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The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

lrb.co.uk

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Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#91
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that in general there no need for supplements with a normal, balanced diet, especially with eggs, dairy products, grains, and others if iodine is naturally present in the environment. So if Switzerland imports a lot of those, raw, or in prepared/processed food, or even the animal feed for its hens and cows the Swiss today probably already get much more iodine in their diet than 100 years ago.

People have been struggling to get enough iodine for a hundred+ years. That’s why it’s added to salt. This isn’t a 21st century problem.

Isn't that what the whole article is about?

But the point is that Switzerland's environment is especially poor in iodine hence the specific health problems it used to have, and which were much less serious in neighbouring countries.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#92
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the arguments used against iodised salt? Where would they get their iodine?

I've 100% switched to kosher salt & various sea salts with my own cooking. Not because I'm anti-iodine, but because I like those salts better for cooking purposes. Given how much attention was paid to using kosher salt in cooking by people like Alton Brown over the last 20 years I would expect I'm far from an outlier.

Isn't kosher salt literally just regular salt but in a particular particle size? I also use Himalayan and kosher salt but thats because I eat a ton of junk food which has iodised salt. If you're health conscious and don't do that, it's probably not a bad idea to keep iodised salt and add it in times it's not that important you need to pinch the exact right amount in your fingers or whatever.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#93
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the arguments used against iodised salt? Where would they get their iodine?

I've 100% switched to kosher salt & various sea salts with my own cooking. Not because I'm anti-iodine, but because I like those salts better for cooking purposes. Given how much attention was paid to using kosher salt in cooking by people like Alton Brown over the last 20 years I would expect I'm far from an outlier.

That’s fine for people who have a balanced diet rich enough in iodine. Which, to be fair, should be most people bothering about sea salt in the first place. For those who do not, it’s unfortunate, though. There is a reason why adding iodine is a good idea in the first place.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#94
post #3
post #2

A really pleasant to read story. It's funny because I live in Switzerland and some of my friends debate the "ioded salt", and prefer to consume "natural salt" without the additives. Funny how history can repeat itself. I'm always impressed with all these doctors that would question the approach, try new protocols, and end up by finding a cure

How come that the disease wasn't widespread earlier?

> How come that the disease wasn't widespread earlier?

The article makes reference to the Madonna on the Albrecht Dürer’s Dresden Altarpiece having an obvious goiter. That was produced in the late 15th to early 16th century. That’s evidence from the article that the problem was so common then that it was depicted in sacred art.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the salt, there are few that hardly contain more then dairy, but some salts contain enough to make it make sense. My main issue with normal salt is the anti-caking ingredient needed to not have it stick together, in general not needed with sea salt and a real grinder.

You hate sand, huh.

The anti caking I commonly see in salt is potassium cyanide [ferrocyanide, actually, see below].

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_ferrocyanide

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the arguments used against iodised salt? Where would they get their iodine?

Some people dislike the flavor of iodized salt. But what would you expect from future cretins?

FWIW, that was addressed in the article:

> Whatever chefs might claim, this fact is well established: in 1995, Unicef, concerned about the sensitivity of children to odd flavours, commissioned a study in which rice was prepared with salt iodised at ten times the maximum recommended concentration. In double-blind taste tests, the iodine was undetectable.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#97
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was. We just don’t think about it because we’ve defeated it completely by putting iodine in the most popular spice, and also people in the past were afflicted by all sorts of horrible illnesses. It doesn’t stand out from the noise of the past being generally a mess.

Ah, okay. The article just read like there were some unusual strange things going on around 1900 in Switzerland.

The article referenced mentions of goitre in Switzerland from Victor Hugo in 1839, Mark Twain in 1880, a medical survey in 1883, and Roman authors like Vitrivius and Pliny the Elder. It also mentioned that the iodine idea had been going around for a hundred years before the activities of the heroes of our story.

Iodine had not been seen as a successful cure before because excess iodine causes a horrible condition. The key difference here was that Hunziker proposed regular use in minute quantities, and then Bayard tested the hypothesis with careful measurements and convincing evidence.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#98
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've 100% switched to kosher salt & various sea salts with my own cooking. Not because I'm anti-iodine, but because I like those salts better for cooking purposes. Given how much attention was paid to using kosher salt in cooking by people like Alton Brown over the last 20 years I would expect I'm far from an outlier.

Isn't kosher salt literally just regular salt but in a particular particle size? I also use Himalayan and kosher salt but thats because I eat a ton of junk food which has iodised salt. If you're health conscious and don't do that, it's probably not a bad idea to keep iodised salt and add it in times it's not that important you need to pinch the exact right amount in your fingers or whatever.

You pretty much cannot have too much iodine. It is a good idea to use iodised salt in general.

[edit] fair enough, I need to qualify that. You pretty much cannot get too much iodine with something that looks like a normal diet, and in any case iodised salt is not what push iodine levels over the top. And in a normal diets, iodine deficiency is much, much more likely than iodine overload.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#99
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which regard? And please, please don't say masks...

Why don't you want me to say masks? That's probably the best example of a failed public health policy that was more about tribalism than science. Forcing restaurant owners to impose masking guidelines that did nothing to prevent disease or shut down was quite the failure. The public health "experts" also made very bold claims about the vaccine which turned out not to be true as well. Then there was the media (who cla…

Masks were a case of bad communication, they absolutely do work. For others around you more than for yourself so. And vaccines worked wonders, everybody who got two, or three, shots allowed anti-vaxxers to not get theirs and not catch a hard Covid strain regardless of that decision.

But please, tell me more about the "UV-based cleaning thearapy" and Monoclonal Antibody Therapy. Or, on second thought, don't.

Edit: Monoclonal Antibody therapy doesn't work with Covid:

>> Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that target the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein have been shown to have clinical benefits in treating SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, laboratory studies have found that the activity of anti-SARS-CoV-2 mAbs against specific variants and subvariants can vary dramatically. Because of this, these products are not expected to be effective treatments or preventives for COVID-19 in areas where the circulating variants and subvariants are resistant to mAbs.

Source: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/ant...

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the arguments used against iodised salt? Where would they get their iodine?

Pretty much the same as against fluorine in water in the States: it’s unnatural/a globalist conspiracy/killing our traditional way of life/a plot to subdue the people for . There is no scientifically sound reason against it.

There’s scientifically sound reasons for not wanting to drink fluorine, namely that the science is still out for whether it’s useful when used alongside regular topical applications. Not to mention excessive fluorine can stain or pit the teeth, and that it may even destroy nerve tissue.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/fluor...

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