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The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

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Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#201

Post by xp84 »

naremu wrote: post #111
Cockbrand wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, fluoridated water tastes really… well, special , and it almost feels like an indirect subsidy for the water filter industry. Iodine in salt is (to my taste) pretty neutral in comparison. [EDIT: as pointed out in a child comment, the taste actually comes from chlorine, not fluoride.]

Isn't that taste chlorine from the sanitation process? Either way I actually do assume water filter companies lobby to keep public water as subpar an option as possible, there's certainly no incentive not to.

Somehow I doubt “Big Filter” has the kind of money and clout they would need to pull that off. I’d accept being proven wrong, but I just doubt it in the absence of seeing proof.

Most of the taste problem that’s in our water “on purpose” is chlorine and it’s not added out of spite, it’s added for sanitary reasons.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#203

Post by xp84 »

pixl97 wrote: post #127
shakil wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iodized salt is almost always the industrially produced variety, pure NaCL and much more salty than the natural varieties - either sea or mountain salts that typically include other minerals and are milder in flavor.

That is more about crystal size and roughness than anything else. Some companies are working on nanoscale crystals of salt that allow you to use significantly less salt for the same saltiness profile based on these properties.

Cool! Where do I sign up for the salt innovation newsletter? I want to try this when it comes out.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#204

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

speeder wrote: post #165

This article made me a little sad. The article is about how people with a fear of iodine overdose resisted the idea of adding it to salt on first place. I spent my childhood in Brazil, a country where there are a good amount of natural iodine. Yet the government decided to ignore the risks, seemly well known for more than a century, and jack up the iodine in the salt to levels beyond what any international standard r…

To be fair, there was known evidence at the time that large iodine doses were harmful. Very little research had been done for small doses. There was cause for scrutiny.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#205

Post by ponector »

kergonath wrote: post #150
l5870uoo9y wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To broaden the question; is it proven that sea air is healthier? The top search results point in both directions.

It is not. This kind of ideas is the remnant of the “bad air” theory of diseases propagation, which is not actually a thing and was displaced by germ theory at some point in the 19th century. People clung on to this belief because why not (and there was money to be made bringing rich people to countryside or seaside resorts) but there is no real rational justification. That’s not to say that the atmosphere cannot be…

The rational justification is that seaside has often wind from the sea which bring cleaner air. There are no car exhaust, no power plant emissions, no factories, no dust in the sea.

Air quality in any coastal city in Poland is much much better than in Warsaw/Krakow/Wrocław which are quite far away from the Baltic sea.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#206

Post by emmelaich »

kergonath wrote: post #90
lostlogin wrote: post #39

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.

Not to argue about dosing water, but fluoride has no value ingested and is poisonous at low doses. It's best to moderate your arguments against the anti-fluoride mob or you're too easily dismissed yourself.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956646/

> Public health approaches for global dental caries reduction that do not involve systemic ingestion of fluoride are urgently needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride_toxicity

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#207

Post by emmelaich »

lostlogin wrote: post #173
tourmalinetaco wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> the science is still out for whether it’s useful when used alongside regular topical applications. That’s a meaningless comparison. The whole point is that people aren’t doing topical application. A similar debate to this is the adding folate to flour or bread.

Don't most (all?) toothpastes contain fluoride?

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#208

Post by ip26 »

masklinn wrote: post #46
bee_rider wrote: post #13

I think, outside Europe, this afflicted lots of places away from the coast, right? Like the middle part of the US. I’ve always wondered if the iodine in the air is part of the allure of the seaside. Coastal areas of course have produced a huge number of successful countries. Most of that must be the trade and logistics advantages. I wonder if getting the iodine right out of the air was another hidden major advantage…

> I think, outside Europe, this afflicted lots of places away from the coast, right? Like the middle part of the US. That's exactly where it afflicted people in europe as well, mountainous regions tend to be inlands, and from their remoteness don't have the opportunity for incidental iodine through trade, so they worsen the odds, but historically distance from the sea (and thus lack of sea products) has absolutely be…

intake from air is considered insignificant

But, intake from air is how the soil & plants get it, over long time scales…

It’s always possible that a simple indirect selection is at play, e.g. people who simply love the sea breeze (for no particular reason) are more successful because they get enough iodine. Then, the next generation is more likely to love the sea breeze.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#209

Post by simtel20 »

Taniwha wrote: post #198
romwell wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The article states otherwise No it doesn't. You're ignoring the context. You can't have too much iodine when it's obtained from iodized salt. ...because you can't handle that much salt. From the article: 10x'ing the concentration of iodine in salt had no adverse effects. You'd have to eat salt by the pound daily to reach levels where iodine is harmful, but at that point, that'll be the least of your worries.

I think that depends on the concentration of the iodine in the salt

Right, but that's a standardized fortification so any iodized salt you get anywhere in the world now would make that statement true.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#210

Post by aerostable_slug »

b112 wrote: post #199
chasil wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

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. This is different than iodine added to salt, or iodine in liquid form for wounds. I believe it is potassium iodine.

That's correct. Our local public heath department, like many others in communities located near nuclear power plants, has a program for utility-funded distribution of KI to households in designated areas.

It is only taken when the nice person on the radio tells you to do so (you know to tune in from the blaring emergency sirens, tested semiannually). Rather interestingly, the emergency instructions for evacuation state that parents should not go to schools to get their kids, because they'll already be gone: in an emergency, municipal transit buses head to the schools, then take loads of kids to designated areas well upwind of the plant.

All of this info and more is available in a rather well-produced section of the local phone books. Since phone books tend to end up unopened in recycling bins these days, I suspect most newer residents have little idea of what I'm talking about.

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