Goiter

Goiter is a disease usually a swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck. The disease can occur without any swelling.  The thyroid gland is best known for its ductless glands. Through its secretions, it regulates the day to day activities, maintains homeostatic through periods of stress and strain and provides a fine balance to the regulatory system of the body. No part of the body seems to escape its influence.

Women are more prone to this serious disease. It is more common in women who are overworked and who do not get sufficient rest and relaxation. The periods in a woman’s life when she is more likely to be affected by goiter are at puberty, during pregnancy, at menopause or when there is an extra physical strain on the body.

Symptoms: Loss of a power of concentration, depression and weeping. The patient appears to be easily irritated. The approach of a nervous breakdown is often suspended. 

The thyroid gland may swell but this has no relation to the severity of the ailment because many serious cases have no visible swelling. There is always a rapid though regular heart beat and any undue excitement may increase its pulsation which may even be conveyed to the thyroid gland. There could be a tremor of the hands and a feeling of extreme tiredness, together with a lack of power to make any real muscular effort. The eyes may incline to protrude although this does not appear in all patients.

Another alarming symptom of goiter is the loss of weight which no treatment seems to work to correct it. This can persist until the patient feels extremely weak. All the symptoms appear very gradually and that is why so many women do not complain until the trouble has reached serious proportions.

Whenever goiter occurs, it must not be assumed that it is sudden flaring up because the disease is not an abrupt derangement of a healthy system or a sign that there has been a gradual loss of health. In practically every instance a bowel is clogged and there has been a slow poisoning of the entire system over a period of years.

Causes
Deficiency of iodine in the diet is the most common cause of goiter. The thyroid gland makes use of organic iodine in its secretion and a diet deficient in organic iodine is a predisposing factor towards the appearance of this disease in certain cases, especially if other physical and emotional disturbances are present.

People living near the sea rarely contract goiter, because all sea foods are rich in organic iodine.

It should be concluded from this that fish and other sea foods are essential to the diet to avoid goiter, or that people who eat plenty of fish are necessarily immune from this disease.

In fact, organic iodine is present in practically all foods which come from the earth as well as from the sea. Goiter gradually affects those who habitually live on denatured that are cooked and refined foods and not those who eat much of their food in the raw or uncooked state.

Treatment