US Gained a Decade of Flynn-Effect IQ Points After Adding Iodine To Salt 270
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.'"
The question you are all asking... (Score:5, Informative)
All now negated by fluoride (Score:0, Informative)
But with fluoride added to the water supply, we can reverse those gains..
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mercola/fluoride_b_2479833.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Not the only public health benefit. (Score:5, Informative)
Simply meeting the basic needs of the general public brings huge gains.
There used to be a stereotype that all southerners were lazy and terrible workers. Turns out they were really just riddled with parasites (That train your energy and make you tired) Basic sanitation (Even things a simple as proper outhouses dug deep enough) solved that problem amazingly well. Many poor nations struggle with this problem today, however.
The Army started school lunch programs because malnourished children were growing up stunted and short (among other health problems), and made for awful soldiers.
Re:Gained I.Q. with Iodized salt - (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe not.
Does Fluoride Make Your Kids Dumb? [slate.com]
Dr. Mercola: Visionary or Quack? [chicagomag.com]
FDA Orders Dr. Joseph Mercola to Stop Illegal Claims [quackwatch.com]
Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations [fda.gov] - 2011
Inspections, Compliance, Enforcement, and Criminal Investigations [fda.gov] - 2006
Joe Mercola: 15 years of promoting quackery [scienceblogs.com]
The New PuritansWhen did liberals become so uptight? [newrepublic.com]
Re:Not the only public health benefit. (Score:5, Informative)
Some observations about Iodine (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of people in the US live in the so-called Goiter Belt [blogspot.com], which is a band of the northernmost state (or two) of the US. Roughly speaking, the other states were once a vast inland ocean swamp, so the soil become infused with Iodine form the ocean. This gets into the water supply, with the result that Northern residents have far less Iodine in their diet than southern states.
Another source of Iodine used to be bread - Iodine was used as a dough conditioner in bread, so a little bit got into the food chain that way. Some of the effect we're seeing might also be due to the rise of manufactured bread in the US.
More recently, however, bread makers have started using Bromine instead of Iodine. Bromine binds to Iodine receptors so not only are we no longer getting Iodine from bread, we're less able to process the Iodine we do get.
There's also the question of how much Iodine we need to be healthy. There's good evidence for the minimum amount to prevent disease, but that may (and for those of you in the medical community, note that I'm saying "may") be lower than the optimum amount.
Note that doctors will tell you that 150ug is the maximum Iodine you should ever take (more would be toxic!) and yet occasionally use Iodine to enhance contrast [wikipedia.org] in radiological studies, which puts as much as 20 mg in the blood stream. The RDA value is 100x less than used by doctors in some studies studies [drmyhill.co.uk] to treat disease.
There's also disagreement [food.gov.uk] as to what the minimum daily intake should be.
We really should be studying these things. Unfortunately, a supplement that anyone could buy which will clear a patient's symptoms is incompatible with an expensive FDA-tested drug that requires office visits to administer. The medical community won't make money on supplements, so they aren't studied very well. There's enormous economic pressure against research into health (as opposed to research into disease).
Re:Not the only public health benefit. (Score:5, Informative)
What kind of parasites, and why did they have more of them than damnyankees? Serious question.
A number of energy and grown sapping diseases, such as malaria and yellow fever, were common in the American South in the 19th century, but uncommon in the North. But the biggest culprit was probably hookworms [wikipedia.org], which cause "intellectual, cognitive and growth retardation". Average IQ in the South increased significantly as hookworms were eradicated in the early 20th century.
We might get another gain if we eradicate toxoplasmosis [wikipedia.org], a parasite spread by cats. It is believed by some to depress intelligence and novelty seeking behavior in humans.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Informative)
They tied themselves up in knots with conspiracy theories and bollox like that. Perhaps the answer is to cut out some of that Iodine.
That's what the lizard men want you to think.
Re:Salt in Food is Ubiquitous in the US (Score:5, Informative)
Re:derp.... (Score:4, Informative)
Cutting salt out of a diet that includes non-synthetic substances is probably impossible. If it lived on earth, it probably has salt in it.
Salt is actually pretty important nutritionally and for osmoregulation [wikipedia.org]. Way too much/little is bad for you, but some salt is required. It's so important that part of our taste mechanism is dedicated to salt. Alton Brown summed it up nicely saying (okay, I'm paraphrasing) that while many things taste sweet (good eats), sour (bad eats) or bitter (poisonous eats), only one thing tastes salty - salt.
Re: The question you are all asking... (Score:4, Informative)