Goiter

Goitre is a disease of the thyroid gland. It generally refers to a swelling of the thyroid gland in the neck. The disease can, however, also occur without any swelling of the neck. The thyroid gland is best known for its ductless glands. Through its secretions, it regulates the day to day activities, maintains homeostatis through periods of stress and strain and provides a fine balance to the regulatory systems 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 over worked 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 extra physical strain on the body.

Symptoms

It is difficult to recognize the first symptoms of goiter because they are of a very short duration. They usually appear as emotional upsets and can pass almost unnoticed. These spells of emotional upsets gradually increase in duration, when other symptoms also appear. These include loss of power of concentration, depression and weeping. The patient appears to be very 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 practically no visible swelling. There is always a rapid though regular heart beat and any undue excitement increases this to a quick pulsation which may even be conveyed to the thyroid gland. There is, in most cases, 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.

A most alarming symptoms of goiter is the loss of weight which no treatment seems to check, and this can persist till 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 disease is not an abrupt derangement of a healthy system nor 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, however, 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 is cooked and refined foods, and not those who eat much of their food in the raw or uncooked state.