Читать книгу Anti-Aging Therapeutics Volume XIV - A4M American Academy - Страница 54

Iodine was discovered serendipitously by Bernard Courtois in 1811 in an attempt to more efficiently produce gun powder for Napoleon’s army.¹ Its name is from the Greek ‘iodes’ for violet, the color of its vapor when burned. Iodine is a fascinating element, distinct in many ways from all other elements required for human nutrition. It is by far the heaviest of the required human elements with an atomic mass of 127. Iodine is essential for normal development and metabolism in all animals, including humans. Deficiencies can cause spontaneous abortion, increased infant mortality, hypothyroidism, cretinism, goiter, and mental defects.²

Goiter as a medical problem has been discussed in medical texts since 2700 BC. Chinese physicians documented that goiters could be reversed by ingesting burnt seaweed powder and eventually by orally ingesting animal thyroid tissue. Both treatments came to be generally accepted. Documented as early as 1600 BC, iodine’s use, in the form of seaweed as a treatment for goiter, is likely the earliest medical treatment still in use.³

Severe lack of iodine produces the morphological and cognitive impairments known as cretinism. As recently as the 1900’s, whole villages of cretins were found in rural mountainous areas of Europe. Some paleontologists have speculated that Neanderthals were not a distinct human species but rather remains of geographic pockets of cretins. Skeletal morphology between Neanderthals and cretins is quite similar and most Neanderthal remains have been found in regions known to have high rates of cretinism.⁴

The thyroid gland is chemically unique due to its dependence on iodine. In a severe deficiency of adequate iodine the gland cannot produce adequate amounts of hormone. This leads to severe hypothyroidism. If this occurs early in life, the brain never properly develops.⁵ To this day, its lack remains likely the most preventable cause of global neurodevelopmental morbidity.

Collectively, all adverse effects emerging from lack of iodine are currently called “iodine deficiency disorders” (IDD). The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that roughly 2 billion humans suffer from or are at risk for IDD.⁶

Over the following years it became established that iodine was the active element of seaweed and that purified iodine was an effective treatment for goiter. This was one of the first cases where a nutritional lack was found to cause a disease that could be reversed by an isolated chemical.