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Simple goiter (enlargement of the thyroid gland) is one of the few diseases which might be conquered by Act of Congress. Prevalent in a wide "goiter belt" running from western New York through the Great Lakes basin and across the plains to the Rockies, this type of goiter can be almost entirely controlled by a tiny amount of iodine in table salt. But thus far, Congress has rejected a law (such as Canada has) requiring all table salt in interstate commerce to be iodized...
...Public Health Reports, Dr. William H. Sebrell outlined the campaign's goal: not only to prevent goiter, but to spread the word that iodine is essential to bodily health. The thyroid gland takes up iodine from the bloodstream and uses it to form a hormone, thyroxine. In turn, thyroxine regulates many body functions, including heat production, brain development, sexual maturity, and the growth of hair, skin and bones. A shortage of such an element as iodine, said Dr. Sebrell, may not be indicated dramatically by serious illness: "Just as often, or oftener, the result may be lowered efficiency, nervousness...
...forms of cancer which can be relieved to some extent by medication is cancer of the prostate gland, and one of the most effective relieving agents is stilbestrol, a synthetic female sex hormone. Patients have gotten as much as ten years of borrowed time by stilbestrol (either alone or in conjunction with surgery). When the treatment is successful, the malignancy is arrested both at its original site in the prostate and in the metastases (cancerous colonies in other parts of the body). Until recently, however, no case had been reported in which the cancer was known to be destroyed...
Some 25,000 times a day in the nation's stockyards a hog offal operator plunges her hand into the bloody base of a hog's severed head as it travels down the conveyer chain. With deft fingers she gets hold of the pituitary gland. Then, with a pair of tweezers, she removes the front half of the gland and drops it into a container of Dry Ice. That is the first step in the production of ACTH, the new wonder drug which may ultimately save millions from the ravages of arthritis, gout, rheumatic fever and kindred ills...
...Brookhaven, AEC doctors have fitted tiny lead shields around the adrenal glands of rats and turned on the radiation. These rats lived significantly longer than unshielded ones, proving that radiation does part of its damage by upsetting the hormone secretions of the adrenal gland. Other researchers found that treatment with female sex hormones increased rats' resistance to radiation. Out of such work may come techniques of immunization against the radiation hazards which, even without atomic war, are sure to become more troublesome in the future...