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The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

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261–270 of 282 posts

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can actually consume a _lot_ of cyanide without negative consequences, your body can detoxify it easily in small quantities. You can dissolve a lethal dose of cyanide in a bottle of water, and you'll be fine if you drink it in small sips over the course of a day. Cyanide is so toxic because it has a high affinity for iron ions, so it deactivates iron-containing enzymes that are crucial for respiration. But in fer…

Yeah, just because it doesn't directly harm a human in small dosis, doesn't mean it's a good idea to just add it to the daily diet of a human. We simply don't know, and haven't research the longterm effect of small dosis on a daily intake. Especially combined with other conservatives & chemical additives in small dosis. You can't deny there are some major diseases in the modern world on a rise and we have no idea why…

> We simply don't know, and haven't research the longterm effect of small dosis on a daily intake.

For cyanide? We actually do. Cassava roots contain quite a bit of it, and they are used as a staple in some places in Africa. You can indeed can get chronic poisoning, but it requires A LOT of cyanide.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Simply never way anything and you'll be safe!

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#263
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/re... "THE PRESIDENT: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to u…

Yes. He was speaking about UV therapies that disinfect the entire body during particularly dangerous infections.

Pretending he told people to inject bleach will certainly reinforce a worldview where Trump is deranged -- but that doesn't make it reality.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Simply never way anything and you'll be safe!

Like I mentioned to the other replier, a probabilistic argument is fine, and I would even agree it's 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.

And nobody, in this post at least, has made that argument, nor has anyone even linked to such.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#265
post #256

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...

Oh wow, I didn't know it went that for back. But I am fairly sure I only noticed it in shops around 15 years ago as I said. Okay, maybe 20 or a bit more.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#266
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But, intake from air is how the soil & plants get it, over long time scales… Plants get it from the soil, onto which the iodine gets deposited. There is no breathing apparatus involved. > 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. What part of “intake from air is considere…

1) your great grandparents loved the ocean air and thus moved near the coast

2) plants near the coast have iodine because iodine has been blowing in from the ocean and depositing on the soil for eons

3) you eat those plant

4) you don’t have an iodine deficiency because your ancestors moved to live by the sea

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#267
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reference to iodized salt, you would die of salt overdose before there are ill effects from iodine.

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.

Whats stopping non-iodine salt from being poisoned by Cadmium or mercury? You can make up imaginary risks for pretty much everything.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't. Personally I can taste the metallic taste. But then again, so can I after using baking powder. Maybe I'm more sensitive to it?

You should conduct a blind test! (If you haven't already). Conducting blind tests on my perceptual preferences has been incredibly eye opening. It's especially illuminating for cooking with spices. Trying to identify spices by taste is something i never though to do but really helped me elevate my cooking from, "i guess we'll try this", to intentionally placing and making informed decisions. I bet the same thing coul…

It's spelled _Hors d'œuvre_ in French, using the weird ligature of o and e[1]. According to the Wikipedia article:

> A number of words written with œ were borrowed from French and from Latin into English, where the œ is now rarely written. Modern American English spelling usually substitutes e, so diarrhœa has become diarrhea, although there are some exceptions, such as _phoenix_. In modern British English, the spellings generally keep the o but remove the ligature (e.g. diarrhoea).

In the case of _Hors d'oeuvre_, it seems like the english wikipedia keeps the _o_. [2]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%92 [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hors_d%27oeuvre

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#269
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'…

> But I bet that millennials have no personal experience with it at all. Mass vaccination started in the late 50s and especially early 60s (with Sabin’s oral vaccine). Millennials start in 1981, so they would / could well have known affected adults.

I'm born around that time although before 1981.

I had some elderly neighbors with this condition and I think they lived long enough (1990 maybe?) that my two next younger brothers might have visited them too. (Why I don't know: they were not relatives or anything, my mom and aunt just used to visit them to be nice to them, so I suspect when I started school they might have taken my place.)

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#270
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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...

Oh wow, I didn't know it went that for back. But I am fairly sure I only noticed it in shops around 15 years ago as I said. Okay, maybe 20 or a bit more.

*that far back
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