The curse of the goitre in Switzerland • Hacker News Board

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#251

Post by ponector » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

bequanna wrote: post #250

ponector wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering current antivax movement, it is not unusual for people to get sick with polio, even some got paralyzed. It is hard to understand for me how people can intentionally increase risks of deadly diseases for their children.

Antivax movement? Are you assuming everyone who was not interested in the COVID vaccine just plain doesn’t believe in vaccines?

There is a difference in "not interested in receiving COVID vaccine" and fighting against vaccination in general, refusing to vaccinate children with mandatory shots like MMR or polio.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#252

Post by bequanna » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 2:34 PM UTC

hankman86 wrote: post #177

rmason wrote: post #106

My father told me that goitre's were quite common when he was growing up as a boy in Detroit in the 1920's. In my generation it was totally unknown. Yet I remember people affected by polio as a boy quite well. But I bet that millennials have no personal experience with it at all. Each generation moves forward and I can only hope there is a day when no one has any first hand experience with either cancer or Alzheimer'…

Only if sensible people continue to run the public health authorities. You now have people that refuse to vaccinate their children against measles, COVID vaccine hesitancy is a widespread phenomenon with some people resorting to heresay remedies like horse dewormers instead, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist is running for US president and polling with double digit numbers. Health-related insights are particularly…

A large number of people have refused the COVID vaccine for completely valid reasons. The vast majority of that group absolutely vaccinates their children against polio, measles, etc.

They aren’t the anti science luddites your comment paints them as. They are (rightly) skeptical of “the science” which often isn’t very scientific at all.

As we’ve seen, the medical science community is heavily motivated by profit and prestige, but unfortunately not always truth.

New discoveries in that field are often revealed to be bullshit. They deserve skepticism, not blind compliance.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#253

Post by bequanna » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

ponector wrote: post #251

bequanna wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antivax movement? Are you assuming everyone who was not interested in the COVID vaccine just plain doesn’t believe in vaccines?

There is a difference in "not interested in receiving COVID vaccine" and fighting against vaccination in general, refusing to vaccinate children with mandatory shots like MMR or polio.

Yes, there absolutely is a difference and the second group is incredibly small.

I think it is important to make that distinction.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#254

Post by infertainment » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 2:37 PM UTC

ufo wrote: post #227

Solortho wrote: post #190

I take Lugol's iodine almost everyday (with Selenium). It dramatically upgraded my life. The first week could be wild (fever is expected) but people should know how this cheap supplement can help them.

Lugol's iodine is usually not recommended because a single drop has dozens of times the daily recommended dose of iodine. That can cause bad side effects (as discussed in the article)

Yes, a minority of people (less than 2%) have Hashimoto's Thyroditis, some without knowing about it, and a large dose of iodine could cause damage to their thyroid, I think through some sort of auto-immune process. The selenium helps prevent that.

It's a shame because the remaining 98% could get a lot of benefit and (setting aside the above) iodine is supposed to be the least toxic pure element. In the past Lugol's iodine was used as an antiseptic to put on cuts so I guess a fair amount got absorbed that way.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#255

Post by ponector » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 3:43 PM UTC

bequanna wrote: post #253

ponector wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference in "not interested in receiving COVID vaccine" and fighting against vaccination in general, refusing to vaccinate children with mandatory shots like MMR or polio.

Yes, there absolutely is a difference and the second group is incredibly small. I think it is important to make that distinction.

It is not small. Have you heard that vaccines cause autism? It is a popular believe of antivaxxers. So popular that >25% of kids in London are not vaccinated. 1/4 is huge and could compromise herd immunity.

> Only 74% of children under five in London have received both doses of the MMR vaccine – 9.1 points lower than in 2013–14.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#256

Post by truban » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 3:48 PM UTC

fuzztester wrote: post #186

In India iodized salt is common these days, in such table salts as Tata Salt. Salt started being iodized only around 15 or so years back, IIRC.

"India was one of the first countries in the world to have initiated a salt iodisation programme 1962." https://www.livemint.com/news/india/why-should-india-revisit...

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#257

Post by MichaelZuo » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 3:52 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #238

MichaelZuo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping salt from having a much higher concentration of iodine than the normal advertised value? e.g. manufacturing error such that a dangerous amount of iodine is accidentally added.

I guess the same mechanisms that stop manufactures accidentally adding poison to their product.

Which is nothing? There's a clearly non-zero rate of dangerous contamination in food products, in a market as large as the US, that nobody is able to fully prevent.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#258

Post by MichaelZuo » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 3:59 PM UTC

twright0 wrote: post #236

MichaelZuo wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping salt from having a much higher concentration of iodine than the normal advertised value? e.g. manufacturing error such that a dangerous amount of iodine is accidentally added.

I benefit from a very robust set of regulatory controls ensuring that food products are as advertised and generally safe for me to consume?

'generally safe' implies that some small number of folks still suffer from excess iodine due to contamination, manufacturing errors, etc...

It's probably reasonable for 999 999 people to benefit in exchange for 1 person being very unlucky, but that's a different argument that needs to be made.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#259

Post by phkahler » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #45

phkahler wrote: post #24

I am increasingly convinced that the "thyroid hormones" T1, T2, T3, and T4 are simply a place to store iodine. When iodine is needed somewhere in the body it can be taken from T4, converting it to T3. But it's not the case that "T3 is the active form" as you'll read in the literature, it's that the removed iodine is the active or useful thing. Changing the ratio of T3/T4 does cause a change in TSH (thyroid stimulatin…

> Some things with interesting iodine research: skin cancer, breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, asthma, polycystic ovaries, fibrocystic breast disease, other cancers. But yeah, it cures goiter... When I search for breast cancer and iodine, I find links that suggest iodine may help prevent that disease - and Japan’s low rate of the condition is potentially related to high consumption of iodine. Are you saying that all th…

>> Are you saying that all those conditions are due to excess iodine?

No, the opposite. I'm suggesting they are due to low iodine intake.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#260

Post by phkahler » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #84

phkahler wrote: post #24

I am increasingly convinced that the "thyroid hormones" T1, T2, T3, and T4 are simply a place to store iodine. When iodine is needed somewhere in the body it can be taken from T4, converting it to T3. But it's not the case that "T3 is the active form" as you'll read in the literature, it's that the removed iodine is the active or useful thing. Changing the ratio of T3/T4 does cause a change in TSH (thyroid stimulatin…

If this were true, it would mean that people with hypothyroidism could simply supplement iodine rather than needing to replace the hormones.

For some symptoms it may be true, for others not? Some hypothyroidism can be fixed by supplementing iodine. Some are due to other causes. Also, some of the things thyroid hormone seems to do can also be achieved by iodine supplements, and some not. It's very complicated.