https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n23/jonah-goodman/a-nati... is a pretty good article describing how a Swiss doctor showed experimentally that adding iodine was a cure for goitre and the associated mental handicaps (Switzerland is highly deficient in iodine in many areas, because glaciers in the last ice age removed most top soil).
After studying atmospheric Chemistry I found it hard to not feel like our planet was alive in some sense of the word but "alive" has a very precise meaning and Earth doesn't fit the definition. Presumably because it doesn't reproduce
While the statement is not false, it has a kind of type error. Iodine is not in a category that can or cannot be synthesized in organisms (or any chemical reactions). We only talk about molecules in this category: e.g. Vitamin C can be synthesized in some organisms, but not others.
The following is also not a false statement: household waste isn't handled by the JVM garbage collector. However, at least we know it was written in jest. To nitpick that one would be to betray not getting the computer science dad joke.
Burger King continued to use iodized salt consistently, while McDonalds, Wendys etc have switched to flakier salts for their fries which cuts total sodium overall by being flatter instead of grainy, but without any iodine added to it.
The downward trend in fast food began in the 70s, once sodium was seen as bad, so more salty tasting thin crystals were preferred.
When my wife's doctor recommended more iodine in her diet, I was surprised how hard it was to find iodized flaky salt. I only found one brand I could order, and it was extremely expensive and didn't have a great texture for cooking with. I keep iodized table salt around and sometimes use it for salting soup, stock, or pasta water, but 99% of the time I reach for plain old Morton kosher salt.
It might just be easier and cheaper to take iodine supplements. Humans need about 150mcg/day, just make sure not to overdose on it. Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones.
> Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones.
One approach that can work is to use multivitamins. They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range.
Most adult multivitamins seem to have 150 mcg.
If you want lower than that children's multivitamins can do the trick. Flintstone's have 90 mcg. House brands meant to directly compete with Flintstone's do not always copy the Flintstone's dosages, so be sure to check the label. Walmart's Equate brand for example is 150 mcg, same as most adult multivitamins.
I like to take children's vitamins as insurance. They have enough of many things that if I have a minor deficiency in my diet they should cover it, but not so much as to cause problems if my diet is sufficient or even a little high. Plus they taste good, which helps if you have other supplements you are taking that do not taste good.
> They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range.
The RDA for iodine is 150 mcg, so 325 should normally draw concern. However, the average iodine intake in Japan is well over 1000 mcg, to no ill effect. Too much iodine is definitely bad, but the dosage that is firmly established as causing problems (oddly, a similar effect as too little iodine) is at least another order of magnitude beyond the Japanese intake. (There may be weird interactions between iodine and fluoride, but that recent data is still very tentative and suspect, and even at 325 mcg/day isn't concerning.)
Supplements are made from kelp, so there's potential issues with heavy metals. But, again, the average Japanese intake of the types of heavy metals kelp accumulates is multiples of the US RDA limit, to no known ill effect. However, there are no USP or similar reputably certified iodine supplements, only certified multivitamins with iodine. That's more concerning to me than anything else.
Nonetheless, FWIW I give my kids an iodine supplement once or twice a week. I also cook with iodized salt, but we eat out or consume prepared food enough times in a week that I figured a supplement was worthwhile, all things considered. RDAs are typically computed by measuring urine excretion, so it's possible "topping up" iodine that way might not be very effective--just quickly excreted. I dunno.
Cows milk can be a good source of iodine, but my kids don't consume milk regularly, and only one drinks cows milk. Fortunately, they do like anchovies, so I try to add those into the mix.
Saltier tasting salt is likely counterproductive, IMO. People aren't born knowing how much salt taste corresponds to how much salt consumption, so that gets tuned by persistent salt deficits causing upregulation of salty food desire. In other words, homeostatic feedback causes salt consumption to stay about the same by increased consumption of salty-tasting processed food.
While I was growing up, my family put so much salt on everything, even before tasting it. About once a month during the summer months my folks would surprise us by picking up pizza (with 8 growing kids, it was a lot of pizza). The top would be flopped open on the boxes, and then mom would start shaking the salt, and shaking, and shaking, and wouldn't stop until you could see a layer. We were all so used it that non-salty pizza was drab, just as you state.
I finally kicked the habit when I went to college. There were no salt shakers out on the tables. After the first semester I went home and nearly choked on the level of salt on the food.
They'll figure out a way eventually, but it is definitely harder.
It is always easy to grow something uniform as a pure crystal, without fault lines on them causing crumbling.
As a kid who spent a lot of time with chemistry, it used to fascinate me that you can crystallize out a clean salt crystal out of a mix of potassium permanganate and salt, the salt grain will grow pretty much pure salt on it without a hint of purple (also burned my nose skin off collecting chlorine from the exercise, talk to your local chemistry teacher and find out why).
I never succeeded in making a colored salt transparent crystal.
> The iodine intake is also inadequate in several countries with strong health systems and otherwise successful public health programs (Norway, Germany and Finland). In Norway, iodized salt is not widely implemented and the allowed level of fortification is only 5 ppm, below the recommended minimum level of 15 ppm. Fish and seafood were assumed to provide adequate iodine intake in the population, but their iodine content is not high enough unless consumed every day, and their consumption is declining. In Germany, a major challenge is the low use of iodized salt in the production of processed foods, which contributes to most dietary salt. Finland had an effective salt iodization program for decades, but decreased consumption of iodized salt and milk resulted in lower iodine intakes. Actions to strengthen the coverage of iodized salt were recently recommended by the Finnish National Nutrition Council.
Almost all table salt is. Flake or kosher salt has become fashionable for various reasons.
You’ll not see any change for awhile, as the same clowns who are against fluoridation and vaccination also want to enjoy the freedom of a life without iodine.
Notably, a lot of non-table salt in the US is not iodized. So the amount of iodine someone gets depends on how much of their food is industrialized, vs home cooked.
Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Salt is also an opportunistic carrier for iodine supplementation. So to call it good or bad, you'd need to either come up with an epidemiological study of the two diseases relative to each other, or maybe propose an alternative carrier for the iodine supplementation.
Sure. That makes sense physiologically, if you think about membrane potential and hormonal control and kidney capacity. Just like with glucose, it's the spikes that cause the damage. But it's a lot easier to explain to a non-professional that eating overly salty food is bad for them (which is what the advice reduces to in practice) than try to explain osmolality to them.
> Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure.
The evidence for this is poor, and there is some evidence to the contrary.[0] Right now it is difficult to assert that there's anything more than a correlation, possibly because many popular high salt food choices could be bad for reasons other than sodium (e.g. fast food staples). In recent decades, widespread success of anti-salt messaging means that lower salt intake is now highly correlated with eating a healthy diet.
There's no first-order harm in a low salt diet, but there may be some second-order concerns. For example, when food manufacturers are pushed to reduce salt, their arsenal for achieving hyperpalatability becomes narrowed to objectively worse things like sugar and refined seed oils.
--
[0] "The field of heart failure has evolved [...] There is now substantial randomized trial data to indicate that dietary sodium restriction does not provide the reduction in clinical events with accepted heterogeneity in the clinical trial results."https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38215917/ (2024)
That study is focused on how much to restrict sodium intake in patients who have already experienced heart failure to avoid further clinical events (more heart attacks). The evidence for excess sodium intake causing cardiovascular problems (by way of either high blood pressure or tissue damage from sodium spikes) remains pretty robust. See for example https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470268/.
I think the closest thing to what you're saying that has been found is that very low sodium levels in the diet also lead to problems (the body is starved of electrolytes).
A significant source of declining iodine levels in humans can also be traced to increased bromide found in food and medications. Most notably potassium iodate was used as a bread conditioner until the 1950s when it was substituted for potassium bromate. [0]
Excess bromide levels displace the iodide stored in the thyroid and is a contributing factor to the described increase of groiter. Bromide also has the added drawback of increased cancer risk and has now been banned in California [1] [2].
Explanation: Iodine is a molecular element, it consists out of only one type of atom. Atoms being synthesized implies some nuclear reaction or decay going on, both would cause radiation.
I mean, it's possible that at some point evolution produced such nuclear reactored individual, but who got "naturally selected" rather quickly for obvious reasons
If you read some of the Dune supplementary materials, the sandworms are biological nuclear reactors. It's kinda handwavey but it's a cool concept - how do you keep a creature the size of a freight train moving constantly in a very thick medium... how about harvesting fissionables?
See the Isaac Asimov story "Pâté de Foie Gras" from the September 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, available here [1] on the Internet Archive.
> An essential nutrient is a nutrient required for normal physiological function that cannot be synthesized in the body (...) The nutrients considered essential for humans comprise nine amino acids, two fatty acids, thirteen vitamins, fifteen minerals and choline.
While some of these can be synthesized by other animals, this is not the case of minerals like iodine. I believe only organic compounds can be synthesized by animals.
Our bodies can synthesize several inorganic compounds, and other organisms can synthesize even more. There are biological sources of $H_{2}O$, $NH_{4}^{+}$, $NO$, $HCO_{3}^{−}$, $HPO_{4}^{2−}$, and (traditionally considered inorganic despite having carbon) $CO_{2}$. Iodine is an element, not a compound, and can only be synthesized through nuclear processes, not chemical ones.
I feel your use of TeX (or whatever that notation is precisely ...) is far too clear.
Possibly use InChI instead, so instead of "$HPO_{4}^{2−}$", use "InChI=1S/H3O4P/c1-5(2,3)4/h(H3,1,2,3,4)/p-2". Or, more concisely, just use the key, which is "NBIIXXVUZAFLBC-UHFFFAOYSA-L". :)
Or just unicode. Standard digraphs ftw (xcompose, wincompose...). It's even typed in the same way (_4 ^+ etc) - and maybe there's tex tools that output unicode these days where possible?
true, true... I wonder if that's even possible to do in unicode. maybe some combining char thing. I certainly wouldn't be able to type a digraph of it from memory if it is. But, I feel it's still more readable this way
That's TeX. Every time Donald Knuth gets distracted from writing The Art of Computer Programming, he makes another piece of load-bearing infrastructure. (TeX came about because the second edition of Volume 1 didn't look as nice as the first edition.)
Minerals (as the term is used in nutrition, not in mining) are chemical elements, not "compounds". They are part of the constituents that can be synthesised into compounds. Usually our bodies obtain them in some form of organic or inorganic salts, which are compounds, so we obtain them as parts of compounds. To synthesise compounds that contain iodine, you need iodine in some form. As we are not talking about nuclear reactions through which elements are synthesised through other elements, there is no way humans, animals or plants synthesise any minerals like iodine, we all obtain them from some source. The original sentence is weird, because it talks as if iodine can be synthesised somehow chemically but just our bodies are unable to.
Iodine is also found in seafood and dairy and eggs, which may have been less common in the American diet a century ago, especially among the poor, but are widespread today. Americans no longer need iodized salt. (Not sure about vegans.)
It's definitely in seafood. Dairy and eggs depend on what the cows and chickens have been fed. In regions with low soil iodine content, you can expect the eggs and milk to also be low in iodine.
Vegetables and grains also have a significant amount of iodine in that sort of soil (it's where the cows and chickens get it).
Vegans should already be extremely watchful of their nutrition, as there's for example B12 in a lot of animal products, where a B12 deficiency means you are getting nerve damage.
IIUC it's not specifically banned by name in a law, more like not on the whitelist for food additives. Industrialized foodstuffs manufacturing in late 20th century Japan was wild, and additives are managed on approvals basis than bans as the result.
This has me curious on how I would know if my family needs more iodine? We have largely been on kosher salt for a long long time. It is just more pleasant to use while cooking.
I could, I think, just switch a lot of what we do back to iodized salt? Feels pointless if not needed, though.
You likely eat other kosher products that do not use "kosher salt".
Using "kosher salt" is not always a requirement for a product to be kosher. Technically all salt is kosher if it is produced under kosher supervision, even if it's not "kosher salt".
(And some salt labeled as "kosher salt" can also be not actually kosher!)
"Kosher salt" should be rather called "koshering salt", which is the salt you would use for koshering meat.
And like most people, you likely eat more salt than strictly needed because there's salt in everything. So consuming more salt should be of least concern.
Oh, I should have been clear there, I don't do kosher because it is "kosher." I just like the larger flakes and it is easier to cook with from familiarity. I'm assuming with time I could get used to iodized again, but not at all clear if I need to.
And we have actually been doing quite well with not eating out too often. Literally less than 5 times all month. Such that I am not at all worried that we are getting too much salt.
Though, that starts getting at the general question. How often should I get blood work for nutritional analysis? Because.... I don't know that I've ever done that.
I was never concerned about iodine. A chef suggested kosher salt as being easier to use and I switched a long time ago. If anything, my concern now would be if I should make sure we are not lacking in iodine.
Seaweed, man. Buy a bag of dried kombu, plop a piece when you're making soup or broth: it goes well with most flavors, and will give you all the iodine you need.
Disclaimer: not meant to be medical advice, obviously.
That depends on if it's in the grass that the cows eat. They first researched iodine in cows because there isn't much iodine in the grass around the great lakes. This area was known as the "goiter belt".
Adding iodine to the cow's food made them healthier and that's how they estimated the dose for humans (mcg / kg).
I grew up in Germany where iodized salt and flouridated water aren't the norm. Now I have bad teeth and can't wrap my head around the latest changes in the C++ language...
That’s not true. Iodized salt is the norm in Germany. I couldn't find data more recent than 2018 but according to this paper, "iodized and fluoridated salt has a market share of 80-90% among salt sold to private households": https://jlupub.ub.uni-giessen.de/items/fcd6e613-49a9-414b-a4...
Iodized salt is quite the norm in Germany. You can buy the non -iodized version which is better for bread baking. But most everyone I know has iodized salt at home.
Also doesn't water fluoridation cost a few IQ points? In the end I could imagine the effects cancelling each other out.
> Also doesn't water fluoridation cost a few IQ points?
No, it does not. This is speculation based on a poor understanding of the actual science.
Most of our fluoride exposure comes from eating normal food, water fluoridation is a small fraction of that. There are no measurable cognitive effects in the many developed parts of the world with natural fluoride levels far higher than used in municipal fluoridation. Furthermore, there is no plausible mechanism of action for how this would cause a cognitive deficit. Fluoride toxicity is well-understood because it has an unusually simple biochemical mechanism. Therefore it isn't surprising that the handful of low-quality studies that show a weak relationship to IQ loss don't replicate.
As someone who actually worked on fluorine chemistry, it is disappointing to see how credulous even many people with a STEM background are on this topic. The absence of a plausible mechanism of action alone should raise serious questions.
This is a fair question. It is based on the chemistry of fluorine.
Fluorine has the strongest electronegativity of any element in the periodic table. It requires extreme measures to muscle fluorine off a molecule. This is why it is used in non-stick surfaces like Teflon (nothing can “grip” the surface molecules because fluorine won’t let it) and why it is used in toothpaste (molecules that might attack the tooth surface chemically can’t compete with the fluoride that is already there). The dark side of this is that it is difficult to contain fluorine compounds, they have a tendency to attack most containers you can put them in that aren’t also fluorine based. Famously, they tend to eat glass so you can’t store it in glass vessels.
The toxicity of fluorine flows from this. It has an insatiable appetite for Type II metals, notably calcium and magnesium in the human body. If you are exposed to fluorine, it will have a seek-and-destroy mission for these metal ions. A typical human body has a lot of calcium and magnesium circulating so it can absorb exposure from diet, water, etc. The net effect is that some calcium and magnesium is removed from circulation and is no longer bio-available. Not a big deal. In extreme exposure cases, like an industrial accident, the way it kills you isn’t toxicity per se but by removing all of the calcium ions from your system. Your heart uses calcium ions for electrical signaling, so if those are all neutralized by ravenous fluorine, your heart stops.
The antidote for extreme fluorine exposure is to ingest a bunch of simple calcium and magnesium salts. The fluorine latches on to the surplus floating around and there is enough left for your heart to keep running.
This is where the mechanism of action question comes in. For fluorine to have biological effects on cognition, the body would have to be so devoid of neutralizing calcium and magnesium ions, which it strongly prefers as a matter of physics, that you’d already be dead. In extreme exposure cases (like getting concentrated fluorine compound spilled on you) with prophylactic calcium/magnesium antidote, it does really nasty damage to the bones, but there has never been a case of cognitive damage that I’ve ever seen mentioned in the safety literature.
Fluorine is a nasty element, I don’t miss working with it, but it isn’t a serious threat in trace quantities because human bodies can easily absorb the loss of calcium and magnesium. Human bodies are tolerant of almost all elemental toxins at natural levels. The few for which there is no evidence of tolerance at even trace levels are elements like mercury. Even elements like arsenic and lead are believed to be required by human biology to some extent and therefore the human body has some evolved tolerance for them. (These two are pub quiz material, most people are shocked to find out that these are necessary micronutrients.)
The combination of flouridated water, tooth paste, and other sources, etc can lead to levels that can cause problems, but it's not as simple as "fluoridated water bad".
"The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. "
So maybe not exactly "water fluoridation cost a few IQ points" in a broad sense, but close enough.
> such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter
> The PHS panel that provided the recommendation considered all sources of fluoride intake and recommended 0.7 mg/L as the concentration that maximizes fluoride's oral health benefits while minimizing potential harms, such as dental fluorosis.
1.5mg/L was where effects could possibly start to be detected. That's over twice the recommended concentrations.
> It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.
Also, even if it is beneficial, which I do not think is true, it doesn’t need to be added to water to help teeth. It’s in most toothpaste and should be a topical treatment, not ingested.
“ It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.”
Any landlocked country without access to ocean water for irrigation and drinking. Heck, even the American midwest is notorious for having little iodine in its soil.
Taylor KW, Eftim SE, Sibrizzi CA, et al. Fluoride Exposure and Children’s IQ Scores: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Pediatr. Published online January 06, 2025. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.5542
Considering a clear distinction between "slowly growing up" and "quickly expanding in all directions", that you managed to grow up at all proves that you didn't have too much.
TL;DR: hookworm eradication in the American South substantially improved school attendance and educational outcomes in children, and may have had a nontrivial positive effect on the overall economy of the region.
(In case you don't see the connection, some children had such severe hookworm infestations that they were too anemic to focus in school, or even to attend at all. Teachers' accounts specifically remark on their students' newly "rosy cheeks" - because they're no longer anemic.)
But hookworm recently returned. There are also all sorts of parasitic worms that coexist with men. Pets require periodic vaccination, but most owners are deniers or just do not care!
need to cook food for dog due to medical reasons, and one of ingredients is iodized salt. so i had a quick look at this topic. so, as far as i remember:
- different brands have different amount of iodine
- iodine dissipates from opened salt container, with speed of dissipation been dependant on temperature and humidity
- if you cook with iodized salt, most of it iodine disappears (depends on brand. some retain more )
I had never thought about point 1, and never knew about points 2 and 3.
Growing up in India, iodized salt was the norm. Given that I'm vegetarian, now that I have moved the US, I have continued to use iodized salt for my own cooking. Whatever Morton / Kroger / other grocery store brand is most readily available. I usually keep it stored in an airtight plastic jar but use it for cooking like normal.
Should I be worried about iodine loss during cooking?
Iodized salt, sanitary sewers, and shoes are the showcase achievements of public health, aside from vaccines and whatnot that people associate with progress in medicine.
I think that's a bold statement. I'd say the jury is still out on that (especially for pregnant women and babies).
Though I will agree with fluoridated toothpaste. I would rather the govt gives out fluoride toothpaste to people, then force everyone to drink it, which research is still ongoing.
Or offer discounted fluoride toothpaste / mouthwash.
From my understanding, fluoride works best when put directly on teeth (e.g. toothpaste / mouthwash), and doesn't work so well if you drink it.
I can get non-iodized salt, use a septic tank, not wear shoes, and skip vaccines (and home school) if I so choose to. I can't choose to get unfloridated water from the public system. It's a little odd that a public health intervention has been prescribed to everyone en masse.
You linked a study saying that under 1.5mg/L, fluoride is safe. EPA maximum is 4.0, but secondary standard is 2.0. Current recommendations from the Dept. of Health and Human Services are at 0.7mg/L.
There's no point, why risk it, for what benefit? Just brush your teeth and apply topical fluoride periodically. It's not hard. Is it for you?
Even a tiny negative impact on IQ is a dumb thing to accept in service to some nonsense rationale for your teeth. Accepting this tradeoff is an IQ test itself. I'm with Europe on this one.
I believe that you've selected a single study based on your existing biases and are basing your entire opinion off of it, rather than having done an honest amount of research into the nuances of the issue
Back when I looked into fluoride in water, my take away was that for adults it has little impact on IQ, but may have more on younger people. Research was still ongoing.
From my understanding, fluoride in water was more a thing done for poorer communities (or people with bad oral heath routines, aka not brushing your teeth), and the cheapest, most effective way to help these people is to put it in everyones water.
But from personal standpoint, the best way to look after your teeth is to brush with fluoride toothpaste, twice a day (ideally w/ electric brush), and floss once a day.
Fluoride mouthwash is also a good idea (but look up what a good mouthwash is, you don't want one with alcohol in it). Though using mouthwash isn't as important as brushing/flossing.
Personally, I'd rather not have fluoride in water until we have more conclusive reliable research on it. But having said that, I understand why it's often put in in a cost–benefit view point.
It's a recent meta analysis and isn't the only one shaping my view, but this issue has been raised for a long time. I'm asking you directly: why would you make this tradeoff? Makes no sense. Do you just accept it because that's the way things are, you're told it's good? I don't get it.
Why would you preference a dubious need for your teeth easily mitigated by just taking care of them, over potential harm to your kids (plus societies kids) brains?
> Why would you preference a dubious need for your teeth easily mitigated by just taking care of them, over potential harm to your kids (plus societies kids) brains?
> Iodine deficiency today is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation in the world. It’s estimated that nearly one-third of the world’s population has a diet with too little iodine in it, and the problem isn’t limited to developing countries — perhaps one-fifth of those cases are in Europe (pdf), where iodized salt is still not the norm.
> The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for iodine is between 220 micrograms (mcg) and 290 mcg in pregnancy, and 290 mcg when breastfeeding. [1]
Iodine affects the thyroid which produces hormones that regulate how the brain develops in the womb. If these T3/T4 hormones aren't strong enough, brain cells don't get into the right places.
Apparently Iodine intake needs to be 50% higher than the normal healthy level during pregnancy (and higher during breast feeding). Taking prenatal vitamins now in case I get pregnant.
So when neurons form in the brain, they are born in a nursery and then migrate to their final destination. Here is a movie showing this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMYHx7dRe8g
This was both a new topic to me and a remarkably succinct (and well-cited) comment. Did you happen to do this research independently or do you reference a more comprehensive source?
I love doing research so I tried to answer the question for myself, "why does iodine deficiency cause cognitive impairment"? I have no background here.
Then I discovered that brain cells walk around during brain formation. MindBlown!
I looked up this Brownstein protocol and the first result is the FTC taking action against the guy for making false medical claims by making up a crazy vitamin protocol and falsely advertising it as a way to prevent or cure coronavirus.
Potassium iodide liquid was a fun way to discover what that weird bitter taste in iodized salt is, and to find out that I desire Some Occasionally, after it went from tasting “interesting” to “mr yuck” over about three days and then reverted over a week or two.
You are taking a pharmacological dose of iodine to treat an illness, rather than a nutritional dose. In some people that can “force” thyroid production and treat hypothyroidism without requiring thyroid hormone- but isn’t a good idea for most people to just try randomly.
A single drop of Lugol's iodine has dozens of times the deily recommended amount of iodine, and such levels have been documented to cause harm to the thyroid. Including inducing hypothyroidism. To quote the American Thyroid Association (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4267409/)
> We recommend against the use of dietary supplements, nutraceuticals, or other over-the-counter products either in euthyroid individuals or as a means of treating hypothyroidism. We particularly caution against the use of pharmacologic doses of iodine because of the risk of thyrotoxicosis and hypothyroidism in those with intact thyroid glands susceptible to becoming further dysregulated because of underlying thyroid pathology.
It’s not widely used in mainstream medicine, but carefully tuned pharmacologic doses of iodine can successfully treat hypothyroidism for some people- such as the person you are replying to. It’s an “alternative medicine” thing but the biological mechanism and effect are real and understood. It should not be confused with regular dietary needs for someone that isn’t intentionally trying out a non mainstream medical intervention to treat a medical condition.
A sudden rapid increase in iodine intake causes a temporary transient hypothyroidism, but over sustained time periods steady high doses increase thyroid hormone production.
Doctors aren't likely to use this method because it is poorly studied, and the well studied standard of care is to directly supplement thyroid hormones. However, if someone doesn't have access to medical care, or doesn't respond well to that- this could be a solution.
The most common kinds of hypothyroidism are due to the thyroid being damaged. Adding iodine can't help, but there are several known ways it can be harmful.
Iodine can still push forward the pathways that synthesize thyroid hormones and increase levels, even in many cases where the thyroid is damaged, e.g. hashimotos. In fact, most hormones can have their synthesis pushed by megadosing on their chemical precursors- however that can be unsafe of course.
Yes, it can be harmful, and depends on context- but you'll find a ton of info online about people successfully self treating hypothyroidism with high dose iodine.
Here is some more detail on the context, and mechanism for why people often react differently to this:
> On the other side, doctors such as X, Y, Z, have claimed success prescribing high doses of iodine for Hashimoto’s and for breast and thyroid cancers.
The blog post above didn't take long to go off the rails. Already in the introduction, the only "experts" in favor of high iodine are a bunch of quacks saying it can cure cancer. I have no sympathy for these fellows who are making a quick buck on the backs of vulnerable cancer patients.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n23/jonah-goodman/a-nati... is a pretty good article describing how a Swiss doctor showed experimentally that adding iodine was a cure for goitre and the associated mental handicaps (Switzerland is highly deficient in iodine in many areas, because glaciers in the last ice age removed most top soil).
> something our bodies can’t synthesize
Iodine is an element! As such, it cannot be produced by a chemical reaction and so isn't synthesized in any living organism.
It's produced in supernova explosions, by the rapid neutron capture process.
I'd argue that it's not completely unreasonable to claim that stars are living organisms in some sense of this expression
Then you might enjoy "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapeldon. It is available on Amazon.
After studying atmospheric Chemistry I found it hard to not feel like our planet was alive in some sense of the word but "alive" has a very precise meaning and Earth doesn't fit the definition. Presumably because it doesn't reproduce
So, what is wrong with the statement?
If "wrong" means "false", then nothing!
While the statement is not false, it has a kind of type error. Iodine is not in a category that can or cannot be synthesized in organisms (or any chemical reactions). We only talk about molecules in this category: e.g. Vitamin C can be synthesized in some organisms, but not others.
The following is also not a false statement: household waste isn't handled by the JVM garbage collector. However, at least we know it was written in jest. To nitpick that one would be to betray not getting the computer science dad joke.
At best, it doesn't say anything useful. You can say the same thing about carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc.
At worst, it implies that, like essential amino acids, it CAN be synthesized by some living organism.
And hamburgers (which the body cannot synthesize).
Burger King continued to use iodized salt consistently, while McDonalds, Wendys etc have switched to flakier salts for their fries which cuts total sodium overall by being flatter instead of grainy, but without any iodine added to it.
The downward trend in fast food began in the 70s, once sodium was seen as bad, so more salty tasting thin crystals were preferred.
[1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20634172/ (on researchgate)
I also prefer cooking with the flakier stuff because I can grab a pinch of it and sprinkle it in a controlled way.
I try to use iodized salt when it’s convenient: when salting pasta water, in baking, etc… but I wonder if my family is getting enough.
When my wife's doctor recommended more iodine in her diet, I was surprised how hard it was to find iodized flaky salt. I only found one brand I could order, and it was extremely expensive and didn't have a great texture for cooking with. I keep iodized table salt around and sometimes use it for salting soup, stock, or pasta water, but 99% of the time I reach for plain old Morton kosher salt.
It might just be easier and cheaper to take iodine supplements. Humans need about 150mcg/day, just make sure not to overdose on it. Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones.
> Vitamin companies love selling you huge doses you don't need, but if you know what dosage you're looking for you can usually find appropriate ones.
One approach that can work is to use multivitamins. They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range.
Most adult multivitamins seem to have 150 mcg.
If you want lower than that children's multivitamins can do the trick. Flintstone's have 90 mcg. House brands meant to directly compete with Flintstone's do not always copy the Flintstone's dosages, so be sure to check the label. Walmart's Equate brand for example is 150 mcg, same as most adult multivitamins.
I like to take children's vitamins as insurance. They have enough of many things that if I have a minor deficiency in my diet they should cover it, but not so much as to cause problems if my diet is sufficient or even a little high. Plus they taste good, which helps if you have other supplements you are taking that do not taste good.
> They usually have a lower dosage of everything than do single thing supplements. For example the iodine supplements I've seen are in the 225 mcg to 325 mcg range.
The RDA for iodine is 150 mcg, so 325 should normally draw concern. However, the average iodine intake in Japan is well over 1000 mcg, to no ill effect. Too much iodine is definitely bad, but the dosage that is firmly established as causing problems (oddly, a similar effect as too little iodine) is at least another order of magnitude beyond the Japanese intake. (There may be weird interactions between iodine and fluoride, but that recent data is still very tentative and suspect, and even at 325 mcg/day isn't concerning.)
Supplements are made from kelp, so there's potential issues with heavy metals. But, again, the average Japanese intake of the types of heavy metals kelp accumulates is multiples of the US RDA limit, to no known ill effect. However, there are no USP or similar reputably certified iodine supplements, only certified multivitamins with iodine. That's more concerning to me than anything else.
Nonetheless, FWIW I give my kids an iodine supplement once or twice a week. I also cook with iodized salt, but we eat out or consume prepared food enough times in a week that I figured a supplement was worthwhile, all things considered. RDAs are typically computed by measuring urine excretion, so it's possible "topping up" iodine that way might not be very effective--just quickly excreted. I dunno.
Cows milk can be a good source of iodine, but my kids don't consume milk regularly, and only one drinks cows milk. Fortunately, they do like anchovies, so I try to add those into the mix.
Flaky salt is easy to make. You can adjust the texture as desired. I usually start with a bucket of sea water, but iodized salt works too.
Saltier tasting salt is likely counterproductive, IMO. People aren't born knowing how much salt taste corresponds to how much salt consumption, so that gets tuned by persistent salt deficits causing upregulation of salty food desire. In other words, homeostatic feedback causes salt consumption to stay about the same by increased consumption of salty-tasting processed food.
While I was growing up, my family put so much salt on everything, even before tasting it. About once a month during the summer months my folks would surprise us by picking up pizza (with 8 growing kids, it was a lot of pizza). The top would be flopped open on the boxes, and then mom would start shaking the salt, and shaking, and shaking, and wouldn't stop until you could see a layer. We were all so used it that non-salty pizza was drab, just as you state.
I finally kicked the habit when I went to college. There were no salt shakers out on the tables. After the first semester I went home and nearly choked on the level of salt on the food.
> In other words, homeostatic feedback causes salt consumption to stay about the same by increased consumption of salty-tasting processed food.
I'd imagine that McDonalds/Wendys/etc don't view that as a bad thing...
Hmm, why don't they make iodized flaky salt?
> why don't they make iodized flaky salt?
They'll figure out a way eventually, but it is definitely harder.
It is always easy to grow something uniform as a pure crystal, without fault lines on them causing crumbling.
As a kid who spent a lot of time with chemistry, it used to fascinate me that you can crystallize out a clean salt crystal out of a mix of potassium permanganate and salt, the salt grain will grow pretty much pure salt on it without a hint of purple (also burned my nose skin off collecting chlorine from the exercise, talk to your local chemistry teacher and find out why).
I never succeeded in making a colored salt transparent crystal.
I think it's a United States thing. There are other countries where all salt meant for human consumption must be iodized.
US has adequate intake while Norway, Germany and Finland have iodine deficiency.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8240726/
> The iodine intake is also inadequate in several countries with strong health systems and otherwise successful public health programs (Norway, Germany and Finland). In Norway, iodized salt is not widely implemented and the allowed level of fortification is only 5 ppm, below the recommended minimum level of 15 ppm. Fish and seafood were assumed to provide adequate iodine intake in the population, but their iodine content is not high enough unless consumed every day, and their consumption is declining. In Germany, a major challenge is the low use of iodized salt in the production of processed foods, which contributes to most dietary salt. Finland had an effective salt iodization program for decades, but decreased consumption of iodized salt and milk resulted in lower iodine intakes. Actions to strengthen the coverage of iodized salt were recently recommended by the Finnish National Nutrition Council.
Almost all table salt is. Flake or kosher salt has become fashionable for various reasons.
You’ll not see any change for awhile, as the same clowns who are against fluoridation and vaccination also want to enjoy the freedom of a life without iodine.
Notably, a lot of non-table salt in the US is not iodized. So the amount of iodine someone gets depends on how much of their food is industrialized, vs home cooked.
> downward trend ... sodium was seen as bad
Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure. Salt is also an opportunistic carrier for iodine supplementation. So to call it good or bad, you'd need to either come up with an epidemiological study of the two diseases relative to each other, or maybe propose an alternative carrier for the iodine supplementation.
The issue with sodium intake is not the quantity but rather the osmolality.
https://peterattiamd.com/rickjohnson/
Sure. That makes sense physiologically, if you think about membrane potential and hormonal control and kidney capacity. Just like with glucose, it's the spikes that cause the damage. But it's a lot easier to explain to a non-professional that eating overly salty food is bad for them (which is what the advice reduces to in practice) than try to explain osmolality to them.
> Excess sodium intake is associated with cardiovascular disease and heart failure.
The evidence for this is poor, and there is some evidence to the contrary.[0] Right now it is difficult to assert that there's anything more than a correlation, possibly because many popular high salt food choices could be bad for reasons other than sodium (e.g. fast food staples). In recent decades, widespread success of anti-salt messaging means that lower salt intake is now highly correlated with eating a healthy diet.
There's no first-order harm in a low salt diet, but there may be some second-order concerns. For example, when food manufacturers are pushed to reduce salt, their arsenal for achieving hyperpalatability becomes narrowed to objectively worse things like sugar and refined seed oils.
--
[0] "The field of heart failure has evolved [...] There is now substantial randomized trial data to indicate that dietary sodium restriction does not provide the reduction in clinical events with accepted heterogeneity in the clinical trial results." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38215917/ (2024)
That study is focused on how much to restrict sodium intake in patients who have already experienced heart failure to avoid further clinical events (more heart attacks). The evidence for excess sodium intake causing cardiovascular problems (by way of either high blood pressure or tissue damage from sodium spikes) remains pretty robust. See for example https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8470268/.
I think the closest thing to what you're saying that has been found is that very low sodium levels in the diet also lead to problems (the body is starved of electrolytes).
i wonder why when you can simply add potassium salt to make it taste saltier without sodium
A significant source of declining iodine levels in humans can also be traced to increased bromide found in food and medications. Most notably potassium iodate was used as a bread conditioner until the 1950s when it was substituted for potassium bromate. [0]
Excess bromide levels displace the iodide stored in the thyroid and is a contributing factor to the described increase of groiter. Bromide also has the added drawback of increased cancer risk and has now been banned in California [1] [2].
[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3916868/
[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20131203041405/http://www.oehha....
Further reading from Gwern - https://gwern.net/iodine
> Iodine is a critical micronutrient in the human diet — that is, something our bodies can’t synthesize
For this I am thankful. If your body DOES start synthesizing iodine, you and those around you probably don't have much longer left to live.
Explanation: Iodine is a molecular element, it consists out of only one type of atom. Atoms being synthesized implies some nuclear reaction or decay going on, both would cause radiation.
Thank you. For the life of me I could not figure out why that is true.
I mean, it's possible that at some point evolution produced such nuclear reactored individual, but who got "naturally selected" rather quickly for obvious reasons
If you read some of the Dune supplementary materials, the sandworms are biological nuclear reactors. It's kinda handwavey but it's a cool concept - how do you keep a creature the size of a freight train moving constantly in a very thick medium... how about harvesting fissionables?
See the Isaac Asimov story "Pâté de Foie Gras" from the September 1956 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, available here [1] on the Internet Archive.
[1] https://archive.org/details/sim_astounding-science-fiction_1...
I long for the day when my liver can also act as a particle accelerator
The kidneys? A pair of calutrons.
Uhm, yes, is this where the line for the beta test starts?
You don't want either alpha or beta in your kidneys, not even for a test. The radiation could cause cancer.
smiles in katalepsis
Yeah, from Wikipedia:
> An essential nutrient is a nutrient required for normal physiological function that cannot be synthesized in the body (...) The nutrients considered essential for humans comprise nine amino acids, two fatty acids, thirteen vitamins, fifteen minerals and choline.
While some of these can be synthesized by other animals, this is not the case of minerals like iodine. I believe only organic compounds can be synthesized by animals.
Our bodies can synthesize several inorganic compounds, and other organisms can synthesize even more. There are biological sources of $H_{2}O$, $NH_{4}^{+}$, $NO$, $HCO_{3}^{−}$, $HPO_{4}^{2−}$, and (traditionally considered inorganic despite having carbon) $CO_{2}$. Iodine is an element, not a compound, and can only be synthesized through nuclear processes, not chemical ones.
I feel your use of TeX (or whatever that notation is precisely ...) is far too clear.
Possibly use InChI instead, so instead of "$HPO_{4}^{2−}$", use "InChI=1S/H3O4P/c1-5(2,3)4/h(H3,1,2,3,4)/p-2". Or, more concisely, just use the key, which is "NBIIXXVUZAFLBC-UHFFFAOYSA-L". :)
(from : https://www.ebi.ac.uk/chebi/searchId.do?chebiId=43474)
Or just unicode. Standard digraphs ftw (xcompose, wincompose...). It's even typed in the same way (_4 ^+ etc) - and maybe there's tex tools that output unicode these days where possible?
H₂O, NH₄⁺, NO, HCO₃⁻, HPO₄²⁻
Yes, that's pretty good ... but - the charges on [NH4]+, [HCO3]-, and [HPO4]2- should be above the subscripts on their last atoms. Minor point really.
true, true... I wonder if that's even possible to do in unicode. maybe some combining char thing. I certainly wouldn't be able to type a digraph of it from memory if it is. But, I feel it's still more readable this way
Or Hacker News could finally add support for LaTeX and markdown...
The definition I remember from my chemistry class is that organic compounds are those having at least one C-H bond.
It's a reasonable definition, especially when classifying biochemicals, but there are always edge cases.
For example : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carborane that definitely do have C-H bonds but are mostly B-B, B-C, B-H.
What is this kind of notation from/based on? e.g $H_{2}O$
That's TeX. Every time Donald Knuth gets distracted from writing The Art of Computer Programming, he makes another piece of load-bearing infrastructure. (TeX came about because the second edition of Volume 1 didn't look as nice as the first edition.)
Looks like LaTeX syntax.
LaTeX would be \(H_{2}O\) – or, more likely, \ce{H2O} or \ch{H2O}.
Minerals (as the term is used in nutrition, not in mining) are chemical elements, not "compounds". They are part of the constituents that can be synthesised into compounds. Usually our bodies obtain them in some form of organic or inorganic salts, which are compounds, so we obtain them as parts of compounds. To synthesise compounds that contain iodine, you need iodine in some form. As we are not talking about nuclear reactions through which elements are synthesised through other elements, there is no way humans, animals or plants synthesise any minerals like iodine, we all obtain them from some source. The original sentence is weird, because it talks as if iodine can be synthesised somehow chemically but just our bodies are unable to.
Does respiration count as synthesis?
Iodine is also found in seafood and dairy and eggs, which may have been less common in the American diet a century ago, especially among the poor, but are widespread today. Americans no longer need iodized salt. (Not sure about vegans.)
It's definitely in seafood. Dairy and eggs depend on what the cows and chickens have been fed. In regions with low soil iodine content, you can expect the eggs and milk to also be low in iodine.
Vegetables and grains also have a significant amount of iodine in that sort of soil (it's where the cows and chickens get it).
Vegans should already be extremely watchful of their nutrition, as there's for example B12 in a lot of animal products, where a B12 deficiency means you are getting nerve damage.
In Japan, iodized salt is banned as a food additive. because we can take it from see weeds like kombu.
Why would that be a reason to ban iodized salt?
Too much iodine can lead to thyroid problems, and this has been a problem in some subgroups in Japan: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/107/6/e2634/6516999
Even without iodized salt, Japan is one of the highest consumers of iodine worldwide. [1]
But I agree. Even though iodized salt is pointless in Japan, so is the law banning it (assuming OP is correct, and it is in fact banned).
[1]: https://anaturalhealingcenter.com/documents/Thorne/articles/...
IIUC it's not specifically banned by name in a law, more like not on the whitelist for food additives. Industrialized foodstuffs manufacturing in late 20th century Japan was wild, and additives are managed on approvals basis than bans as the result.
This has me curious on how I would know if my family needs more iodine? We have largely been on kosher salt for a long long time. It is just more pleasant to use while cooking.
I could, I think, just switch a lot of what we do back to iodized salt? Feels pointless if not needed, though.
You likely eat other kosher products that do not use "kosher salt".
Using "kosher salt" is not always a requirement for a product to be kosher. Technically all salt is kosher if it is produced under kosher supervision, even if it's not "kosher salt".
(And some salt labeled as "kosher salt" can also be not actually kosher!)
"Kosher salt" should be rather called "koshering salt", which is the salt you would use for koshering meat.
And like most people, you likely eat more salt than strictly needed because there's salt in everything. So consuming more salt should be of least concern.
Oh, I should have been clear there, I don't do kosher because it is "kosher." I just like the larger flakes and it is easier to cook with from familiarity. I'm assuming with time I could get used to iodized again, but not at all clear if I need to.
And we have actually been doing quite well with not eating out too often. Literally less than 5 times all month. Such that I am not at all worried that we are getting too much salt.
Though, that starts getting at the general question. How often should I get blood work for nutritional analysis? Because.... I don't know that I've ever done that.
I see. Most sea salt also has no iodine if that's a concern.
I was never concerned about iodine. A chef suggested kosher salt as being easier to use and I switched a long time ago. If anything, my concern now would be if I should make sure we are not lacking in iodine.
You can seaweed, another source of iodine.
In Korea, people often have seaweed soup. Seaweed is very high in iodine, so most people in South Korea doesn't use iodized salt.
Seaweed, man. Buy a bag of dried kombu, plop a piece when you're making soup or broth: it goes well with most flavors, and will give you all the iodine you need.
Disclaimer: not meant to be medical advice, obviously.
Isn’t there a lot of iodine in dairy?
That depends on if it's in the grass that the cows eat. They first researched iodine in cows because there isn't much iodine in the grass around the great lakes. This area was known as the "goiter belt".
Adding iodine to the cow's food made them healthier and that's how they estimated the dose for humans (mcg / kg).
I grew up in Germany where iodized salt and flouridated water aren't the norm. Now I have bad teeth and can't wrap my head around the latest changes in the C++ language...
Denmark iodizes its salt. Therefore, C++ is unnecessarily complex.
That’s not true. Iodized salt is the norm in Germany. I couldn't find data more recent than 2018 but according to this paper, "iodized and fluoridated salt has a market share of 80-90% among salt sold to private households": https://jlupub.ub.uni-giessen.de/items/fcd6e613-49a9-414b-a4...
I think you made a typo. Your source says it's 70-80%.
> So liegt der Anteil von jodiertem und fluoridiertem Salz in Haushaltsgebinden seit Jahren zwischen 70 und 80 %
Yes, that was a typo, thanks for the correction!
Good to know, must have gone up since I moved away in '92
I think you have it backwards. If you can easily wrap your head around the latest C++ changes, then you should be concerned.
Iodized salt is quite the norm in Germany. You can buy the non -iodized version which is better for bread baking. But most everyone I know has iodized salt at home.
Also doesn't water fluoridation cost a few IQ points? In the end I could imagine the effects cancelling each other out.
> Also doesn't water fluoridation cost a few IQ points?
No, it does not. This is speculation based on a poor understanding of the actual science.
Most of our fluoride exposure comes from eating normal food, water fluoridation is a small fraction of that. There are no measurable cognitive effects in the many developed parts of the world with natural fluoride levels far higher than used in municipal fluoridation. Furthermore, there is no plausible mechanism of action for how this would cause a cognitive deficit. Fluoride toxicity is well-understood because it has an unusually simple biochemical mechanism. Therefore it isn't surprising that the handful of low-quality studies that show a weak relationship to IQ loss don't replicate.
As someone who actually worked on fluorine chemistry, it is disappointing to see how credulous even many people with a STEM background are on this topic. The absence of a plausible mechanism of action alone should raise serious questions.
> The absence of a plausible mechanism of action alone should raise serious questions.
I'm just a layperson, so forgive the possibly dumb question: why would this be weighted so heavily?
I read it as "we can't think of how this could work, so we should assume it doesn't". But that just seems like hubris to me.
This is a fair question. It is based on the chemistry of fluorine.
Fluorine has the strongest electronegativity of any element in the periodic table. It requires extreme measures to muscle fluorine off a molecule. This is why it is used in non-stick surfaces like Teflon (nothing can “grip” the surface molecules because fluorine won’t let it) and why it is used in toothpaste (molecules that might attack the tooth surface chemically can’t compete with the fluoride that is already there). The dark side of this is that it is difficult to contain fluorine compounds, they have a tendency to attack most containers you can put them in that aren’t also fluorine based. Famously, they tend to eat glass so you can’t store it in glass vessels.
The toxicity of fluorine flows from this. It has an insatiable appetite for Type II metals, notably calcium and magnesium in the human body. If you are exposed to fluorine, it will have a seek-and-destroy mission for these metal ions. A typical human body has a lot of calcium and magnesium circulating so it can absorb exposure from diet, water, etc. The net effect is that some calcium and magnesium is removed from circulation and is no longer bio-available. Not a big deal. In extreme exposure cases, like an industrial accident, the way it kills you isn’t toxicity per se but by removing all of the calcium ions from your system. Your heart uses calcium ions for electrical signaling, so if those are all neutralized by ravenous fluorine, your heart stops.
The antidote for extreme fluorine exposure is to ingest a bunch of simple calcium and magnesium salts. The fluorine latches on to the surplus floating around and there is enough left for your heart to keep running.
This is where the mechanism of action question comes in. For fluorine to have biological effects on cognition, the body would have to be so devoid of neutralizing calcium and magnesium ions, which it strongly prefers as a matter of physics, that you’d already be dead. In extreme exposure cases (like getting concentrated fluorine compound spilled on you) with prophylactic calcium/magnesium antidote, it does really nasty damage to the bones, but there has never been a case of cognitive damage that I’ve ever seen mentioned in the safety literature.
Fluorine is a nasty element, I don’t miss working with it, but it isn’t a serious threat in trace quantities because human bodies can easily absorb the loss of calcium and magnesium. Human bodies are tolerant of almost all elemental toxins at natural levels. The few for which there is no evidence of tolerance at even trace levels are elements like mercury. Even elements like arsenic and lead are believed to be required by human biology to some extent and therefore the human body has some evolved tolerance for them. (These two are pub quiz material, most people are shocked to find out that these are necessary micronutrients.)
> Also doesn't water fluoridation cost a few IQ points?
Yes
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
That's not what the link claims.
The combination of flouridated water, tooth paste, and other sources, etc can lead to levels that can cause problems, but it's not as simple as "fluoridated water bad".
"The NTP monograph concluded, with moderate confidence, that higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter, are associated with lower IQ in children. "
So maybe not exactly "water fluoridation cost a few IQ points" in a broad sense, but close enough.
> such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter
> The PHS panel that provided the recommendation considered all sources of fluoride intake and recommended 0.7 mg/L as the concentration that maximizes fluoride's oral health benefits while minimizing potential harms, such as dental fluorosis.
1.5mg/L was where effects could possibly start to be detected. That's over twice the recommended concentrations.
https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/about/community-water-fluor...
From the NIH source above posted by WorkerBee:
> It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/whatwestudy/assessments/noncancer/...
Also, even if it is beneficial, which I do not think is true, it doesn’t need to be added to water to help teeth. It’s in most toothpaste and should be a topical treatment, not ingested.
“ It is important to note that there were insufficient data to determine if the low fluoride level of 0.7 mg/L currently recommended for U.S. community water supplies has a negative effect on children’s IQ.”
Can't comment on the bad teeth, but I don't think iodine is causing your c++ issues...
10 out of 10! :D
Iodized salt has been the norm for a while in Germany...
Switzerland is the exemplar of a place without environmental iodine, right?
Any landlocked country without access to ocean water for irrigation and drinking. Heck, even the American midwest is notorious for having little iodine in its soil.
[flagged]
According to the current best guess, fluoridation lowers IQ scores:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
Taylor KW, Eftim SE, Sibrizzi CA, et al. Fluoride Exposure and Children’s IQ Scores: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Pediatr. Published online January 06, 2025. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.5542
I guess there is a reason Germans blamed the Jews for all their bullshit.
I wonder if I got my share of iodine growing up, or maybe too much, while playing with nitrogen triiodide?
Considering a clear distinction between "slowly growing up" and "quickly expanding in all directions", that you managed to grow up at all proves that you didn't have too much.
See also: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3800113/
TL;DR: hookworm eradication in the American South substantially improved school attendance and educational outcomes in children, and may have had a nontrivial positive effect on the overall economy of the region.
(In case you don't see the connection, some children had such severe hookworm infestations that they were too anemic to focus in school, or even to attend at all. Teachers' accounts specifically remark on their students' newly "rosy cheeks" - because they're no longer anemic.)
Hookworms and the Myth of the "Lazy Southerner"
https://www.pbs.org/video/gross-science-myth-laziness/
But hookworm recently returned. There are also all sorts of parasitic worms that coexist with men. Pets require periodic vaccination, but most owners are deniers or just do not care!
Remember that, next time you step into dog shit!
need to cook food for dog due to medical reasons, and one of ingredients is iodized salt. so i had a quick look at this topic. so, as far as i remember:
- different brands have different amount of iodine
- iodine dissipates from opened salt container, with speed of dissipation been dependant on temperature and humidity
- if you cook with iodized salt, most of it iodine disappears (depends on brand. some retain more )
Regardless, on average it tends to work out. The amount of iodine in the salt is regulated by measuring uring samples in a large population.
I had never thought about point 1, and never knew about points 2 and 3.
Growing up in India, iodized salt was the norm. Given that I'm vegetarian, now that I have moved the US, I have continued to use iodized salt for my own cooking. Whatever Morton / Kroger / other grocery store brand is most readily available. I usually keep it stored in an airtight plastic jar but use it for cooking like normal.
Should I be worried about iodine loss during cooking?
depends on amount of salt that you use and your nutritional requirements...
for my dog I add salt after cooking. she won't know the difference
Iodized salt, sanitary sewers, and shoes are the showcase achievements of public health, aside from vaccines and whatnot that people associate with progress in medicine.
I agree, but not forget washing hands and using antiseptics where it makes sense.
Fluoridated water too
I think that's a bold statement. I'd say the jury is still out on that (especially for pregnant women and babies).
Though I will agree with fluoridated toothpaste. I would rather the govt gives out fluoride toothpaste to people, then force everyone to drink it, which research is still ongoing. Or offer discounted fluoride toothpaste / mouthwash.
From my understanding, fluoride works best when put directly on teeth (e.g. toothpaste / mouthwash), and doesn't work so well if you drink it.
Most european countries would like to disagree
Europe has the highest rate of oral disease in the world.
They should catch up to us then
I can get non-iodized salt, use a septic tank, not wear shoes, and skip vaccines (and home school) if I so choose to. I can't choose to get unfloridated water from the public system. It's a little odd that a public health intervention has been prescribed to everyone en masse.
Dig a well.
It’s often in well water due to the municipal water being fluoridated.
Nope. Trivial benefit while marginally lowering IQ.
Fluoride Exposure and Children’s IQ Scores A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis [0]
[0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...
You linked a study saying that under 1.5mg/L, fluoride is safe. EPA maximum is 4.0, but secondary standard is 2.0. Current recommendations from the Dept. of Health and Human Services are at 0.7mg/L.
There's no point, why risk it, for what benefit? Just brush your teeth and apply topical fluoride periodically. It's not hard. Is it for you?
Even a tiny negative impact on IQ is a dumb thing to accept in service to some nonsense rationale for your teeth. Accepting this tradeoff is an IQ test itself. I'm with Europe on this one.
I believe that you've selected a single study based on your existing biases and are basing your entire opinion off of it, rather than having done an honest amount of research into the nuances of the issue
Back when I looked into fluoride in water, my take away was that for adults it has little impact on IQ, but may have more on younger people. Research was still ongoing.
From my understanding, fluoride in water was more a thing done for poorer communities (or people with bad oral heath routines, aka not brushing your teeth), and the cheapest, most effective way to help these people is to put it in everyones water.
But from personal standpoint, the best way to look after your teeth is to brush with fluoride toothpaste, twice a day (ideally w/ electric brush), and floss once a day.
Fluoride mouthwash is also a good idea (but look up what a good mouthwash is, you don't want one with alcohol in it). Though using mouthwash isn't as important as brushing/flossing.
Personally, I'd rather not have fluoride in water until we have more conclusive reliable research on it. But having said that, I understand why it's often put in in a cost–benefit view point.
It's a recent meta analysis and isn't the only one shaping my view, but this issue has been raised for a long time. I'm asking you directly: why would you make this tradeoff? Makes no sense. Do you just accept it because that's the way things are, you're told it's good? I don't get it.
Why would you preference a dubious need for your teeth easily mitigated by just taking care of them, over potential harm to your kids (plus societies kids) brains?
I believe that's a dumb tradeoff.
> Why would you preference a dubious need for your teeth easily mitigated by just taking care of them, over potential harm to your kids (plus societies kids) brains?
Because I reject your premise
But aside from the iodized salt, sanitary sewers, shoes, vaccines, and whatnots what have the Romans done for us?
I wouldn't put vaccines in the same pot as whatnots.
Public health generally works!
> Iodine deficiency today is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation in the world. It’s estimated that nearly one-third of the world’s population has a diet with too little iodine in it, and the problem isn’t limited to developing countries — perhaps one-fifth of those cases are in Europe (pdf), where iodized salt is still not the norm.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200820212020/https://www.who.i...
> The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for iodine is between 220 micrograms (mcg) and 290 mcg in pregnancy, and 290 mcg when breastfeeding. [1]
Iodine affects the thyroid which produces hormones that regulate how the brain develops in the womb. If these T3/T4 hormones aren't strong enough, brain cells don't get into the right places.
Apparently Iodine intake needs to be 50% higher than the normal healthy level during pregnancy (and higher during breast feeding). Taking prenatal vitamins now in case I get pregnant.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK582771/
[2] https://www.phind.com/search?cache=l34zoyrwfc8ocb3vcodcsc46
So when neurons form in the brain, they are born in a nursery and then migrate to their final destination. Here is a movie showing this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMYHx7dRe8g
Mapping Postnatal Neuronal Migration: A Late Path to Neurodevelopmental Disorders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4FZiv-rtTU
Neurogenesis in the mammalian brain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2RINOAeONw
This was both a new topic to me and a remarkably succinct (and well-cited) comment. Did you happen to do this research independently or do you reference a more comprehensive source?
I love doing research so I tried to answer the question for myself, "why does iodine deficiency cause cognitive impairment"? I have no background here.
Then I discovered that brain cells walk around during brain formation. MindBlown!
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"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Apologies, a bad executed joke
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I looked up this Brownstein protocol and the first result is the FTC taking action against the guy for making false medical claims by making up a crazy vitamin protocol and falsely advertising it as a way to prevent or cure coronavirus.
Potassium iodide liquid was a fun way to discover what that weird bitter taste in iodized salt is, and to find out that I desire Some Occasionally, after it went from tasting “interesting” to “mr yuck” over about three days and then reverted over a week or two.
You are taking a pharmacological dose of iodine to treat an illness, rather than a nutritional dose. In some people that can “force” thyroid production and treat hypothyroidism without requiring thyroid hormone- but isn’t a good idea for most people to just try randomly.
Absolutely not!!
A single drop of Lugol's iodine has dozens of times the deily recommended amount of iodine, and such levels have been documented to cause harm to the thyroid. Including inducing hypothyroidism. To quote the American Thyroid Association (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4267409/)
> We recommend against the use of dietary supplements, nutraceuticals, or other over-the-counter products either in euthyroid individuals or as a means of treating hypothyroidism. We particularly caution against the use of pharmacologic doses of iodine because of the risk of thyrotoxicosis and hypothyroidism in those with intact thyroid glands susceptible to becoming further dysregulated because of underlying thyroid pathology.
It’s not widely used in mainstream medicine, but carefully tuned pharmacologic doses of iodine can successfully treat hypothyroidism for some people- such as the person you are replying to. It’s an “alternative medicine” thing but the biological mechanism and effect are real and understood. It should not be confused with regular dietary needs for someone that isn’t intentionally trying out a non mainstream medical intervention to treat a medical condition.
A sudden rapid increase in iodine intake causes a temporary transient hypothyroidism, but over sustained time periods steady high doses increase thyroid hormone production.
Doctors aren't likely to use this method because it is poorly studied, and the well studied standard of care is to directly supplement thyroid hormones. However, if someone doesn't have access to medical care, or doesn't respond well to that- this could be a solution.
The most common kinds of hypothyroidism are due to the thyroid being damaged. Adding iodine can't help, but there are several known ways it can be harmful.
> Adding iodine can't help
Iodine can still push forward the pathways that synthesize thyroid hormones and increase levels, even in many cases where the thyroid is damaged, e.g. hashimotos. In fact, most hormones can have their synthesis pushed by megadosing on their chemical precursors- however that can be unsafe of course.
Yes, it can be harmful, and depends on context- but you'll find a ton of info online about people successfully self treating hypothyroidism with high dose iodine.
Here is some more detail on the context, and mechanism for why people often react differently to this:
https://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/05/iodine-and-hashimotos-... https://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/05/iodine-and-hashimotos-...
> On the other side, doctors such as X, Y, Z, have claimed success prescribing high doses of iodine for Hashimoto’s and for breast and thyroid cancers.
The blog post above didn't take long to go off the rails. Already in the introduction, the only "experts" in favor of high iodine are a bunch of quacks saying it can cure cancer. I have no sympathy for these fellows who are making a quick buck on the backs of vulnerable cancer patients.
entourage?
Perhaps a polite way to say "harem"
That would be wishful thinking. I think he just meant, close female beings.
Why assume this is a man? Sounded like a woman talking about her friends to me.
Why assume only men can have harems?