Categories: Men's Health, Podcasts

Podcast 199: Iodine and the Prostate Gland

Scott does not really want to discuss today’s topic. Most guys – when they get into the second half of their life – start noticing changes.  Maybe not as prominent as women’s changes, but things happen.

Scott has a slightly enlarged prostate and here begins the discussion about Iodine.

Click here to read “Prostate and Health“.

We first need to note that the body produces no iodine, and there is no organ other than the thyroid that can store large quantities of iodine. In some areas of the US, including mountain regions, the Mississippi River Valley, the Ohio River Valley, and the Great Lakes regions, the soil has always had a very low iodine content. But even in other areas of once iodine-rich soil, over farming has frequently depleted this iodine content. Hence, we no longer get adequate iodine from the plants we consume.

To compensate for this, iodine was added to salt, bread, and milk. Today iodine is no longer added to bread or to milk, and the amount of iodine added to salt has steadily declined over the years. All of these factors contribute to the current prevalence of iodine deficiency in the United States.

The main function of iodine in your body is to balance the endocrine system (especially the thyroid gland), resulting in greater ability to manage your emotional states. This is more obvious in women because of different hormonal dynamics. Its secondary function is to regulate reproductive organs (ovaries & breasts in women, prostate in men).

Adequate iodine intake will also result in much-improved muscular coordination, flexibility and strength, plus improved vision as the eye muscles loose their unwanted calcium that causes hardening and stiffness.

Iodine supplementation can also induce long term remission of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

SeaOdine mentioned in the talk was replaced by Thyrodine – different label, but the same Nascent Iodine tincture.

Podcast 199: Iodine and the Prostate Gland

SCOTT: Welcome back, everybody! You are listening to the Life Enthusiast Podcast, starring Martin Pytela, the founder of the Life Enthusiast, and his co-host, me, Scott Paton. Hey, Martin, how are you doing today?

MARTIN: It is a good day, it is a very good day. I am ready to throw back whatever you throw at me. Let’s have a game of something… Tennis, that is the word!

SCOTT: All right! Well, I have to start by talking about something that I don’t really want to talk about, but…

MARTIN: Why? Is it personal?

SCOTT: Oh yeah. And I think that most guys when they get into the second half of their life, whenever that is, start noticing some changes that occur. And they are not as evident or prominent, maybe, as the changes that women have in terms of menopause and that sort of stuff, but things happen. One of the people who are important in my life was telling me about colonics, I am not actually sure about the correct technical term, but basically when they stick a hose up to your rectum and flush everything out. So yesterday I had my first colonic, well, it was actually the second one, I’ve done one in my life, but it was years ago. I have to say that it was quite an experience. I got lectured in terms of “you are not eating and chewing your food long enough before you swallow it.” When it all comes out, there is a little tube, where you can see what is coming out, the doctor was pointing it, and I could see the raspberry I ate yesterday, and a piece of beef that I ate, and other things as they were sort of floating, and she said: “That is not chewed, Scott.”

MARTIN: So there were chunks that were simply swallowed too large?

SCOTT: Yeah, that is right.

MARTIN: Remember how we were talking a while back about blenders, and how the superfoods that we make are produced, how we micronize them so that they would yield the maximum amount of nutrients to the digestive system because it can only digest off of the surface layer?

SCOTT: That is right. So, between you and her, I got my message. And I must say too, that not once, did she look at it and say: “Oh, there goes some superfood that you ate!” (laughing) So that is all getting absorbed, which is the good news. But the bad news was, when she began the process, it was painful. She said: “This is normally not supposed to be painful, I think your prostate is probably a little bit enlarged.” And she asked me, about some other symptoms, like problems with peeing, and all the related stuff. I mean, it wasn’t torturous, but I could feel it, and I got thinking about this enlarged prostate and I thought I was kinda ignoring it for the past 30 years, but I don’t think it is going to let me ignore it forever. So, I guess, my first question is: What is the prostate, and what does it do?

MARTIN: It is a tiny little organ, that is in the base of your penis, it is on the inside. The only way you can reach is through your rectum. It is not too far, I don’t know if you’ve had a recent physical, but that is what is the doctors do, the famous male physical examination, where the doctor puts on the glove, takes a little bit of lube, and puts his finger up your anus to palpate the prostate. The prostate is supposed to be about the size of a walnut, and it is to be smooth and firm. So if it is much bigger than that, it is enlarged. If it feels sort of mushy and squishy, like a sponge, then you definitely have issues.

SCOTT: Okay. So as a gland, what does it do?

MARTIN: Well it is the thing that makes the thing go ‘squirt’. That is where the stuff that ejaculates is put together. You know, like the man’s ejaculation, it is a little bit of sperms and a little bit of snot, that sort of gooey stuff that comes out, that is made in the prostate.

SCOTT: So if you don’t have that, you are pretty much done.

MARTIN: No prostate, no squirts.

SCOTT: No prostate, no sex life. So, guys, it is kind of important to look after it!

MARTIN: Well, three things can happen. If the prostate is enlarged and swollen, it tends to impinge the urethra, so the urine flow is limited. So if you are standing there at the urinal, waiting for it to come out, or just to painfully drip through, you have a prostate issue. It can come sooner than that, there are so many indicators. Now that I am old enough to have lost some friends, I can reflect back on how I knew them, and how they ended up. For instance, I remember this fellow, he died at 65 of prostate cancer, and when I knew him, he was probably about 35-40 years old, I remember watching his eyes glaze over, like they were watery frequently, not teary-eyed, just glazed and whatnot, I don’t know how to best describe it, but they were looking almost ‘sticky.’.

MARTIN: Later I read that is a sign of acidity. Then I noticed a particular, specific body smell, these specific ways by which you can see that his lifestyle, his habits, were making him acidic. Persistent acidity for years will give rise to the conditions in which cancer can exist. So that is the one thing. I remember some years ago, a fellow that had prostate cancer, and had it removed, and he kept recommending to men that they all get the cancer tests, it is called the PSA. But I don’t know, I keep thinking that it is not really a reliable test, and it is not really telling you much, but yes, we know that if you have a high PSA count, there is a chance that you do have systemic cancer. So maybe there is a test worth doing. But that is cancer, which is not necessarily related to this other condition called hyperplasia, enlarged prostate.

SCOTT: Right, because you can have an enlarged prostate, but not prostate cancer.

MARTIN: Right, and you can have prostate cancer, but not enlarged prostate.

SCOTT: Right, they are two different things. So, I am getting the impression that the answer to my question is having a more ‘alkaline approach,’ to have a balanced body, not in the acidic body, is that right?

MARTIN: Well, actually yes. That is the answer to the cancer problem.

SCOTT: Martin, you will have to trademark that! (laughing). The answer to cancer! I love it.

MARTIN: Yeah, I don’t know, I think if we try to put it on the website, some regulator will come and cut off my business, or take out my prostate without anesthesia.

SCOTT: Oh, I can tell you it was uncomfortable enough when she just put the hose up there. Okay, so the cancer part, alkalize your body, and you are on your way. But the enlargement is a bit of a different story.

MARTIN: Well, the number one cause of enlarged prostate is a deficiency in iodine. It is ridiculously simple. In women, iodine deficiency shows itself as fibrocystic breasts, painful periods, PMS, uterine fibroids, just general malaise related to the female reproductive organs. In men, iodine deficiency shows itself as the prostate problem, typically enlarged prostate. So what do we do? We need more iodine. We have it available either as the nascent iodine, which is atomic iodine, a tincture style product, or it is available as a whole natural seaweed concentrate. Mainstream medicine has this solution called Lugol’s solution. Lugol’s is a mix of potassium iodide, and they add to it iodine tincture, they mix it as a 10% solution, and sell it. Mr. Lugol must have been some pharmacist a hundred years ago, I guess. It used to be really easy to buy, but lately, this thing has become regulated because iodine is an ingredient needed for making crystal meth. So suddenly it has become a regulated substance, and it is not easily obtained.

SCOTT: So let’s suppose my prostate is a little bit enlarged, I found out when the hose went up and caused some pain that it shouldn’t have done. So I want to take some iodine to support my prostate health. How much should I take? I was just looking at the label of Sea Plant Minerals iodine product, it has 4mg of iodine, which is basically 2600% of my daily need.

MARTIN: Isn’t that ridiculous? Why would anybody give you 26 times the recommended daily dose?

SCOTT: Maybe they are trying to overdose me with iodine?

MARTIN: Let me explain why. The American idiotic system established something called the RDA, it stands for recommended daily allowance. And these recommended allowance numbers were enough to prevent a specific condition. In this case, it was enough to prevent goiter, it is a situation where your thyroid is enlarged, and it will become enlarged when it has to work overtime because there is not enough iodine in your body. Iodine is needed in your thyroid to regulate your metabolism; it is the general control of running metabolism  in your body. Basically, thyroid health is extremely important. So of course, it will work overtime, it will work like crazy, and it will consume most of the iodine that your body will have available. Your thyroid will basically steal iodine from your sex organs, because…

SCOTT: Because staying alive is more important than procreating.

MARTIN: Yes, exactly. Give yourself 20 years of deficiency in iodine, and you will have sex organ problems. A lot of these problems with iodine are not generally known, you know, deficiency in iodine results in menstrual problems in women, in spontaneous abortions, low birth weight, and low intelligence in babies. If you are deficient in iodine, you could either lose the child you are carrying or give birth to a baby with some serious issues. But anyway, here comes the RDA, the RDA is set to a value so small, that if you only take the RDA of iodine, you are guaranteed to be sick later in life with major problems.

SCOTT: And chances are that we all are deficient in it!

MARTIN: Oh, totally! Especially in America, especially if you live inland, far away from the ocean. In Japan, for example, people eat a lot of kelp, seaweed, miso soup, and that sort of thing. Sushi is made with nori sheets, and nori is very rich in iodine. And on top of the fish that they get out of the sea, they actually fertilize their gardens with kelp, which is washed up to the shore. You probably have seen it on the coast of British Columbia, if you get on the shore after a storm, you will find a lot of kelp washed up on the beach. Have you ever noticed that?

SCOTT: Yeah, there’s lots on the beach, and it always stinks, and I avoided it, and I am now thinking I should just be picking it up and putting it on my salad!

MARTIN: Well, maybe! What the Japanese people do with it is they take it, they put it in their garden or their compost, so they feed their soil with it so that the soil is richly mineralized. And when the vegetables are growing in that soil, they are actually filled with all these minerals from the sea. Statistics show that a typical Japanese person eats about 100 times more iodine than a typical American. A hundred times the dosage! So if the label says 2800% of the RDA, 28 times the recommended daily dosage, you are still about 3 or 4 times short on a typical Japanese person. The good news from Japan is that they don’t have prostate problems.

SCOTT: All right, so the key is to get enough iodine into our system. So let’s just talk about someone, who is around 55 years old, a guy with a slightly enlarged prostate, eating a diet that includes a fair amount of fruits and vegetables in it, and not a tremendous amount of processed foods. How much iodine would that guy need to look after his prostate?

MARTIN: Well, if that guy was using a typical Exsula superfood blend, three teaspoons a day, he would have nothing to worry about. If he was taking a bottle of the Sea Plant Minerals a month, he would have nothing to worry about. Here is something that I just looked up, this deals with the Sea Plant Minerals. Here is the review: “My dad had a PSA test, and the result was 6.0. After three weeks of taking Sea Plant Minerals, it was down to 4.9. A bit of background info: he has a history of high PSA tests from a couple of years ago, at that time he controlled it with a seaweed supplement, someone gave him a very expensive bottle of something with their own label, that they charged him a hundred dollars for a one month supply. Dad took it for six weeks, and at that time his PSA went from 8.0 down to 4.0. He continued to take it until he tested 2.0, and then the guy who sold him the supplement stopped carrying it but replaced it with something for twice the price. So dad stopped taking it, but recently he had another PSA test and it rose up to 6.0. I looked online for something that might connect PSA and sea minerals, and I found your Sea Plant Minerals at Life Enthusiast website. The cost of this product was $22 a bottle for one month’s supply, dad ordered three bottles, and after taking the product for three weeks, he went back to be tested, his result was 4.9. Naturally, he is happy, and continuing to take it.”

SCOTT: So it does go up and down.

MARTIN: Yes, of course, if you neglect your body and stop taking the necessary, required nutrients, you go back into deficiency.

SCOTT: I like the fact that it goes down. (laughing) I should have emphasized the down part, right? So the enlarged can shrink!

MARTIN: Well, this one is related to the cancer markers, but yes, the enlarged can shrink. Absolutely. I was going to share another curious little story. This other friend of mine was just recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. I remember talking to him about 10 years ago, and he was saying: “I used to be interested in sex, but I am not anymore. It just doesn’t come up anymore.” I didn’t think much of it then, you know, it wasn’t a big deal. But apparently, this condition was already settling in! He was already in trouble. 10 years ago, it reared its ugly head and now turned into a cancerous situation. So I did a bit of research on what that really feels like, you know, the decline in the male body and the symptoms include hair loss, loss of energy, mood swings, tiredness, lower self-confidence, indecisiveness, memory issues, poor concentration, nervousness, and then erection problems. Apparently, erectile dysfunction is a fairly common issue. Also loss of motivation, loss of drive, feeling irritable or angry, problems with sleeping, and weight gain. Those are the general symptoms of hormonal decline. But if that is happening, it probably has something to do with the general state of the body, it is a signal that it is probably time to try to reverse it.

SCOTT: Right. So, alkalize the body, and get the iodine, not just for the prostate, but also for your thyroid and other systems in the body that require iodine.

MARTIN: Definitely. Iodine is really, really important.

SCOTT: So I am going to be making sure I am taking my iodine every day. I am going for five more hydro colonic cleanses over two weeks, and then I am going to do a detox, and I will let you know next week, if she’s noticed any difference, or if I’ve noticed less pain.

MARTIN: So let’s find out, I would like to follow it up in a couple of months and see how you feel and what changed or not.

SCOTT: I agree. So, if somebody wanted to know more about iodine, and maybe get some information, whether it is for themselves, or their parents or loved ones, what should they do?

MARTIN: Visit our website, www.Life-Enthusiast.com, there is plenty of research material available. You can also read our blog, check out our podcast archive. And if the reading or listening doesn’t fill your needs, give me a call at (866) 543 3388.

SCOTT: I would also like to mention that this is our 199th podcast!

MARTIN: That is really a nice number!

SCOTT: Next week will be our 200th! I am just very proud and excited about that.

MARTIN: That is a good thing, maybe we should retire. (laughing) I see people are downloading and listening to our podcasts, but I am not seeing much feedback, so if you can, please leave us a comment, leave us a review, let us know! If you have any questions, if there are issues you’d like us to discuss, let us know, we will be happy to do that.

SCOTT: Awesome! This was Martin Pytela and Scott Paton for Life Enthusiast, restoring vitality to you and to the planet! Thanks for joining us, everybody. See you next time!

Note: the information provided are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with your medical professional(s) if you are dealing with a specific medical issue.

Author: Martin Pytela