still able to be highly functioning and very active. And so asthma should not get in the way of having a super active life. Thanks so much for talking with us, Dr. Levinsky. Oh, it's been absolutely my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Asthma is a disease that can make it hard to breathe. In someone with asthma, the little tubes that carry air from their windpipe into their lungs are extra sensitive.
These little tubes are called bronchi. They can get irritated and swell up for lots of different reasons, like if someone's exercising or is allergic to something. A special device called a rescue inhaler can send medicine into the lungs. That helps relax the muscles around the bronchi to make it easier to breathe. Lots of people with asthma also use a daily medication to keep symptoms under control. People are more likely to get asthma if other people in their family have it.
or if they live in a place with lots of pollution. Doctors and scientists are trying to find better treatments for asthma and are working to prevent so many people from getting it in the first place. That's it for this Brains On episode. This episode was written by Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our editors are Sandin Totten and Shayla Farzan. Fact-checking by Rosie DuPont. We had engineering help from Daniel Koselke and Derek Ramirez with sound design by Rachel Breeze.
We had production help from the rest of the Brains on Universe team. And the executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kvati and Joanne Griffith. Special thanks to Joy Dolo, Kirstie and Brett Patterson, Mary Ora Peckon, Virginia Smith, and Rebecca Rand. Brains On is a non-profit public radio program. There are lots of ways to support the show. Subscribe to Brains On Universe on YouTube where you can watch animated...
While you're there, you can send us mystery sounds, drawings, and questions. Okay. Audrey. Indie. Are you ready to hear the mystery sound again? Yes. All right. Let's hear it. Hmm, what are our new thoughts? I think I'm staying with the same. Playing with something like slime or Play-Doh?
Mm-hmm. Lovely guess. What do you think, Indy? What's your guess? Someone's slurping up something. Slurping. What do you think they're slurping up? Probably like spaghetti or something. Oh, yeah. Spaghetti is a very slurpy food. Yeah, I have no idea what this is. Definitely sounds wet, whatever it is. Maybe someone walking through a swamp? Or mud. Maybe? I don't know. Should we hear the answer? Yes. All right, here it is.
Hi, my name is Miles, and I'm from Beaverton, Oregon. That was a sign of me washing my hands with soap. Washing hands with soap? I wash my hands. You must wash your hands. But that was so hard. Why was that so hard? I hear it now. Yes, of course. I'm giving us partial credit though because we heard something wet. We just didn't know what that wet thing was. Yeah.
Now it's time for the brain's honor roll. These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives. Addison from College Station, Texas. Calix from Eugene, Oregon. Abby from Canada. Tim from Broomfield, Colorado. Leo and Fritz from Monument, Colorado. Riyadh, Youssef, and Zoya from New York. Simone from Toronto. Theo and Clara from Chesterbrook, Pennsylvania. Emmy and Charlie from Houston. Talar from... Thank you.
We'll be right back. Auburn, Washington, Whitaker, Olsen, and Arlo from Cary, North Carolina, Declan from Gaithersburg, Maryland, Wyatt and Everett from Greenville, South Carolina, Ona from Denver, Inga and Zola from Burlington, Washington, Grayson from Seattle, Benjamin from Vancouver, Ahok from Vancouver, Astrid from Guthrie, Oklahoma, Lily from
From Sanford, North Carolina. Merrick from Hamilton, Ontario. Joaquin and Diego from San Dimas, California. Thaddeus from Bedford, Texas. Lennon from Holmdel, New Jersey. Julian from Indianapolis. Joshua from Wake Forest, North Carolina. Emma from England. Barney from Bound Brook, New Jersey. Annalie from Oklahoma City.
City, Kyle from Springfield, Virginia, Shepard from Mayfield, New York, Rowan from Captain Cook, Hawaii, Rahima and Gigi from Dallas, Willa from Hamilton, Ontario, River, Maisie and Cora from Montgomery, Alabama, Parker from Chicago, Reed from Little Rock, Arkansas, Cassian from Campbell, California, Talia from from Austin, Texas, Joel from Maryland, Eleanor from Fillmore, California, Raphael and Henry from Culver City, California, and Leo, Raphael, Luca, and Magdalena from Houston, Texas.
We'll be back next week with an episode all about solar power. Thanks for listening. It can be hard to unwind your mind, but the Brains On Universe is here to help. Check out Moment of Calm in the Moment of Um podcast feed. For the week of March 3rd, you'll hear Moment of Um episodes with soothing topics and special quiet music. Perfect for playing at bedtime or any time you need some chill in your life. And on Friday, March 7th, you'll hear a special story with music and sound.
that will take your imagination on a magical, relaxing journey. Tune in to Moment of Calm by listening to Moment of Um the week of March 3rd or follow the Moment of Um in your podcast app to make sure you don't miss an episode.