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[deleted] t1_irdiufa wrote

[deleted]

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adamant2009 t1_irealaj wrote

Holy shit, that's significant. I figured the effects were more modest.

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dj_narwhal t1_irelx5k wrote

Imagine the fox news talking heads complaining about an attack on conservative values if we just discovered this and were trying to implement it now.

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zoicyte t1_iremxev wrote

you jest but there are definitely people who protest iodizing salt the way florodizing water is protested.

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Pepe_von_Habsburg t1_irepixw wrote

Can you Americans shut up about politics for one millisecond?

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RipMySoul t1_irgvcyv wrote

Would you prefer for us to overly confident? America #1

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Gemmabeta t1_irf6z1q wrote

It's not so much that everyone got smarter as we've managed to eradicate an extremely serious cause for profound mental retardation (congenital hypothyroidism).

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MattheJ1 t1_irfvtx1 wrote

Measurable intelligence has been steadily rising since the 50s, and arguably longer. It's hard to say how much of that is from salt.

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Dalmah t1_irgocvj wrote

Aren't we getting weaker too? Something like the grip strength of humans who were hunter gatherers far exceeded modern day?

If so it's like we're redoing our fallout built and moving stats from strangth into intelligence

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huunhuurtuu t1_irlcjqp wrote

Our brains are smaller too tho. Our jaws are also getting smaller and weaker. Kinda like wolf to dog transition. We are kinda domesticating ourselves and I doubt we are actually smarter now.

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Dalmah t1_irlcugk wrote

The brain being smaller doesn't neccesarily mean we are getting stupider, the correlation between brain size and intelligence is weak.

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DrEnter t1_irf1hzj wrote

Interestingly, most countries iodize their drinking water and flouridate their salt, where the U.S. does the opposite. The end result seems the same.

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quokka70 t1_irflfat wrote

I can't find anything about iodized water or fluoridated salt with a quick look on Wikipedia.

Lots of countries iodize salt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodised_salt#In_public_health_initiatives

The article on fluoride therapy doesn't mention table salt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoride_therapy#Water_fluoridation

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DrEnter t1_irgcd8n wrote

Salt fluoridation: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24308394/

The water thing is a couple of things that I think I was confusing. Iodine is a normal part of drinking water treatment (almost all municipal drinking water is iodized to some extent), but iodizing enough for supplementary reasons is mostly used in areas where iodizing other things is impractical or more difficult. Incidentally, iodized flour is also a thing sometimes used. https://awwa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.1551-8833.1927.tb12646.x and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691515000939

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straightouttasuburb t1_irg9fes wrote

This probably isn’t the only thing helped by enriching a product… breakfast cereals, bread, flour, margarine, salt, snack bars, dairy and milk and plant-based milk alternatives, juices, and baby foods are all commonly fortified foods.

I’m sure someone will stop by and say you shouldn’t eat heavily processed foods which is probably correct but not possible for a percentage of the population. Fortifying foods is a good thing…

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sturmey t1_irf1p7a wrote

That might explain some of the comments I've heard from "professional" chefs who complain about iodized salt and how they only use un-iodized salt.

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PurgeGamers t1_irfbmsl wrote

I read a book about cooking and they recommended non-iodized salt because of taste preference. It said that the iodine(?) wasn't as neglected in our diets now but it's a holdover from when it was lacking.

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UnblurredLines t1_irfpfwm wrote

I too much prefer listening to chefs for my dietary recommendations rather than licensed physicians.

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rafter613 t1_irgky5u wrote

I mean, I'm sure you get a week's worth of iodized salt from three McDonald's fries.

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sturmey t1_irij4v6 wrote

I am a super taster, and I can't tell the difference in taste. you would have to have some very specialized taste buds to detect the difference. One of the things that these idiots don't realize is that the iodine isn't neglected in our diet because we put iodine into salt.

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