Word: thyroid
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Washington University in St. Louis, is a prolific lecturer and writer (Science and Survival) who brings an ecologist's insight and a polemicist's passion to the dangers of environmental pollution. "The new technological man," says Commoner, "carries strontium 90 in his bones, iodine 131 in his thyroid, DDT in his fat and asbestos in his lungs. There is now simply not enough air, water and soil on earth to absorb man-made poisons without effect. If we continue in our reckless way, this planet before long will become an unsuitable place for human habitation." At Washington University...
...GOITER, a grossly enlarged thyroid gland caused by iodine deficiency. The condition was thought to have been eliminated during the Depression by persuading people to use iodized salt in their food. Now it has become endemic again, said Schaefer, affecting 5% of those studied-even though enough iodine to prevent goiter costs less than ½ per person per year...
More surprising was Dr. Silverman's report that heart disease acquired relatively late in life-including coronary occlusion-may be signaled by changes in the hand. Warm, moist hands with a fine tremor and occasionally clubbing* of the fingers, he said, suggest the possibility of an overactive thyroid with resulting inefficiency of the heart, and twitching of its upper chambers. A cold hand with coarse, puffy skin may be due to an underactive thyroid, and associated with fluid in the heart sac, a high blood-level of cholesterol, and even necrosis of part of the heart muscle from...
...Henry listed the drugs: one of the amphetamines, or "bennies"; phenobarbital, to reduce the nervousness caused by bennies; thyroid hormone, to increase metabolism; digitalis, the heart stimulant, for no discernible medical reason; and a thiazide diuretic to promote loss of body water. Each pill contained a safe daily dose of that particular drug, said Dr. Henry. But some of the dead women had taken several a day, and four of the thyroid or digitalis doses would be dangerous...
Worse still was the combination. Thyroid alone may make the heart more irritable. The thiazide diuretic and even the laxative reduce the body's store of potassium, and this definitely makes the heart more irritable. Then a heavy dose of digitalis would throw the heart into useless twitching. After a while the heart would stop. In all the cases studied, said Dr. Henry, the women were alone when they died. He sees confirmation of their cause of death in the cases of two women who were saved. One, who was about to be put in an iron lung, recovered...