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🧂 Iodised salt was one of the great public health triumphs of the 20th century. It eliminated goitre across entire continents and raised national IQs. Now, quietly, its gains are being reversed — and the culprit is good taste.The core problem is aesthetic. Iodised salt has been steadily displaced by shimmering sea salt crystals, Himalayan pink rock salt, smoked flakes, and Kosher salt — while the few remaining packages of iodised salt sit in uninspired, drab packaging, decidedly out of step with contemporary trends. None of these fashionable alternatives contain meaningful iodine. And the people switching to them largely have no idea.The consequences are showing up in exactly the population that can least afford them. 46 per cent of pregnant women in the US currently exhibit insufficient iodine levels. In Australia, 62 per cent of pregnant and breastfeeding women report insufficient iodine status. The stakes are not abstract: even subtle to moderate iodine deficiency in utero has been estimated to reduce intelligence by as much as 0.3 to 13 IQ points. Goitre, once effectively eradicated across the developed world, is edging back."The main message is that iodine deficiency is re-emerging as a public health concern in countries that had previously eliminated it," said one public health expert tracking the trend. The fix remains exactly what it was a century ago — and costs almost nothing to implement.This is not a story about poverty or neglect. It is a story about wellness culture quietly dismantling a century of public health progress, one artisanal salt grinder at a time.Source: New Scientist