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Dependence of the thyroid gland on environment (iodine intake)
It is common knowledge that the citizens of the USA receive five times
as much iodine in the food (mostly from preserved bread and fishes) than
do the Europeans (except in Scandinavia). Especially in Central and East
Europe the deficiency of iodine is great. It is also possible that the
intelligence quotient depends on iodine intake (field studies in mainland
China). The question arises: does our (European) lower intellectual capacity,
lower aggressivity, lower market success depend on the iodine intake? Be
it as it may, at present it seems that the iodine uptake should be kept
in the region of 200-300 µg/day in Central and East European countries.
The danger of overdosing is, however, real. It is true that too much iodine
may be a factor in the development of thyroiditis. Why can the thyroid
gland - badly needing iodine - overreact by inflammation to iodine excess?
This is another, the last enigma. It pertains to another problem: Chernobyl
radioactive iodine release and cancer of the thyroid. Is it possible to
prevent of such harmful radioiodine intake by stable iodine? Did not the
children in Byelorussia suffer from the coincidence of two harmful factors,
namely low basal stable iodide uptake + high radioiodine uptake after the
Chernobyl disaster? The real enigma is: what should we do?
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