Iodine Post On Healthier Talk Web Site.

[Guest guest]

Here's a post from the www.healthiertalk.com web site. It has lots of

good info on iodine.

From Dr. Rowen's " Second Opinion " below. I have not been able to get

into Dr. s' web site because of log-in problems that

apparently will never be resolved...but I know he also wrote about

iodine.

Latest Issue: November 2004 / Volume XIV , No. 11

Wipe Out Fatigue, Chronic Illness, and Immune Disorders and Feel

Great!

Last month, I told you that many breast and prostate cancers are

caused by one nutritional deficiency.

What I didn't tell you was how this same deficiency can also

cause fatigue, chronic illness (such as Graves' disease), and

autoimmune diseases. And it might even cause your indigestion!

The great news is that there's a simple test to determine if

you're deficient — which you probably are — and an easy way to

correct the deficiency.

How can I be so sure you're likely to have this deficiency?

Because the nutrient — iodine — isn't found in many of our food

sources. Here's why:

Forty years ago, the food industry regularly added iodine to

store-bought bread. One slice of bread once contained about 150

mcg iodine, the whole day's RDA. Your average diet in 1960

contained about one mg of iodine per day, with bakery products

providing 726 mcg. This amount was enough to significantly

reduce your thyroid gland's ability to absorb radioactive

iodine. It also was enough to lower excess thyroid hormone

release, preventing hyperthyroidism. And it would provide more

availability of iodine for your breasts or prostate.

Then it was withdrawn for fear of adverse effects from too much

iodine. I showed you last month that it's very difficult to get

too much iodine from food. But to make matters worse, the food

industry decided to replace the iodine with bromine.

Bromine belongs to the halogen group of elements, also

containing fluorine, chlorine, and iodine. All these elements

have similar electrochemical properties, with bromine and iodine

the most similar because of their larger sizes. To the thyroid,

bromine looks like iodine and tightly binds to thyroid iodine

receptors. However, bromine doesn't help the thyroid the way

iodine does.

And, what's worse, it also inhibits iodine's activity. Once the

food industry stopped enriching your bread with iodine and

replaced it with an element that doesn't work, and knocks out

any remaining iodine, your body suffered a double whammy. Since

the switch was made, Americans, across the board, are becoming

severely deficient in iodine.

This deficiency is causing some terrible health problems.

Researcher Guy Abraham, MD, my mentor on the subject, has

amassed a ton of literature to prove the disease connection to

iodine deficiency. Here are just a few:

Fatigue — An underactive thyroid typically causes

fatigue. Iodine supplementation can quickly activate the thyroid

and relieve fatigue. Dr Abraham reports iodine deficiency may

harm pituitary-adrenal function in rodents. Your adrenal is

essential for energy and stamina.

Thyroid disease — When there's not enough iodine to bind

with cell membranes, it allows enzymes called peroxidases (which

can damage those membranes) to wreak havoc and cause autoimmune

disease, such as thyroiditis (Hashimoto's or Grave's).

In fact, Dr. Abraham has several cases of both thyroiditis and

hyperthyroidism (not just hypothyroidism) that have corrected

after sufficient iodine/iodide supplementation.

For over a century, high doses of iodine have helped both

hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. Many doctors fear giving too

much iodine will cause Hashimoto's to worsen. But this usually

isn't the case.

While iodine will help the thyroid increase the production of

hormone where necessary, it also inhibits over-release from the

gland by giving thyroid enzymes what they want. These iodine-

seeking enzymes that attack thyroid membranes can be normalized

when they get the iodine they need. This old information is

terrific news for the many people (usually women) who have been

told to have their thyroid removed to end hyperthyroidism. These

draconian measures ensure the patient will have to rely on

prescriptive thyroid hormone for the rest of their life. But

iodine can completely solve the problem.

One 1860 French physician mistakenly gave a tincture of iodine

when he meant to give digitalis to a woman with Grave's Disease.

She recovered within three weeks. When he discovered his

mistake, he switched to digitalis, and her symptoms came back.

He switched back to the iodine and achieved a remission.

Poor digestion — I showed you last month that many organs

need iodine, but can't absorb it until the blood measurements

reach very high levels. The stomach and salivary glands are two

such organs, but they can't uptake iodine in any significant

amounts until the blood level reaches 100 times what the thyroid

needs. Most people do not produce enough stomach acid as they

grow older. I firmly believe low gastric acidity can be caused

by iodine deficiency, as iodine promotes stomach acidity!

Breast, ovarian, and skin cysts — In addition to fixing

almost all cases of breast cysts, iodine also has a remarkable

healing effect on ovarian cysts, and even on skin cysts. (For

the latter, I recommend rubbing in iodine right over the cyst.)

Dementia and glaucoma — Iodine is found in large amounts

in the brain (including the parts of the brain associated with

Parkinson's disease) and the ciliary body of the eye, a possible

factor in glaucoma.

Other illnesses — Iodine reduces the dangerous activity

of lipoprotein(a). When elevated, this protein can lead to

excessive blood clotting and vascular disease. Iodine has been

used successfully in headaches, keloid formation, parotid duct

stones, and Dupytren's and Peyronie's contractures. Doses up to

six times the RDA have been used safely for months to combat the

excessive mucous in chronic lung diseases.

Now that I've shown you how important iodine is to your health,

it's time for you to find out if you're deficient. Actually, you

already know that you probably are deficient, but there are

times when you might need to know for sure.

Some of you may remember a simple patch test I recommended

several years ago. With this test you would simply swab a

quarter-size patch of iodine on your skin and watch to see how

fast it would disappear. Unfortunately, I can't continue to

recommend this test. While it won't harm you, it's simply not

accurate enough. There is a test now that's far more accurate

and is fairly inexpensive.

The test was developed by Dr. Abraham and is called a loading

test. With this procedure, the doctor administers four iodine

tablets. If your body has all the iodine it needs, you would

expect to urinate out most of the ingested amount over the next

24 hours. If not, your body would hold on to a significant

amount of the iodine and you would know that you're deficient.

But I'm not sure you need the test. Brownstein, MD, author

of the wonderful new book Iodine, (available by calling 888-647-

5616) also was performing loading tests on his patients. However,

Dr. Brownstein and I stopped most of the tests after nearly every

test we performed returned positive for deficiency. Now I just

start iodine supplementation in any condition where iodine is a

known factor.

I do recommend a test under certain circumstances. If you're

taking an iodine supplement for several months and experience no

clinical results, you might have a problem with absorption.

That's when a test should be performed. It commonly takes three

months of supplementation to get sufficient levels.

Another illness that might require a test is cancer. We know

iodine deficiency is a factor in breast and prostate cancer, so

there's no need to test. Other cancers probably warrant taking

the test even though deficiency is likely. It would be good for

the doctor to have a baseline to monitor your condition.

Just how likely is deficiency in cancer? In an in-house study,

60 cancer patients (various types) were given the iodine-loading

test and then measured for urinary excretion. All 60 patients

were found to be seriously deficient in body stores of iodine

and some had great excesses of bromine. The best case excreted

only 50 percent of the load and the worst excreted only 20

percent (that means they were retaining a very high 80 percent).

Folks, these are some serious numbers. One hundred percent of

these cancer sufferers were deficient in iodine! I assure you

the problem is population wide.

Your doctor can administer the test very easily, or you can

contact Dr. Flechas (828-684-3233), who offers the iodine-

loading test for only $75. His iodine website is

www.helpmythyroid.com/iodine.htm.

If you're deficient and think iodized salt is your answer, I can

assure you it's not. First, the amount of iodine (as potassium

iodide) added is relatively small. You will need a minimum of

100 grams of iodized salt daily (20 tsp) to get adequate levels.

Even saltaholics can't eat this much salt.

Dr. Abraham has developed a convenient iodine/iodide preparation

you can take by pill instead of the usually unpleasant Lugol's

solution. Called Iodoral, a tablet is quite literally dried

Lugol's solution, providing 12.5 mg of iodine/iodide. In his

research, Dr. Abraham found that a person abundant in iodine

should excrete at least 90 percent, over the next 24 hours, of a

loading dose of four tablets (50 mg). If you excrete less, that

means your body needs and is retaining it.

Dr. Abraham believes the dose of iodine for maintaining

sufficiency of the whole body is at least 13 mg per day (100

times the paltry RDA) – six mg for the thyroid, five mg for the

breasts, and two mg for the rest of the body. Men would likely

need less, though not always.

Not everyone needs this much, though. Take Betty for example.

She visited me with complaints of terribly painful and cystic

breasts. She often had to shoo her husband away. Simply

providing iodide at a level of five mg per day completely

reversed the problem and made her feel womanly and erogenous

again.

Of course, some people need more. , 46, limped in on

crutches with stage-IV breast cancer with severe pain in her hip

from an advanced metastasis. She received IPT, artemisinin, and

nutritional supplements, which checked the disease. Her iodine-

loading test showed great deficiency. After three months of

Iodoral, her iodine level had not yet come up, but her excretion

of bromide had increased 10 times.

She now receives only occasional IPT, and is still stable on

several nutritional supplements including Iodoral (six daily —

75 mg). Dr. Abraham tells me he also has seen two apparent

remissions of breast cancer from the use of Iodoral — two

tablets, three times daily.

Another physician has a case of prostate cancer in apparent

remission with the addition of Iodoral and other supplements.

Flechas, MD reports that many of his diabetes cases need

lowered insulin or drugs when taking " sufficient " iodine. I have

seen the same!

Some people may see alteration in their thyroid blood tests or

require adjustment in their thyroid medication and iodine dose.

Medical supervision is suggested.

If you want to get your iodine from food sources, brown and red

seaweeds (kombu, fucus, etc.) contain the most iodine. I see no

downside to getting abundant iodine from seaweed, since it's a

whole food. Eat as much as you like. You can find it at your

local health food store or Asian market. Another great source is

Mendocino Sea Vegetables (707-895-2996 or www.seaweed.net).

Your integrative physician can obtain Iodoral from Dr. Abraham's

Optimox Corporation (310-618-9370). Lugol's solution is

available at most pharmacies by prescription.

Abraham, Guy. E., MD, D. Flechas, MD, and C. Hakala

R.Ph. " Effect of daily ingestion of a tablet containing 5 mg

Iodine and 7.5 mg Iodide as the potassium salt, for a period of

3 months, on the results of thyroid function tests and thyroid

volume by ultrasonometry in ten euthyroid Caucasian Women, " The

Original Internist, 9: 6-20, 2002.

Abraham, Guy. E., MD, D. Flechas, MD, and C. Hakala

R.Ph. " Iodine sufficiency of the whole human body, " The Original

Internist, 9: 30-41, 2002.

Abraham, Guy. E., MD, D. Flechas, MD, and C. Hakala

R.Ph. " Effect of daily ingestion of Iodoral, " The Original

Internist, 2002.

Abraham, Guy E., MD. " The safe and effective implementation of

orthoiodosupplementation in medical practice, " The Original

Internist, vol. 11, no. 1, March 2004. Pages 17-36.