I read Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers a couple months ago and thought it was very educational and taught me a lot about human psychology and biology with fascinating topics and everything. And then I just realized today that hey I still don’t totally understand why zebras don’t get ulcers. Can a more competent reader educate me? Tysm!
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Basically the way I understand it is while we both have fight to flight responses, the zebra actually uses the energy to do something vs us where we basically bottle it up or unleash it
Because Stomach ulcers are caused by a bacteria called helicobacter pylori, which doesn’t infect Zebras. Additionally, even if they did the life span of a Zebra in the wild is often too short to have chronic conditions.
In humans at least, the vast majority of ulcers are caused by a bacterial infection from a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori (or H. pylori for short). After H. pylori infection, the vast majority of remaining ulcers are due to overuse of NSAIDs. I don’t know anything about Zebras, but I’m sure they don’t take NSAIDs in the wild, and if I had to guess they aren’t likely to get infected with H. pylori and/or aren’t susceptible to it like we are.
Zebras spend 23 hours and 55 minutes of the day chilling out with 0% stress just eating grass and sleeping. Then when they see a lion they go to 100% stress and run away before going back to chill mode.
Humans will spend 18 hours a day awake at 40-60% stressed, worrying about bills and their wives flirting with the mailman and how their kids are doing in algebra and what to do about their parents getting older and wondering why their boss isn’t promoting them and what the fuck is happening with the government right now and the impending climate change and the fragility of life and meaningless of our very existence itself! Spending all your time in this state of semi-stress causes ulcers.
Because zebras go into fight-or-flight during life and death scenarios—a predator is nearby, fight-or -flight kicks on and allows them to run away, they’re safe again and the fight-or-flight response goes away. Humans go into fight-or-flight all the time as if there’s a predator nearby, but the predator is an exam, or bills, or relationships. Basically, humans stay in fight-or-flight chronically due to stress or anxiety, causing stress ulcers.
I think that book was released before researchers realized that ulcers don’t actually come from stress but instead come from the h. Pylori bacteria, though. Maybe a better title would be Why Zebras don’t stress eat or something, lol.
I can’t comment on the credibility of that book, but it reminds me of the myth that sharks don’t get cancer, which was popularized by the book Sharks Don’t Get Cancer
Zebras chill, graze, hang out with friends. 0% stress. Sometimes, zebras are chased by a lion. 100% stres for a very short time, together with an intense physical activity (running hard as fuck) that helps metabolise the stress. Then, shortly after, chill with friends again. That’s how stress was originally designed to work.
Humans live in a state of almost perpetual stress. Work, bills, mortgages, politics, toxic relationships, loneliness, lack of community. And not a lot of intense physical activity to “burn off” those stress hormones. We feel like the lion is just around the corner, ready to chase us, but we can’t run away from it. Chronic stress causes dysregulation of the immune system (among many other things) which makes it possible for a Helicobacter pylori (the bacteria that causes ulcers) infection to get out of hand and actually cause ulcers.
Hello,
The book’s subtle double meaning refers to stress.
Stomach ulcers are widely caused and exacerbated by stress. The books is about methods dealing with stress. It also refers to the fact how zebras actively mitigate it. Hence the book’s title.
Even tho NSAID’s and H. Pylori play a role in stomach ulcers, theyre unrelated to the subject here.
Zebras (and horses) actually do get ulcers. The book is about managing stress and the title is referencing the incorrect but previously widespread belief that stress causes stomach ulcers.
The TLDR is that zebras don’t really get chronic stress so don’t have a raft of neurophysiological effects of it, some of those effects lead to ulcers (but zebras can get ulcers for other reasons and not all chronic stress leads to ulcers).
Just a catchy title for a book about the physiology of chronic stress
Gastric ulcers are common in equids, including zebras.
https://bioone.org/journals/Journal-of-Zoo-and-Wildlife-Medicine/volume-48/issue-3/2016-0249.1/DESCRIPTION-OF-GASTRIC-ULCERS-AND-OF-THEIR-SUSPECTED-ASSOCIATED-RISK/10.1638/2016-0249.1.short
ELI5: People lie to sell things, I guess.
Hmmm it must be their environment because horses get a shit-ton of ulcers.
Sapolsky describes a Zebra’s reaction to the sudden chase by a lion as a stress response where adrenaline is excreted, heart races, blood flows to flight or flight muscles and away from digestive organs, etc. until the lion gives up and the zebra is no longer in a stress response mode and it goes back to a grazing homeostasis.
Humans, on the other hand, who do not face carnivorous predators, do experience long term stress responses similar to the Zebra’s temporary fight or flight reaction.
These long term stress responses he credits for chronic ailments such as heart disease, high blood pressure, and others.
For a long time doctors believed ulcers were a reaction to stress which is why Sapolsky used it in his book title, but of course we now have the benefit of newer research linking bacteria to ulcers.
Plainly, Zebra’s don’t get ulcers because they do not worry like we do.