Live data from Hacker News

The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

lrb.co.uk

151–160 of 282 posts

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#151
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

With the complex supply chains and processed/ready-made food we have nowadays I am wondering how much iodine makes its way into the diet of the Swiss today even without ioded table salt. I suspect that one of the issues was that most/all food used to be sourced locally, especially eggs and milk, which are good sources of iodine, with seafood probably mostly absent from the Swiss diet. Edit: apparently nowadays, and t…

[deleted]

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#153
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are health resorts here in Poland where the whole reason is for them to exist in these particular places is because air there has a lot of iodine and other minerals from sea salt. I've been to one in Kołobrzeg as a child because of my asthma. There are also inland health resorts where they build huge salt evaporation walls so that people don't have to drive all the way to the sea to breath sea air- for example…

Sounds similar to many parts of eastern Europe and Russia. People go to health retreats to drink water from specific natural springs that are high in minerals.

Yeah we have that too, but this is about evaporating it to make the air healthy to breathe. Different benefits compared to drinking.

Here's more about the mechanism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduation_tower

Apparently the first such towers were built in 1600s.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#154
post #119
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was clear that I meant that in jest. My point was that the amount of iodine is imperceptibly small.

But microplastic in sea salt is a real thing (and might be a bit worrying, personally I now always go for mountain salt, deposited pre-anthropocene era)

What an absurd thing to fixate on. There are a million other things you consume that are going to have more microplastics in them.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#155
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While the cases were high in switzerland, they were not unique. Link to an academic article discussing how the USA is now in the dangerzone of iodine deficiency. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12011-018-1606-5#... .

Of course they were not unique (though perhaps extreme). I must say I don't get how the replies in this thread relate to my comments...

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#156
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

They probably get plenty of iodine from packaged food since it doesn't all come from the same region any more.

One interesting use of iodine supplementation is during nuclear accidents, where it is given to flood the thyroid and prevent unstable iodine isotopes from being taken up.

"Iodine-131 (usually as iodide) is a component of nuclear fallout, and is particularly dangerous owing to the thyroid gland's propensity to concentrate ingested iodine and retain it for periods longer than this isotope's radiological half-life of eight days. For this reason, people at risk of exposure to environmental radioactive iodine (iodine-131) in fallout may be instructed to take non-radioactive potassium iodide tablets... Ingestion of [a] large dose of non-radioactive iodine minimises the uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine#Other_formulations

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is scientific reason against it, just not matching many of the conspiracy nuts’ rhetoric. Most of Western Europe bans fluoridation. It can make your bones a little less elastic and a little more brittle, and there are a few other known or potential negative effects. There are also just better ways to prevent cavities.

This seems like the sane, boring reality. People with modern dental routines probably don't benefit from the original purposes of fluoridation the same way people in the early 1900s only just getting electricity did.

But people only just getting electricity in the early 1900s easily benefited more than were harmed by such things. Poor dental health gets scary quick.

I guess the question becomes how low do you lower the bar for those who would willingly devoid themselves of sane things to include in their lives. How much freedom does one man have to harm his self, though he thinks as a self, costs to him are more often than not also costs incurred to society (and usually a society that'd prefer to not see people do self harmful things)

At least in the US though, it seems that popular opposition to fluoridation started with cold war era conservative conspiracies (precious bodily fluids). So, you know.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#158
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.

Goethe wrote in 1779 about his travels to Switzerland: “Die scheußlichen Kröpfe haben mich ganz und gar üblen Humors gemacht (“The horrible goiters have given me a very bad sense of humour”). Definitely plenty of earlier historic evidence.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#159
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably get plenty of iodine from packaged food since it doesn't all come from the same region any more.

The salt used in processed and prepared foods usually isn't iodized, contributing to declining iodine intake given the increasing consumption of these foods.

Depends on the country. That's the case in the USA but I'm not sure if it applies in Europe.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

> Unlike the case for iodine, there is no known reason for ingesting fluoride.

If we ignore the whole point of it (reducing dental cavities), what do you think it is added for?

Post reply on HN