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The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

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Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#41
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

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

they're afraid it'll give them 5G or whatever shite they make up on the spot

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#42
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

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?

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#43
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…

Aromat uses iodised salt, so despite Zweifel the swiss have nothing to fear

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#44
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most processed food uses uniodized salt iirc, which is actually becoming a problem in parts of the USA where populations eat nothing but processed food.

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.

I was curious about your point about normal diet and have just looked it up. According to tables 1 and 2 in this article [0], it may be hard for some people to get enough (RDA) iodine from normal, not fortified foods.

0. https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iodine-HealthProfessional/

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#45

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 those conditions are due to excess iodine?

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#46

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 been the primary issue. CIDS was also endemic to the english midlands for instance.

> I’ve always wondered if the iodine in the air is part of the allure of the seaside.

No, intake from air is considered insignificant.

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#48
Paywall free https://archive.ph/3wrzh

> in 1921, in the city of Bern, 94 per cent of schoolchildren had some swelling of the neck and almost 70 per cent had a goitre.

Gosh - it's surprising that years after discovering relativity and the like they were still figuring that out. (Einstein lived in Bern from 1903 to 1905 and developed his Theory of Relativity there).

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#49
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always flabbergasted when people question incredibly effective public health initiatives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goitre#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodized_salt#In_public_health_... > Worldwide, iodine deficiency affects two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of intellectual and developmental disabilities.[1][2] According to public health experts, iodisation of salt may be the w…

It may not be a question of the initiative itself, rather, what conditions in Switzerland at the time led to an uptick in iodine deficiencies.

There was no uptick, CIDS was endemic to the alps as far back as roman times. Its consequences literally slipped into linguistic vernaculars (e.g. french as the insult "crétin des alpes", lit. "cretin from the alps", and "cretin" was the original term for CIDS-induced mental impairment).

Re: The curse of the goitre in Switzerland

#50
post #35
post #23

Great read, but I'm wondering why this began in the 1920's? Or was it always an issue for human beings living in Switzerland?

The condition has been described since Roman times, but not only in Switzerland. The problem also exists in other regions in the Alps and other mountain chains across the world.

> The problem also exists in other regions in the Alps and other mountain chains across the world.

As well as in the lowlands, far enough away from the sea to not have easy access to produces or sea salt through trade. It used to be common in the english midlands and the US midwest (as well as the appalachia and rockies).

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