Question:

How and why did humans evolve to need iodide?

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Somewhere in the evolution of man, iodide must have been constantly available, because today the thyroid needs it to function....

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  1. Human uses a lot of oligoelements that are quite rare in occurence, it does need some of those in very small quantity, but enough to support vital processes.

    In this case, the Iodine is used by our body to regulate our body temperature and adapt it to the surrounding environment. We don't really understand how it does so, but most of our Iodine is concentrate in the neck part, or more precisely the Thyroid gland. Her job is actually to regulate our body temperature, and immune system at the same time...


  2. All life on the surface of the earth (including us), came from the sea...

    Since iodine is plentiful in the ocean, our residual need for it remains...

    The common ancestor of all animals alive today, is the ocean sponge, which is nearly 1 billion years old...

  3. Considering a pig's thyroid is close enough to a humans to create thyroid medication, the thyroid would have had to evolve from a common ancestor.

    In many regions iodine is found in the soil. The plants there contain iodine, and the animals that eat the plants get their iodine. Man can get it from the plants or the animals.

    Seafood is also rich in iodine.

    Before iodized salt, certain regions of the US had poor iodine in the soil, and people who lived their had more goiters.

  4. iodide??

  5. It can be found in minerals.  We need chloride as well.  We get that from salt.  Iodide would be found in small quantities in certain minerals.

    Cows need to have salt given to them.  They do poorly without it.  Other mammals are the same way.

    I would be guessing, since I am not a scientist who studies evolution, but I would say it would trace back to organisms living in the ocean.  They probably got iodide from sea water.  It can be found in it in very small quantities.  Later, when creatures evolved and moved to land, iodide was not as easy to find.  The creatures had to find a way to get it.  Probably thru minerals they find on land.

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