Ask a question, find a rabbit hole

Like so many of these blog's pages, oftentimes when an idea for a story starts, the scientific research to investigate the starting idea will ultimately lead to is often a wild surprise.

This story started with the Merogenomics marketing director probing questions about iodine deficiency.

And thus, what is iodine deficiency?

And somehow along the way of answering that basic question, we stumbled upon published ideas of why we have been witnessing an incessant increase in autism spectrum disorder over the last few decades that has currently culminated into true epic epidemic proportions where every one of us knows someone with an affected child.

And no one seems to know why!

Therefore why don't we look at one wild theory that has been proposed that we uncovered when wanting to learn about how essential iodine is to us?

Just a forewarning, not like these scientific ideas are mainstream, and hence this content is not what is even remotely being accepted at the moment. It appears to be flying under the radar though as opposed to being rejected in a passionate scientific discourse between different competing camps of ideas. We wanted it to be presented simply because as of yet no one really knows why autism is on such a constant rise in frequency, and accepting this new reality without attempting to elucidate the causality is an anathema to how science and medicine work (except of course for those who get to profit from the ensuing suffering).

So let us begin.

Iodine equals a healthy baby

Put simply "iodine is an essential dietary element which is required for the synthesis of the thyroid hormones".

Thyroid hormones affect many parts of the body, especially during development, and particularly the brain. They are produced by the thyroid gland which needs to extract iodine from the circulation. For this reason, the thyroid receives a great amount of blood supply for its relatively small size, enough to clear several hundred liters of blood daily to extract the needed iodine.

If these hormones are not produced in appropriate amounts, especially during pregnancy and after birth, proper development can be adversely affected, resulting in the diseases collectively referred to as iodine deficiency disorders. In very severe cases, if a pregnant person (read: biologically genetic woman, but hey, the scientific language is changing to be... more inclusive?) does not consume enough iodine, it can result in miscarriages, stillbirth, or death of an affected infant soon after birth.

Post birth, inadequate amounts of iodine consumption will trigger the thyroid to work overtime to obtain its needed iodine supply. To achieve this, the thyroid gland enlarges in size, at times to astounding levels, resulting in a condition called goiter. This is due to the release of the thyroid stimulating hormone from the pituitary gland. Keep this in mind for later.

Thus one absolutely needs to consume iodine, and iodine deficiency remains the single greatest cause of preventable brain damage and intellectual disability in the world apparently to this day.

So important is the issue of appropriate consumption of iodine that health policies have been established worldwide to ensure required public iodine consumption to eradicate iodine deficiency disorders. This is why the salt we use in cooking is now fortified with iodine.

More than just hormones for iodine

While the bulk of iodine in the human body is found in the thyroid gland (70–80%), a significant portion of iodine is used for non-hormonal purposes and is found in other tissues. While our biological understanding of these additional roles of iodine appears to be very poor, what we are starting to grasp is pretty amazing.

One aspect that is pretty attractive is that iodine could be an ancient antioxidant, meaning it could neutralize reactive oxygen species, chemical byproducts in our bodies that can be very damaging. Any time you hear about antioxidant activity, that's good news for your body. This can also help explain some benefits of iodine against cancer because reactive oxygen species can play an important role in cancer development and progression. The antioxidant properties of iodine also automatically make iodine anti-inflammatory.

The continued attractiveness of iodine is that it also appears that iodine can influence the immune system. This was first hinted at by observing that children with iodine deficiency also were likely to exhibit significant immune deficiency. Just for nature to be fun, one way that iodine might help immunity is by being involved in the formation of iodine-free radicals, chemicals used to selectively target and destroy unwanted pathogens. So iodine is used in our body to guard against dangerous chemicals or could be used as a dangerous chemical to attack pathogens with.

So it all sounds good so far, so where do the troubles begin?

Is fluoride dumbing us down?

The problem lies with that which can limit dietary iodine absorption and use, and the purported culprit is fluoride. And the implications are big!

One interesting study that compared the effects of exposure to different levels of fluoride, summarizes multiple relevant points. If the urinary fluoride levels in children were approximately 2.0 mg/L, the thyroid iodine uptake was markedly reduced. Fluoride uptake was also associated with dental fluorosis, higher serum thyroid stimulating hormone, and lower intelligence quotient (IQ) in comparison to individuals with low fluoride exposure.

Furthermore, it appears that excessive fluoride exposure in combination with iodine deficiency interact synergistically to induce even greater impaired brain function.

Overall, a trend has been observed in recent decades of increasing levels of dental fluorosis (spotting on teeth due to affected mineralization of the tooth enamel) in parallel with declining levels of measured urinary iodine levels in children in countries with widely practiced water fluoridation (such as the United States, Australia, New Zealand, or the Republic of Ireland), begging the question if fluoride exposure via water is excessive enough to induce iodine deficiency, hypothyroidism and possibly some degree of brain damage in these populations.

The mechanism of how fluoride might lead to lower bioavailability of iodine has not been determined. One possibility is that fluoride might inhibit the proper function of sodium iodide symporter which is required for absorption of iodide (ionic form of iodine) in the intestines, its transportation, and uptake of iodide into the glands, including the thyroid gland. Fluoride could also be inhibiting the production of mRNA needed for the production of the sodium iodide symporter. The thyroid stimulating hormone pumped out by the pituitary gland we discussed earlier itself promotes the production of this sodium iodide symporter which is how it achieves its aims of increasing iodine capture from blood.

Another possibility of how fluoride could be impeding iodine use is by interfering with iodine transport in the blood. Albumin, which is the most abundant protein in the blood, can interact with iodine and hence move it about in the blood. In turn, the change in circulating albumin levels is also reflected in circulating iodine levels. One of the clinical symptoms of fluoride intoxication is inflammation of the kidneys which leads to higher albumin levels in urine. As a consequence, fluoride leading to loss of albumin in urine decreases blood albumin levels and thus decreases circulating iodine levels.

There might be additional ways of fluoride affecting the iodine levels, but you get the point: increased fluoride levels could decrease iodine absorption and this is a bad toxic combo for the thyroid and the brain.

This suggests that fluoride intake should be minimized in infancy, and especially in pregnant women (and even prior to) to make sure that iodine levels are not perturbed for the needed development of the child.

Which finally brings us to autism spectrum disorder!

Why is autism on the rise?

We all know by now that autism spectrum disorder has been the fastest-growing developmental disability in the world for the last several decades!

But no one knows why. The current consensus is that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to autism, but what is contributing to the continued rise of autism remains a mystery.

Curiously though, high rates of autism have been reported in countries with either artificial water fluoridation or where high dental fluorosis is observed, whereas in the European Union which has banned water fluoridation, lower rates of autism have been seen.

This has led some to postulate that fluoride might be an important environmental factor in the pathogenesis of autism spectrum disorder. What makes this controversial is that fluoride which is obviously fed to many of us, is not recognized as neurotoxic, and hence fluoride is basically never considered as an environmental factor contributing to the disease, and hence never investigated.

Some authors are trying to change that narrative by pointing out the similarities between fluoride intoxication and the biological effects commonly observed in autism.

One example, fluoride can induce oxidative stress and reduce the glutathione redox system. Oxidative stress is when antioxidants are depleted and reactive oxygen species have a chance to run amock. The glutathione redox system is very important for reducing oxidative stress (via the use of specific antioxidants - there are many types of these).

It turns out that a decrease in the glutathione redox system is one of the best-documented molecular changes in autistic children, including in the brain. Remember, reactive oxygen species (oxidative stress) will lead to inflammation and brain inflammation has also been reported in autistic individuals.

Another example: fluoride has been documented to accumulate in the pineal gland in studied animals and humans. However, the pineal gland synthesizes melatonin, a hormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Well, autistic children happen to frequently suffer from sleep disorders, especially insomnia, suggesting abnormal melatonin production and dysfunction of the pineal gland. Indeed, studies have shown that decreased levels of melatonin have been observed in autistic children in comparison to unaffected controls. In fact, it appears that the severity of the reduction in melatonin level can correlate with the severity of the neurobehavioral problems.

In addition, melatonin is important for proper mitochondrial metabolism, a topic we covered previously in relation to COVID-19 (see below).

From these videos, you would have gathered that mitochondria are responsible for energy production. Thus reduction in melatonin, a hormone involved in the protection of mitochondria integrity, can also be a contributing factor in overall energy production which would only exacerbate the effect of oxidative stress in the brain.

The final example is the reduced cognitive abilities, often observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. The effect of chronic fluoride exposure on children’s intelligence is very well-documented, and the association between water fluoridation and children’s reduced intelligence has also been proposed. One interesting study from Canada pointed out that just one milligram of increased daily intake of fluoride by pregnant women was associated with a 3.7 lower IQ score in children 3 or 4 years old.

Remarkably, none of the fluoride concentrations measured in municipal drinking water consumed by pregnant women were higher than the maximum acceptable concentration of 1.5 mg/L set by Health Canada, and the levels found in these women were typical of what is observed in North American women. The authors' conclusion says it all: “these [and other] findings support that fluoride exposure during pregnancy may be associated with neurocognitive deficits” and such intake should be reduced during pregnancy.

In conclusion, fluoride induces symptoms that are observed in people with autism spectrum disorder, and excess fluoride exposure during fetal development and in early post-growth should gather attention as a potential contributing factor towards autism pathogenesis.

The sad part is that the reason why we fluorinate our water is simply to reduce the cavities in our teeth! That is it. Fluoride is not an essential nutrient and we do not need it in our body. Apparently, there is no single essential fluoride function in human physiology and development. In the meantime, we now have lots of documented evidence of negative impacts of fluoride. If cavities were such a drag (in comparison to the proposed effect on brain development by fluoride exposure), we could simply reduce sugar intake. But old habits die hard, and the scientific consensus is having a really hard time accepting the potentially toxic effects of fluoride and questioning the merits of water fluoridation which after all is considered one of ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century.

Until we at least open our minds to the possibility of reexamining our past decisions, the potential fluoride effect on the development of autism will continue to be ignored.

And remain buried deep in some scientific rabbit holes.

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