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Chapter 16
Mineral Accumulations in the Thyroid

     IN CONNECTION with some problems of chronic diseases which respond to the administration of iodine but are not classified as iodine deficiencies, it seems advisable to learn whether minerals other than iodine in the so-called extracellular group (Na, Br, Ars, F, etc.) are disturbed in their metabolism and stored in the thyroid. As a fundamental first step, a determination of the Na-content of a normal thyroid gland and its relation to K, the leading mineral of the intracellular group, is assumed to be essential. If we know that Na is prevalent in any organ, and thus the proportion between K and Na in milliequivalents is smaller than one, we will also find in this organ the other minerals of the extracellular group Cl, Ca, H₂O, and others increased. If we find more K than Na, then, as H. Kaunitz, E. P. Fischer, and R. Keller have shown, there are also other minerals of the intracellular K-group accumulated in this organ. The analyses of lamb thyroids showed the following:

     ^* Examined in Laboratory of College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York.

     Accumulations of minerals in the thyroid compared with submaxillaris glands from rats:

     This is only one example of the prevalence of K, the intracellular group, which is found in submaxillaris glands and most of the other organs of adult animals: muscles, heart, liver, kidney cortex, adrenals, brain, erythrocytes, etc., which all together comprise about 60 per cent of the body. The content of the Na-group is prevalent in about 29 per cent of the body and 11 per cent are on the borderline.

     The above-quoted investigators have demonstrated that the K or intracellular group is electro-negative in biological surroundings and the Na or extracellular group is biologically positive. The K-group, therefore, travels to the positive cells and the Na-group to the negative cells and fluids. This is the reason why we expect a surplus of electropositive Na in the thyroid after electronegativity has been found in this organ. On the other hand, a predominance of either Na or K in the molecular K/Na ratio gives us an excellent indication of what other minerals we may expect to find in an organ, such as the thyroid gland.

     The thyroid has, contrary to most of the other organs more sodium than potassium mols in milliequivalents per cent. The sodium content is greater because of the main content in the Na-rich colloid, while the epithelium cells contain considerable amounts of K in the positive granula and have many K-rich erythrocytes. The negativity is centered in the colloid, a paradox which can only be explained by an electrolytic process; similar findings are found in a number of plant and animal tissues. D. Gicklhorn described (1925) that alkaline root cells of Sinapsis alba make the surrounding soil acid, and N. Henning found a similar situation produced by parietal cells of the stomach. Living cells are apparently able to send out electrical potentials toward the outside into the dead space of the thyroid follicle or the open space of the stomach.

     The electrostatic hypothesis claims that in living protoplasma the electrical charge cannot be guessed according to the charge in distilled water in the inorganic laboratory. It has to be determined experimentally and cannot be classified according to the ionic rule in aqueous solution but is mostly dependent upon the lyophile (colloid with strong, weak, or lacking lyophile-solvable capacity) series of Hofmeister and Spiro (first published in 1895). This series includes the positive half of both acids and alkalis, represented by lithium and sodium, calcium, iodine as one group, and the electronegative half of the series, characterized by potassium, phosphate, citrate, sulphate as the other group. These two groups in plants and animals were known, by biochemists, more than one hundred years ago. The two antagonistic groups have also been called extracellular and intracellular, a misleading designation. The thyroid is an electronegative center or cathode of the body, very small, and therefore with a small amperage, but with a high voltage in the colloid. Table I of this chapter shows that the Na is deposited and accumulated in the thyroid. Therefore, we have to consider that the so-called extracellular Na must, in this instance, be intracellular. It should be emphasized that the whole positive half of the lyophile series (CNS, I, Br, Na, Ca, Cl, As, F, Al) is accumulated in the thyroid. It is found electronegative as a redox potential in the colloid, its main mass, by DeRobertis and Gonzales (1946) and by all earlier investigators. The thiocyanate (CNS) was always found biologically more positive than the iodine. The clinical significance is that thiocyanates and other compounds of similar constitution plus thiouracil (not yet examined), sulfa drugs, and salicylates have a tendency to replace iodine. Therefore, iodine appears to be a very mobile and vulnerable substance in the thyroid as demonstrated by its easy replaceability (in biology).

     The second element in the positive half of the lyophile series is the iodine. There is no doubt that the iodine is attracted with particular force by the normal thyroid, but less so in hypo- as well as hyperthyroidism. In both, the iodine content is decreased in the thyroid, in hyperthyroidism even up to 1/10th of the normal. The difference is that blood iodine is markedly elevated in most cases of hyperthyroidism while it is decreased in hypothyroidism. Another element, which is very near to the positive head of the series is ionized calcium. Calcium was always found greatly accumulated in the thyroid by biochemic essay and by microchemical incineration. According to the textbook on biochemistry by Oppenheimer, Aron and Gralka, nearly 40 mgm. per cent was present in 100 grams which means rather more in mols than the normal thyroid stores I plus Na. Then follows bromine, which Tanino has found in thyroids of corpses of hospital patients to be accumulated in twentyfold amount of iodine, if the patients had received bromides during their disease. The bromine content of the thyroid is a maximum in comparison to other organs with one exception: the wall of the aorta. The loss of iodine and its various effects on the entire nervous system should be seriously considered whenever bromide therapy is used clinically.

     There remain fluorine and arsenic, which have their maximum accumulation in the thyroid on account of their biological electropositivity. This maximum refers to the protoplasmic organ or parenchymal cells, not to the solid crystallized structures such as hairs, bones and nails. The bones, for example, have a thousand times more calcium than the thyroid, but among 34 other kinds of protoplasmic structures, calcium is found at its maximum in the thyroid and activated or ionized there.

     According to the analyses of the alkali metals, found deposited in the thyroid, we may conclude that the thyroid as a whole is relatively electronegative and that the colloid in its follicles (60 per cent in normal thyroid) has a rather high negative voltage. The contents of the other elements or radicals, according to the above-quoted earlier publications, confirm this thesis or, at least, do not contradict it.

     If the thyroid is the strongest electronegative center of the body, according to others and our own findings, we have to discuss some consequences for the clinic. The other organs which seem to come very near to the great negativity of the thyroid are the bile capillaries and the pancreas "Langerhans" islands.

     The liver proper is supposed to be the chief positive center of the organism in relation to electrostatic theory. Not on account of the electronegativity of the bile capillaries, but from merely practical experience, I have given bile preparations for many years to weak or cachectic patients with chronic debilitating diseases. Later, I may try to apply the bile medication to this theory as it produced in the majority of the cases a beneficial effect, whatever the reason for it was. In cancer there may be a gradual loss because of less ability to be reabsorbed.

     The other organs which are also predominantly negatively charged - the spleen, the skin and the connective tissue - contain proportionately more iodine, sodium, bromine, etc., and the other members of the lyophile series are important for therapeutics in this respect. The next neighbor to iodine in the lyophile series is bromine, which is only 10 or 15 millivolts less biologically positive than iodine.

     What happens, for example, to the thyroid, if bromides are administered? F. Tanino tried to answer this question. He analyzed the thyroids of corpses of hospital patients (time and dosage are not reported) after the administration of bromides. Most of the old people were quite emaciated, had lost the iodine of the thyroid for the greater part and had accumulated bromide instead. I list here a few figures of Table II of Tanino which gives the results of thyroids, moist glands, with medium colloid content.

     In thyroid, bromine is normally 1 mgm. per cent or a little more (Labat). The normal thyroid contains in moist glands 0.03 to 0.06 per cent iodine.¹¹²

     The figures show a tremendous loss of iodine, in some cases reduced to a minimum from an average of 45 mgm. per cent to 1.4 mgm. per cent. These significant clinical findings, important for clinical bromine therapy, are generally overlooked. As for an explanation, it may be stated that the mass action law of Goldberg and Waage (1852) has a strong effect in the exchange of bromine for iodine. The normal blood serum has the relation of 1/1000 of bromine to iodine, about one mgm. and not grams like iodine. As early as 1913, Labat had discovered that normal animals accumulate the largest store of bromine in the thyroid.

     The study of Tanino's figures, which show in all other cases the same tendencies more or less, raises some new problems. If we remember that bromine medication may produce a characteristic eczema and almost the same rash is observed by other neighbors of the lyophile series, we ask ourselves whether the skin affliction, called bromine or thiocyanate eczema,¹¹³ may not be partly a result of iodine deficiency. Or we may consider whether the somnolence or rather an iodine deficiency is present. As a matter of fact the other neighbors in the Hofmeister-Spiro series produce a similar tendency to sleep. After we had found that the thyroid is a store of Na, Br, I, and other minerals of the electropositive and lyophile series which travel in the biological milieu to the cathode, we were interested in the examinations of A. E. Rappaport, who examined many body organs in their alkalinity or acidity expressed in pH. He examined the corpses of hospital patients 30 hours after their death and still found strong differences in acidity. The highest alkalinity in the thyroid was usually one and a half units of pH higher than the brain (equivalent to 78 millivolts). We have to remember that the brain is one of the counterparts of the thyroid chemically as well as electrically and that it has recorded the minimum in iodine and other substances of the positive half of the lyophile series while the thyroid has the maximum content. The cerebrum, so strongly influenced by traces of iodine, has only a minimum of iodine in its own substance (Von Fellenberg).

     The pH of thyroid and brain is, according to Rappaport:

     In this table, four pneumonia patients had 7.2 in the thyroid and 5.9 in the brain.

     Conclusion: The striking alkalinity of the thyroid gland is proved in this way.

     Each cell has its own metabolism and special function but all cells depend upon and are supported by the whole metabolism. For its proper intake and output each cell needs the eliminating and digestive power of the general metabolism. Everything is equally important for single and total life processes.

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