2 Quarts Of Milk Has 1.2 Mg Of Iodine; Enough To Suppress The Thyroid And Cause Acne In Many

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I'm surprised this has never come up in the Peat world.

U.S. dietary iodine sources have not been assessed recently. A survey of iodine content in...18 brands of cows’ milk...was performed between 2001 and 2002. All cows’ milk samples had at least 88 μg iodine/250 ml, ranging from 88–168 μg (116.0 ± 22.1 μg/250 ml).

(this is my first post so I can't link the source, but if you go to google scholar and search "iodine milk bread" it's the first hit)

Using the average value, 2 quarts of milk would give you about 900mcg of iodine. At the upper end of the samples tested, you would be closer ₁200mcg. This is well in excess of what Peat has said can cause problems, and I agree with him on that point. His view on iodine expressed here is not controversial:

A dosage of 150 mcg (micrograms, not milligrams, e.g., ug not mg) is a safe amount of iodine. There are excellent references describing the effect of a moderate iodine excess (even below a milligram per day) on the thyroid. An iodine deficiency can cause hypothyroidism (rare now), but so can an excess. Iodine deficiency is an unusual cause of hypothyroidism, except in a few places, like the mountains of Mexico and China, and the Andes.

(again can't link)

I'm surprised this study is not more well known in the alternative health world, and in the acne world, so I've been trying to spread it around. I don't know how many of you have experimented with iodine, but acne is a well known side effect and I can tell you even low doses of iodine caused problems for me, including cystic acne. My suspicion is that this is the real reason milk causes acne in so many people, like in that thread about the bodybuilder with acne. All those explanations about IGF this and DHEA that blah blah have always struck me as nonsense.

In case you're wondering, it's because they use iodine to sterilize cow's udders. I think there is a lesson here about how very basic things are so often overlooked by both mainstream and alternative medicine, with both sides making things up as they go along. So many doctors say diet has nothing to do with acne, which is obviously wrong. And so many in the alternative health world will come up with excuses like "detox" and whatnot. One guy in that bodybuilder thread even accused the bodybuilder of faking the acne.

Does anyone know if Peat has addressed this? To my knowledge he hasn't. I'm also wondering if there are any low iodine milk sources out there, and what alternatives to milk we could use.
 

Herbie

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I don't know what country you live in but here is some information about Australian milk and maybe this has happened in the US and europe.

Dairy: historically, dairy foods contained high levels of iodine due to the sanitisers used in dairy processing which contained iodophors. These sanitisation techniques have been phased out of the processes now involved in sterilisation of dairy equipment. As a result, dairy today has reduced levels of iodine and is a less reliable iodine source.

Iodine Facts | Nutrition Australia
 

chrismeyers

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I drink 1.5 gallons a day and zero acne. Infact, my face completely cleared out on my mostly milk diet. I do use 0% though.
 

Kyle M

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Wouldn't the hypothyroidism be noticed, in addition to the acne, by people on this forum that regularly check their levels?
 

Milena

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I got a bit of an effect but not sure if it was the histamine increase from the OJ. Very low dose cypro fixed it all for me.
 
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Wouldn't the hypothyroidism be noticed, in addition to the acne, by people on this forum that regularly check their levels?

I'm sure it is noticed by some people. Dairy is well known to cause acne in sensitive individuals, and even mainstream medicine is starting to acknowledge this. Different people have different sensitivities to iodine. It's probably not a huge deal for most of us, but there is a (large) minority who will have difficulty with Peat's dairy recommendations.

I don't know what country you live in but here is some information about Australian milk and maybe this has happened in the US and europe.

Dairy: historically, dairy foods contained high levels of iodine due to the sanitisers used in dairy processing which contained iodophors. These sanitisation techniques have been phased out of the processes now involved in sterilisation of dairy equipment. As a result, dairy today has reduced levels of iodine and is a less reliable iodine source.

I believe the phasing out happened in some places in the latter half of the last century. The study I quoted was done in 2004 in the US near Boston, using many different brands of store-bought milk. To my knowledge there has been no change in the use of iodine in the US since then, and if you do a google search using terms like "milk iodine udder" it seems that iodine continues to be used today in the US.
 

chrismeyers

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A lot of people have a lot of mostly phony reasons for thinking milk doesnt work for them. 'Lactose intolerence', casein, now I see iodine thrown in. I think most of these are fake and psychosomatic. Thats my opinion. Also I would recommend organic milk since it seems to have lower iodine levels since you seem to be obsessed with it.
 
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A lot of people have a lot of mostly phony reasons for thinking milk doesnt work for them. 'Lactose intolerence', casein, now I see iodine thrown in. I think most of these are fake and psychosomatic. Thats my opinion. Also I would recommend organic milk since it seems to have lower iodine levels since you seem to be obsessed with it.
This. Also by this logic, people adding cabbage to their diet should actually notice a BETTER metabolism.
 
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I took Lugol's for a while, my TSH or thyroid hormones did not change despite me taking 20 mg of Iodine a day - I did not really feel different except I felt more androgenic and more angry (Iodine helps fibrocystic breasts by acting against estrogen - so chew on that for a while...)

Therefore, I'm sorry - iodine is not the bad health scapegoat you're looking for, but keep looking... and don't forget to drink your milk.
 
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1200 mcg = 1.2 mg NOT 1.2 g. Your headline is whack...

Ah sorry yeah that should be 1.2mg. Posted this late last night.

A lot of people have a lot of mostly phony reasons for thinking milk doesnt work for them. 'Lactose intolerence', casein, now I see iodine thrown in. I think most of these are fake and psychosomatic. Thats my opinion. Also I would recommend organic milk since it seems to have lower iodine levels since you seem to be obsessed with it.

Which part of all this do you think is "fake and psychosomatic"? The study I quoted, the fact that dairy exacerbates acne in some people, the research showing a link between excess iodine intake in thyroid problems, the well known fact that acne is a symptom of iodism, or the fact that Peat himself said that less than 1mg of iodine can cause problems for people? Keep in mind that dairy has never caused any of these problems for me personally.

I took Lugol's for a while, my TSH or thyroid hormones did not change despite me taking 20 mg of Iodine a day - I did not really feel different except I felt more androgenic and more angry (Iodine helps fibrocystic breasts by acting against estrogen - so chew on that for a while...)

Therefore, I'm sorry - iodine is not the bad health scapegoat you're looking for, but keep looking... and don't forget to drink your milk.

My grandpa smoked for 80 years and then died peacefully in his sleep at 96. To suggest that your personal experience will be the same as everyone else's is frankly foolish at best. Iodine does not cause acne and/or thyroid suppression in everyone.
 

Kyle M

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I'm sure it is noticed by some people. Dairy is well known to cause acne in sensitive individuals, and even mainstream medicine is starting to acknowledge this. Different people have different sensitivities to iodine. It's probably not a huge deal for most of us, but there is a (large) minority who will have difficulty with Peat's dairy recommendations.

What I'm saying is, that if the *cause* of acne from milk consumption was hypothyroidism, wouldn't that have been reported? People track their thyroid numbers around here pretty consistently, and there should be an amount of people that report milk causing acne that have reduced thyroid numbers during the same time period. Not to mention this coming up in actual science.

I'm not saying this is necessarily an incorrect idea, just that if your claim is that iodine from milk causes hypothyroidism which then causes acne, that we would see evidence for all of the links in that chain, not just the acne some people complain of and then this theory. There are many many many people who have crappy thyroid numbers here, also, that do not have acne.
 
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What I'm saying is, that if the *cause* of acne from milk consumption was hypothyroidism, wouldn't that have been reported? People track their thyroid numbers around here pretty consistently, and there should be an amount of people that report milk causing acne that have reduced thyroid numbers during the same time period. Not to mention this coming up in actual science.

I'm not saying this is necessarily an incorrect idea, just that if your claim is that iodine from milk causes hypothyroidism which then causes acne, that we would see evidence for all of the links in that chain, not just the acne some people complain of and then this theory. There are many many many people who have crappy thyroid numbers here, also, that do not have acne.

Well acne is a symptom of iodism. Iodine need not induce hypothyroidism to cause acne.
 
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My grandpa smoked for 80 years and then died peacefully in his sleep at 96. To suggest that your personal experience will be the same as everyone else's is frankly foolish at best. Iodine does not cause acne and/or thyroid suppression in everyone.

I can find a study where those amounts of iodine send people into hyperthyroidism, and I could just as well then make a claim that drinking lots of milk will cure your hypothyroidism because the iodine will increase your thyroid function.

It doesn't cause thyroid suppression in everyone, and everyone being the vast majority of people, to the point where I don't even think it's worth mentioning as a cause for thyroid suppression, among all the OTHER things you probably ingest on a daily basis that cause far more thyroid suppression than the amount of iodine that you get in milk.

It's like worrying about bananas increasing your serotonin and then using that as a reason not to eat even 1 or 2 bananas per day. Or the PUFA content of coconut oil - one of the most saturated foods on the planet. At a point, you have to step back and ask yourself - "Am I insane?" Maybe not, just orthorexic.

What are you going to do about milk having iodine in it? There is no perfect food and I can assure you that the positives of drinking milk with all of the good things in it probably outweigh whatever negatives (if any) the relatively small amount of iodine it contains would bring.

But then again, I don't tend to view iodine as a bad guy anyway, which I realize paints me as somewhat of an outlier to this forum, but whatever.
 

snowboard111

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I think it's a big mistake to isolate one component of food and thinking it might be the causative factor of it being good or bad.
 
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I can find a study where those amounts of iodine send people into hyperthyroidism, and I could just as well then make a claim that drinking lots of milk will cure your hypothyroidism because the iodine will increase your thyroid function.

And you'd be right, because iodine can do a variety of different things in different people.

It doesn't cause thyroid suppression in everyone, and everyone being the vast majority of people, to the point where I don't even think it's worth mentioning as a cause for thyroid suppression, among all the OTHER things you probably ingest on a daily basis that cause far more thyroid suppression than the amount of iodine that you get in milk.

I can't really parse this. I'm not saying everyone should limit their milk intake to two cups daily, but if one has problems with dairy, eg acne or thyroid symptoms, then what alternatives are there? Has Peat addressed this? Clearly many people can safely consume a quart or three of milk daily, but not everyone can. The kneejerk fashion in which some people on this forum write off the potential problems with milk does a disservice to Peat newbies. Just look at this thread.
 

Kyle M

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I don't think I did? Iodine can cause acne and thyroid problems.
Fair enough. But are there other clear examples of people having acne as a primary effect of excess iodine? I can't keep up with all of the supposed causes of acne lol.
 
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Fair enough. But are there other clear examples of people having acne as a primary effect of excess iodine? I can't keep up with all of the supposed causes of acne lol.

Yea definitely. A few years ago, megadosing on iodine was all the rage on alternative health sites (kinda still is), with curezone being the epicenter. One of the common symptoms people experienced was acne. Of course on curezone they write that off as a "detox" symptom due to bromide leaving the body, and prescribed "salt pushes" for this. It has also been a well known side effect of excess iodine for years. You can do a google search for curezone posts about this, or the definition of iodism.
 

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