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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. . . .
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.
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.