Fitness

The National Research Council recommends 12 milligrams of iron daily for adults and 15 milligrams for adolescents and pregnant women. Probably slightly larger amounts are more nearly ideal for women with heavy menstrual flow. Any diet adequate in protein and the B vitamins, supplied by natural sources, will be more than adequate in iron. If anemia does persist after a sound nutrition program is adhered to, a physician should certainly be consulted.

A blood analysis tells a physician many things; it usually tells you nothing you could not learn by examining yourself carefully before the mirror. If your ears are red and if your forehead, neck, and skin not hidden by rouge have a glow of health, you can assume that your bloodstream is satisfactory. You have one of the fundamental attributes of genuine beauty and probably the vivacity which helps to make up the intangible qualities known as charm and personality.

Too little iodine can be even worse than a lack of iron.

When iodine is undersupplied in the mother’s diet during pregnancy, the baby fails to develop normally; if the deficiency is quite severe, he may become an idiot, or cretin. I am told that institutions for subnormal children in goiter belts are filled with such cases. When a severe lack of iodine occurs later in life, myxedema results. I have seen only one case each of these abnormalities and, please believe me, one of each is too many. The child, the first of wonderful parents, is eighteen months old, sluggish, disgustingly fat, still toothless, and covered with eczema; so many behavior problems are developing that the conscientious young mother is already nearly insane. Her physician told me, “Her troubles haven’t even started yet.”

I hesitate to tell of the other case, it is so unbelievable; a woman of perhaps forty-eight, unable to leave her home. I saw her on a sweltering day in August. A daughter opened the door and took me to the living room where the mother sat on a davenport, wearing a heavy winter coat, her knees covered with a blanket, a small gas heater burning at her feet, and every door and window in the room tightly closed. One could scarcely breathe in the room. The woman was stuporous, her eyes were glassy, and her movements and thinking were unconceivably sluggish. The condition had come on gradually. Her physician had given her thyroid, but she had failed to consult him again when the cumulative effect of repeated doses had made her extremely nervous and had caused frightening heart palpitations. She had stopped the thyroid weeks before. A small amount of iodine daily could have prevented both conditions and all others like them.

Iodine is needed by the thyroid glands, situated on either side of the windpipe. These glands produce an iodine-containing hormone known as thyroxin, which can be produced in normal amounts only when adequate iodine is supplied. Thyroxin has a profound effect upon growth, mental and physical development, and the maintenance of health throughout life. Although minute amounts of iodine are found in all parts of the human body, it is concentrated in the adrenal cortex, the ovaries, and particularly the thyroid gland which soaks it up like a sponge.

Thyroid activity is now measured by analyzing the blood for protein-bound iodine. A normal basal metabolic rate, or BMR, means that energy is produced as it should be. The normal range is from minus 10 to plus 10; persons with such a BMR have iodine values of 4 to 8 micrograms for each ~ cup (100 cc.) of blood. Persons with less than 4 micrograms of iodine have a BMR of minus 10 to minus 50. It must be remembered, however, that low blood sugar or an undersupply of protein, vitamin Bi, or anyone of several other nutrients decreases energy production. If a person’s diet is inadequate in any of these nutrients, his basal metabolic rate can he far below normal even though the iodine intake is adequate.

A partial or severe lack of iodine causes goiter, or enlargement of the thyroid glands. The enlarged glands often use the limited iodine supply more efficiently than can normal glands; hence the amount of thyroxin produced may remain the same, and the BMR may not drop below normal. Aside from a slight fullness and perhaps a mild pressure in the neck, there may be no other symptoms. The swelling in the neck may be so slight as to go unnoticed; yet every person, in my opinion, should learn to detect even a small goiter. Stand before a mirror and turn your head as far as you can from side to side; if you can scarcely see the ligaments in your neck as you turn your head, your thyroid glands are probably somewhat enlarged, and your iodine intake should be increased. Even large goiters disappear when sufficient iodine is taken together with an adequate diet; the process is slow, but eventually new, healthy cells do replace the abnormal ones. The seriousness of goiter often lies in its very mildness, which can easily lead to neglect. Goiter is a danger signal, pointing to possible troubles ahead, years and years of possible troubles.

I grew up in a goiter belt and know these troubles only too well. Mine were typical difficulties associated with iodine deficiency. When I was about fourteen, came blinding, pressure headaches associated with the menstrual period; each time I felt as though my neck would burst and my head would blow apart. A physician pointed out my goiter at that time and recommended iodine, which I considered a sort of aspirin substitute and failed to continue; he was the only physician who ever recommended iodine for me. The headaches continued for years. In a nutrition class at the University of Wisconsin the famous Dr. Amy Daniels mentioned that it was difficult to find an adolescent girl in the Middle West whose thyroid glands were not enlarged; she pointed out several girls with goiter in the class, then glanced at me and said, “You have a bad one.” I still did not take iodine; correction was not stressed.

Later, as the need for iodine decreases, the goiter disappears, but a low metabolic rate persists. There is no spontaneity or JOy in work or exercise; energy is not produced normally. You are cold when other people are comfortable; your hands are clammy; your feet are so cold at night that you cannot get to sleep. Your cooling system, however, does not work right either; in hot weather you are still more miserable. You are mentally and physically sluggish. College is difficult, and you learn by the plodder method, envying friends who complete an assignment at first reading. You gain weight easily, forever trying to reduce and forever staying too fat. The heavy-hipped, thick-legged, goiter-belt figure, resulting from iodine deficiency during growth and particularly at puberty, can be recognized the world over. Probably everyone of the millions of women who have it hates hers as much as I hate mine. Taking iodine after growth had ceased cannot change it.