We regularly despair at science and medicine seemingly missing so much about thyroid physiology and processes. However, every so often, we see something so extraordinarily odd and bizarre, we actually seem to have made huge progress.
This starts fairly sensibly. Then goes downhill. Fast.
And remember that 1941 is within the lifetime of many people. It really was not that long ago.
The thyroid gland is present in all vertebrate animals beginning low down in the scale, with the lampreys and complicating its structure and increasing its size as it occurs farther up in the evolutionary scale. In fish the thyroid occurs as small scrubby patches little larger than pin heads scattered along the important blood vessels. Then in the reptiles it is a little larger and more compact, and still more prominent among the birds and the mammalia. But it is in the primates and in man that it attains to greatest size. Thus it might be said that the thyroid gland is an indicator of evolution
The farther we are from our early home in the sea the larger the thyroid gland. Now if evolution continues along the same line, a million years from now our thyroid may have become the most important organ in our bodies. And man’s appearance may be consequently so changed that instead of being the good looking creature he thinks he now is, he will have evolved into a pop-eyed, fat-headed, chinless creature, the space between his chin and his collar button having been taken over by his constantly expanding iodine plant.
American Journal of Pharmacy and the Sciences Supporting Public Health 1941-12: Vol 113 Iss 12
PS: The thyroid of a beluga whale is around one-third to three-quarters of a litre in volume. So primates certainly are not the thyroid size champs! Just imagine how big their thyroids would be if they lived a long way from the sea, maybe atop Himalayan mountains...
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helvella
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Interesting article to say the least, but I have taken the stand at this point in my life if things don't make sense then it is nonsense, now that is me. As for science some is clean and well intentioned while other science is manipulated and is just a dangerous carnival barker. Suggest a read "Plague of Corruption" as someone who spent 30 years in science I recognized the manipulation. Thanks for the share!
Very interesting as I hadn't ever thought to wonder if even other apes had thyroids, let alone fish and birds. I guess they all have ATP, mitochondria, krebs cycle, etc, and everything else that goes with thyroid hormone.
I like the sound of having a lot of tiny thyroids stuck on all my major blood vessels. I think that sort of arrangement would suit me 😅
I found the paper below - though it is only an extended abstract. Nonetheless, even what it hints at is fascinating.
My entirely fanciful take is that iodine is a potentially dangerous element to be hanging around. So very early, some creatures found ways to neutralise it - for example, by combining it with various compounds so it is locked up. Then, those safe storage forms ended up being actively used. Maybe, initially, these safe compounds broke down when the creature was attacked - and released iodine, which saved the creature from attack.
The evolutionary road to invertebrate thyroid hormone signaling: Perspectives for endocrine disruption processes
"he will have evolved into a pop-eyed, fat-headed, chinless creature, the space between his chin and his collar button having been taken over by his constantly expanding iodine plant."
Surely this wasn't being serious.
Maybe the author was having a dig at/satirising evolution?
Just now looked at a previous page (457), that provides some context. Perhaps the "pop-eyed" etc description was being used as a deterrent against the big-time one hundred million dollars (in 1941) annual business adding vitamins to "milk, bread, soap, cosmetics, pills, candy bars, tooth paste, breakfast food, and many other commodities"?
"Because of such findings as those abstracted above the Consum- ers[sic] Guide, published by the Department of Agriculture (May 1, 1939), has for some time been advising the public to derive vitamins from the diet. Vitamins have become big-time business, amounting to a hundred million dollars a year, and have appeared in milk, bread, soap, cosmetics, pills, candy bars, tooth paste, breakfast food, and many other commodities. But as to vitamin concentrates we read: “The average person—unless his doctor tells him differently—- can get all the vitamins he needs from a balanced diet of carefully. selected foods properly prepared, and served three times a day. . . So far as scientists know the only people who really need vitamin concentrates are babies and young children, expectant and nursing mothers, persons recuperating from sickness, and those following doctor’s orders.”"
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