Slashdot Mirror
US Gained a Decade of Flynn-Effect IQ Points After Adding Iodine To Salt
cold fjord writes "I wish it was always this easy. Business Insider reports, 'Iodized salt is so ubiquitous that we barely notice it. Few people know why it even exists. Iodine deficiency remains the world's leading cause of preventable mental retardation. According to a new study (abstract), its introduction in America in 1924 had an effect so profound that it raised the country's IQ. A new NBER working paper from James Feyrer, Dimitra Politi, and David N. Weil finds that the population in iodine-deficient areas saw IQs rise by a full standard deviation, which is 15 points, after iodized salt was introduced.... The mental impacts were unknown, the program was started to fight goiter, so these effects were an extremely fortunate, unintended side effect.'"
But I um... thought... um.. it was good for.me to um..... have a what's the.word Jenny? A diet low is salt. I may not be smart, but I know what high blood pressure is...
Just a note that, according to my doctor, and many articles I've read, excessive salt in the diet is NOT a problem for many/most people, but only those sensitive to it. Good explanations can be found:
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Germany was at the forefront of endocrinology during their 2nd industrial revolution that preceded similar industrialization in america.
Their endocrinologists knew that Hyperthyroidism could be treated with a bath with a very dilute amount of Hydrofluoric acid added. They eventually synthesised 3-Fluorotyrosine which was even more vectored to the thyroid gland. The reason this works is normal thyroid hormone is made from conjugated tyrosine with Iodine located at the meta potitions of both rings, no special enzyme positions the Iodine here it is simple thermodynamically favourable for halogens. Once at the target tissue the halogen is removed by the Deiodinase enzymes, Type II is the most important, it requires selenomethionine unlike the Type I and III, and selectively turns T4 into T3. Inside the target cell the Iodine is liberated where it performs an essential role in the nucleus. If Fluorine is located on the tyrosyl it poisons the Type II deiodinase and you result in a form of subtle hypothyroidism where your body loses the ability to move through the normal dynamic range of high and low energy states. To compensate for the inability to convent T4 to the more potent T3 you produce more T4 all the time. You end up unable to relax. An effect also produced by the ability of Fluoride to very selectively target Acetylcholineesterases, required for termination of muscle nerve signals, leading to increased agitation and an inability to properly wind down and relax. Finally Fluoride is potent against Aconitase modifying the Citric-Acid-Cycle in unfavourable ways.
Clearly these are all long evolved stress responses to the ubiquitous toxin that is Fluorine. Henry Mousian was the 10th person who tried to isolate it an succeeded, all the others died. He died a premature death. chlorine and bromine are not nearly so deadly.
Fluorine is very ubiquitous in the earth crust, generally over 200ppm it is more common in the earths crust than carbon! So this enemy has existed for all time, harvard has recently found RNA riboswitches in bacteria that have been shown to specifically sense fluorine to activate defences. Humans do not have these, instead we have G-protein coupled receptors, through which all our hormone and many neurotransmitters function. These are also very sensitive to compounds that form from Fluorine and another ubiquitous element, Aluminium. AlF3 actives g-protein coupled receptors and modulate our sensitivity to our own hormones. there is a theory that the GPCR evolved to sense Fluoride !
Although the role of iodine in the thyroid was to continue to be understood upto WWII as together with Niacin it was one of the two most significant factors that determined mortality from Nuclear weapons.
Great!
Any way we can distribute extra iodine to /. trolls and flamers?
As much as possible, please!
I'm wondering about the internet in general as a symptom of a larger problem. So these people got a little better at figuring out hos things tick or how to solve a puzzle. Know what they did with it? They tied themselves up in knots with conspiracy theories and bollox like that. Perhaps the answer is to cut out some of that Iodine.
There are days when I just don't want to see the crap that's going on on the interwebs.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
excessive salt in the diet is NOT a problem for many/most people, but only those sensitive to it.
People with West African ancestory (as most African-Americans are) tend to be the most sensitive. East Asians tend to be the least sensitive. People of European descent tend to be in the middle. This correlates well with areas where salt was historically rare/common. In West Africa, salt was often brought in caravans across the Sahara, and was very expensive, and thus unavailable to common people. In China, for centuries, even peasants could afford to drench their food in salt-laden soy sauce.
'Cretinism', the sufficiently-severe-to-be-clinically-obvious manifestation of iodine deficiency has been known for a considerable length of time, in places without sufficient soil iodine. I would imagine that smaller gains would only be a surprise if you thought that everybody not obviously diseased was fully healthy, rather than frequently mildly subnormal.
Did you see the goiter rate charts in the article? I found them astonishing.
I was also surprised by the low rates in Oklahoma and New Mexico. I wonder if that is because they were getting their salt from Texas? Texas did have a very low rate.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It's also interesting that IQ scores tend to be spread that way as well.
IQ scores tend to be correlated with a history of urbanization and economic specialization. In a primitive society, innovation and original thinking are unlikely to lead to any benefit, and might lead to a disaster such as a crop failure or empty snares. But in an urbanized society with specialized jobs, successful ideas can be leveraged for disproportionate benefit. East Asia had large urban populations long before the West. In Europe, Jews were urbanized during the middle ages when almost everyone else was a rural serf. East Asians have average IQ scores about 5 points higher than Europeans, and Ashkenazi Jews are higher still.
On a more serious note....many of us who enjoy cooking, avoid iodized salt due to the taste encroachment.
I cook almost exclusively with kosher salt, both for the grain size and for lack of iodine.
I cook from scratch...so, hoping that I get my iodine from natural sources. I live near the gulf, so I eat a good bit of sea food, which helps.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........