Iodine Basics

The main function of Iodine in your body is to balance your endocrine system, especially the thyroid gland.

Iodine Deficiency is Common and Harmful!

Your body produces none therefore supplementation is essential.

We cannot get adequate amounts from the food we consume. In the past it was added to salt, bread and milk. Now none is added to bread and milk, and far less is now added to salt.

Benefits of Adequate Iodine Intake

Iodine is vital to support your thyroid gland.

Thyroid hormones control and regulate digestion, heart rate, body temperature, sweat gland activity, nervous and reproductive system, general metabolism and body weight.

• Manages your energy, weight and hormones
• Helps balance emotional states (more obvious in women because of different hormonal dynamics)
• Regulates reproductive organs (ovaries and breasts in women, prostate gland in men)
• Better muscular coordination, flexibility and strength
• Good for vision because eye muscles loose their unwanted calcium that causes hardening and stiffness
• Shown to induce long term remission of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Symptoms of Iodine Deficiency

Also symptoms of low Thyroid Gland function:

• Thyroid gland malfunction
• Weight gain
• Fatigue and/or weakness
• Insomnia
• Low body temperature or sensitivity to cold (particularly the extremities)
• Dry skin, poor complexation
• Hair loss and unhealthy hair, nails and teeth
• Memory and/ore learning problems
• Irritability, anxiety, extreme low moods
• Very low blood pressure
• Pregnancy complications, infertility, PMS
• Loss of sex drive, impotence
• Frequently coincides with low adrenal function
• May slow digestion

Soil and diets are seriously deficient. Extended Iodine deficiency has contributed to cancers of breasts, ovaries and prostates.

People wisely avoiding table salt in their diets are particularly vulnerable to iodine deficiency. Take a look at whole food Himalayan Crystal Salt. It contains 84 minerals and trace elements. Table salt is only sodium and chloride. Industrial waste. All other minerals and trace elements have been stripped away and sold.

Algae and Seaweed naturally contain iodine. “Kelp has a normalizing effect on the thyroid gland. In other words, thin people with thyroid trouble can gain weight by using kelp, and obese people can lose weight with it,” Earl Mindell writes in his Vitamin Bible for the Twenty-First Century.

Your Body Produces NO Iodine

You MUST Supplement, take a look at all our Iodine supplements.

Your thyroid gland is the only organ that stores significant quantities of iodine.

We cannot get adequate iodine from the food we consume. To compensate for this, iodine used to be added to salt, bread, and milk. Bread and milk were dropped from the list, and the amount of iodine added to salt has been lowered over the years.

Iodine deficiency is one of the most common nutritional deficiencies in the United States.

Less Energy with Age?

Maybe It’s Your Thyroid Gland

Sometimes the fix is simple. Like eating healthier food and getting more rest. But sometimes that aging loss of energy is a symptom of an under functioning thyroid gland (hypothyroidism).

Because I was feeling this aging-sluggishness myself, I went to my medical doctor to have my blood tested for thyroid function. A few of my friends have hypothyroidism, and I wondered if I was about to join their club. My blood results came back showing the lower end of normal – not low enough for my doctor to recommend pharmaceutical medication. But since my numbers were low, I wanted to take action to get them higher.

So I did a little research on how to naturally support my thyroid gland. I didn’t have to look very far because Life-Enthusiast had answers, as they usually do. It took about 6 months, but my thyroid blood work is now in the normal range. With only Nova Scotia Dulse and Selenium!

Many Body Parts Need Iodine

Really low iodine levels in the thyroid end up as a thyroid goiter (enlargement of the thyroid). Areas of the world where iodine deficiency is high, such as in Switzerland and parts of Asia and Africa, have high incidence of thyroid cancer.

Iodine is also needed by breast tissue, and a lack of iodine in the breasts manifests as fibrocystic breast disease (painful breasts with nodules and cysts and often more symptomatic prior to menstrual periods – PMS). 93% of American women have fibrocystic breast disease and the longer the deficiency persists, the higher the risk of breast cancer.

Iodine is needed in the ovaries, and Russian studies done some years ago showed a relationship between iodine deficiency and the presence of cysts in the ovaries. The greater the iodine deficiency, the more ovarian cysts a woman produces. In its extreme form, this condition is known as polycystic ovarian disease.

Worth mentioning is also lower incidence of miscarriages and low birth weight or immature babies.

In men, long term deficiency of iodine will manifest as prostate problems, either enlargement, or cancer, or both.

20% of all Iodine in the human body is stored in the skin, specifically in the sweat glands. Lack of Iodine in the sweat glands manifests as dry skin with a decreased ability to sweat.

Iodine can also be concentrated in the stomach tissue, and the lack of iodine in the stomach manifests as achlorhydria (lack of digestive acid production). Iodine is used by the stomach cells, also known as parietal cells, to concentrate chloride which is necessary to produce hydrochloric acid (digestive acid). With prolonged presence of achlorhydria, there is a much higher incidence of stomach cancer.

Iodine is concentrated in the lacrymal glands of the eye, and a lack of iodine can cause dry eyes.

Iodine can also be concentrated in the parotid and submandibular glands of the mouth, and iodine deficiency here can result in dry mouth.

Iodine Protects Against Nuclear Fallout

In 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami hit Japan and destroyed a nuclear power plant, people as far away as North America were exposed to radiation, and some people knew what to do about it…

Iodine supplements were selling out all over North America because taking iodine excretes the powerful carcinogenic radiation out of the body.

Airborne radioactive iodine is a deadly toxin produced by nuclear power plants and was the primary toxin released at Chernobyl.

You might like to read “Iodine for Radiation Exposure”

Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid gland)

Fortunately, you can help normalize an underactive thyroid gland by increasing your intake of iodine.

Even a mild low thyroid function can cause an imbalance of other hormones, such as estrogen, progesterone, and androgen.

Symptoms are many (see above “Symptoms of Iodine Deficiency”).

“The healthy functioning of the thyroid is essential to maintaining metabolism and preventing the accumulation of body fat,” writes Burton Goldberg in Alternative Medicine.

More Iodine Functions

Iodine is involved in the functioning of your mucosal barrier, the interface between the sterile inside, and the dirty outside. These tissues line your digestive system, your breathing passages, and your sexual organs.

In fact, every organ that secretes something (not just the mucus) needs large amounts of iodine to function well. Yes, the thyroid glands need and hog the greatest amount of iodine, but the others won’t last long without sufficient iodine. The organs that secrete something are the same organs that are most likely to develop cancer. The abundant presence of iodine almost guarantees the absence of cancer.

Here is the list of organs that require abundant iodine:

• Thyroid gland
• Salivary glands (mouth)
• Digestive mucosal lining (esophagus, stomach, small intestine, colon)
• Breathing system: nose, sinuses, lungs
• Urinary system: (kidneys, ureter, bladder, urethra)
• Sexual organs (Breasts, Ovaries, Vagina, Uterus, Prostate)
• Liver and Gallbladder (bile)
• Pancreas (digestive enzymes)
• Adrenal glands (hormones)
• Brain
• Eyes
• Skin
• Bone marrow.

As a society, the Japanese people consume more seaweed (rich in iodine) than any other nation, and they enjoy the lowest cancer rates of anyone on the planet! NIH says: “By combining information from dietary records, food surveys, urine iodine analysis (both spot and 24-hour samples) and seaweed iodine content, we estimate that the Japanese iodine intake largely from seaweeds averages 1,000-3,000 g/day (1-3 mg/day).”

Dietary Sources of Iodine

Iodized salt is the primary dietary source of iodine. But it’s the cause of so many health disorders, we recommend  whole food Himalayan Crystal Salt. It contains 84 minerals and trace elements. Table salt is only sodium and chloride. Industrial waste. All other minerals and trace elements have been stripped away and sold.

Plant and animal sea life absorb iodine from the water and are great sources of iodine. These include shellfish, white deep-water fish, and Algae and Seaweed.

Iodine from fish must be limited because of mercury problems. However, sardines have such a short life span they do not get contaminated with mercury. We recommend sardines packed in tomato sauce, avoiding the transfats from oil for packing.

Garlic, lima beans, sesame seeds, soybeans, spinach, Swiss chard, summer squash, and turnip greens are also good sources of this mineral.

Foods that Prevent Iodine Absorption

Foods that prevent the body from using iodine are: turnip, cabbage, mustard greens, cassava root, soybeans, peanuts, pine nuts and millet. These foods are called goitrogens and excessive consumption can cause goiters. However, cooking usually inactivates goitrogens.

How Much Do You Need?

Depending on your biological individuality, on the genetic heritage of your ancestors, you may need up to 100 times more than the person next to you. People living on sea shores, including Japan, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France, Africa, living the fishing lifestyle and fertilizing their vegetable plots with sea weed, adapted to, and now require, a dose of iodine 100 times greater than the RDA, which is high enough not for optimal health, but for preventing goiter, the enlargement of thyroid because of iodine deficiency.

I now realize that, like air and water, we need iodine every day! It is obvious to me that the pharmaceutical industry does not want you to know about iodine. Billions of dollars annually would be saved in this country if people knew about the benefits of the affordable Iodine supplements.

To keep healthy, most of us need 3-4 capsules of sea weed or 6-8 drops of iodine tincture, every day. To decide for yourself how much iodine do you need, you could do some basic test the most obvious one is to measure and record your base temperature every morning before getting up. If it is below 98.2 deg F, you can safely assume that you need more iodine.

The blog “Iodine Doseage” may help you decide your dose.