Low Iodine Levels In Vast Majority Of Population?

[Amazoniac]

BTW; iodine causing thyroid cancer sounds about as dumb as calcium causing calcification or sodium causing high blood pressure.

I missed this.

Is There Any Reliable Food Source Of Iodine?

Iodide Excess Induces Apoptosis in Thyroid Cells through a p53-Independent Mechanism Involving Oxidative Stress 1 | Endocrinology | Oxford Academic​

 

[burtlancast]

Considering the available epidemiology, the claim of increased thyroid cancer rates from iodine supplementation above 1 mg, as Ray alleges, cannot possibly be made.

Surely, ingesting daily 20 to 80 times the RDA throughout your whole life would have caused these troubles in the Japanese population, and the recorded rates would be much higher compared to other countries. Yet the opposite is true.

The scientific reports alluded to (if they do exist) must be missing the overall picture; Ray's dropped the ball on this one.

 

[Steve]

Be careful if anyone is thinking about supplementing large doses of iodine. It's a known trigger for Grave's Disease. Obviously it doesn't happen to everyone, but it raises the risk.

I'm not sure what on earth I did to myself, but I was taking Iodoral (6.25 mg) for 2 1/2 years. I stopped taking it & a week later I went hyper & had TSI antibodies (indicative of Grave's Disease).
Was put on beta-blockers & methimazole.
Six months after that I went hypo where I've been stuck for probably 2 years.
Hopefully I will return to normal.........any day now.

 

[Sobieski]

It may just be pure coincidence, but after a short period of time using supplemental iodine ( either Lugol's or Nascent) I become extremely fatigued and achy. This may be down to other factors, but each time has been after a few days of iodine usage. I dosed around 15 mg a day for 3-4 days and I could hardly get out of bed the whole weekend. This has made me vary wary of iodine usage for myself.

 

[tara]

I posted the portions of a few interviews since I thought all readers might not be familiar with his thoughts on supplementing iodine.

Thanks. :)

Surely, ingesting daily 80 times the RDA throughout your whole life would have caused these troubles.

Some people (including at least one claim upthread) supplement much more than this.

 

[GreekGod]

I ve been experimenting with Iodine for about 10 years. The lugol s type of iodine is different than Nascent(colloidal) Iodine. A few drops of the Nascent is fine for improving thyroid function. The 2% lugols product is different. I started out taking a couple drops a day. Worked up to 4 or 5 drops a day. I ve used as much as 10 drops twice a day for an extended period. If you take too much, the thyroid seems to downregulate for awhile and you get cold hands, etc. It does seem to have some anti fungal effects in the gut and bloodstream, and does seems to improve circulation/energy. My general opinion for everyday health, its good to take a few drops of Nascent about 4 or 5 days a week, or take 4 or 5 drops of Lugols, 4 to 5 times per week. I'm 58 and in Excellent Health.

 

[Steven Bussinger]

I did some research on another forum trying to tease out the truth on iodine. I will post/summarize that here in the coming week.

It just never made sense to me that something could be so beneficial in high doses and yet cause thyroid problems in people with very tiny doses. If I remember correctly, I was looking at thyroglobulin regulation.

But Vitamin C and Iodine are two molecules where Ray perplexes me. There are countless case studies of people using very high doses to cure disease and achieve a very good feeling for both those molecules and yet Ray thinks people should have 250mcg iodine and 50mg vitamin C. I don't like it. Plus, I feel that Ray is not exercising his usual skepticism about the literature in iodine studies. There are numerous topics where Ray bases his opinions off of a few unique studies and says the preponderance of contradictory literature is inaccurate. Yet with iodine, he is quite content to cite the broader consensus. I find it disappointing.

That being said, I don't like that there is really only one source of pro-iodine information: the Abraham-Flechas-Brownstein triumvirate. I like it when there are independent groups that ask different questions but come to similar conclusions. When there is only one group or person touting some underground cure, I get a little squinty-eyed. In any group, there is some dogma that precludes certain questions from being deeply and genuinely investigated.

 

[austin06]

About 10 years ago, I had a iodine loading test done (involved collecting my urine over a 24 hour period). I was told I was iodine deficient (had about 70% less than I should) and was started on the pill form (iodoral) of iodine at a high dose of 100 mg. I had been on NDT for awhile and was not told to adjust that at all.

Within hours of taking it I felt amazing and had a lot of sexual energy (in retrospect was it a big estrogen release and spike...?) I felt this way more or less for about a week and then developed large, hard, cysts on my neck as well as flu like symptoms. The Dr. had told me nothing about side effects, so I found a protocol on curezone (mentioned above) and added Vit C, selenium and salt water "flushes" which were supposed to help with detox. The salt made me extremely bloated - nothing else. I was then told that some people needed potassium instead of salt. I took some and finally passed a lot of brown urine. Despite that I continued to be bloated and sick.

All in all, I ended up stopping because the flu-like detox symptoms and cysts were just too much to take even after lowering the dose. I grew up swimming a lot in chlorinated pools AND owned a pool company where I was around a lot of chemicals and liquid chlorine. I figured I had a lot of bromine that I needed to detox. I also now believe I have always had trouble detoxing estrogen or really anything (recently found out I have a strong genetic component to detoxing in general, but especially estrogen).

After that, over the years, I've added iodine back in in the form of Lugols drops. I like how it makes me feel, but then it seems after a few days I hit a wall with it and I become hyper instead of hypo. I have read that iodine is a big no-no for Hashimotos people, which I am not, but maybe it's not good in general if you already are on NDT. I also feel that NDT just doesn't really "fix" things completely and I know that I need to be able to detox estrogen more effectively (all forms of progesterone are intolerable for me).

Many people on curezone advocate just pushing through the initial detox, then others say not to take it. I wish there were some better answers and guidance (I have read the Brownstein stuff). Might experiment with it again and see what happens.

 

[TreasureVibe]

@Joeyd @CaseyL @MyUsernameHere

Even Peat mentioned in an interview that he knew women who quickly got rid of breast cysts (or other classic high estrogen issues), in just a few days, with iodine. But he says "thyroid is safer", even though for some people, thyroid causes increased estrogen levels.

CaseyL You say anti-estrogenic effects, but can you elaborate more what you notice? Is it powerful enough that you think it could be used to reverse gyno in a male?

For those who have tried iodine, have you tried thyroid (and did it have good or bad effects), and what is the closest thing you can think of which has effects similar to iodine?

I have used nascent iodine, Detoxadine, I suffered from gyno in the breasts, and they dissapeared notably. I painted the nascent iodine on my inner thighs and scrotum.

However I had side effects after a while which I attributed to too high doses of iodine, and I quit it. The Detoxadine brand had a very high dose per serving which I did not realize. My thyroid also started feeling funny and weird at times, so I advice you to take proper selenium first before starting iodine to protect your thyroid gland.

At first I was convinced Dr. Brownstein was completely right with the high dosage he was using, but later I came back from that position due to the big side effects I had which I attributed to iodine-induced hypothyroidism. Recently I have heard Dr. Peat say in a KMUD interview that nascent iodine was actually harmful to the body and thyroid, and I have read that he also said that high doses of iodine are very bad for you so until someone knowledgeable here in this topic comes with good argument to take a look at the high iodine theory I'm not going to do it anymore.

 

[austin06]

@Joeyd @CaseyL @MyUsernameHere

Even Peat mentioned in an interview that he knew women who quickly got rid of breast cysts (or other classic high estrogen issues), in just a few days, with iodine. But he says "thyroid is safer", even though for some people, thyroid causes increased estrogen levels.

CaseyL You say anti-estrogenic effects, but can you elaborate more what you notice? Is it powerful enough that you think it could be used to reverse gyno in a male?

For those who have tried iodine, have you tried thyroid (and did it have good or bad effects), and what is the closest thing you can think of which has effects similar to iodine?

I had not heard of ndt causing increased estrogen levels, but after entering menopause, I believe this has happened to me. I have been taking ndt for over 15 years and tried to replace it with iodine + other supplements, but have not been able to for reasons I mention below. For me, a very small amount of estrogen supplementation when I was doing infertility treatments (a small amount of estrogen was used with larger amounts of progesterone - the progesterone alone made me practically comatose) made me feel like I initially do on iodine - more alive, energetic, "clearer". NDT makes me function - without it I get body aches, fatigue and depression, but I never feel healed on it necessarily.

 

[burtlancast]

I feel that Ray is not exercising his usual skepticism about the literature in iodine studies. There are numerous topics where Ray bases his opinions off of a few unique studies and says the preponderance of contradictory literature is inaccurate. Yet with iodine, he is quite content to cite the broader consensus.

This is even more troubling since Ray's an expert in thyroid issues, and Japan has probably the lowest cancer rate in all industrialized countries (where reliable cancer statistics are available).

I'm going to have a good, long, hard look at Dr Abraham's papers.

 

[ddjd]

This is even more troubling since Ray's an expert in thyroid issues, and Japan has probably the lowest cancer rate in all industrialized countries (where reliable cancer statistics are available).

I'm going to have a good, long, hard look at Dr Abraham's papers.

look forward to hearing your conclusion!

 

[HDD]

This is even more troubling since Ray's an expert in thyroid issues, and Japan has probably the lowest cancer rate in all industrialized countries (where reliable cancer statistics are available).

I'm going to have a good, long, hard look at Dr Abraham's papers.

I don’t have source right now, but when I was reading the literature/studies, I recall that thyroid issues were more prevalent in the coastal areas of Japan where more iodine was naturally consumed. I’ll try to find the source later since I might have misunderstood.

 

[Steven Bussinger]

Yeah, I remember reading somewhere that the study saying that average intake was 12.5mg had some issues. Also, that goiter was common in areas where kombu (very high iodine seaweed) was consumed.

 

[Mito]

yet Ray thinks people should have 250mcg iodine and 50mg vitamin C

He recommends a quart or more of OJ everyday. That’s about 500 mg.

 

[dookie]

I had not heard of ndt causing increased estrogen levels, but after entering menopause, I believe this has happened to me. I have been taking ndt for over 15 years and tried to replace it with iodine + other supplements, but have not been able to for reasons I mention below. For me, a very small amount of estrogen supplementation when I was doing infertility treatments (a small amount of estrogen was used with larger amounts of progesterone - the progesterone alone made me practically comatose) made me feel like I initially do on iodine - more alive, energetic, "clearer". NDT makes me function - without it I get body aches, fatigue and depression, but I never feel healed on it necessarily.

Are you saying that: Iodine is bad, because it has the same effects as estrogen did on you, and thyroid (NDT) is also bad, because it also has overlaps with estrogen (makes you more "alive, energetic" - in a bad excitation sort of way?)

 

[austin06]

Are you saying that: Iodine is bad, because it has the same effects as estrogen did on you, and thyroid (NDT) is also bad, because it also has overlaps with estrogen (makes you more "alive, energetic" - in a bad excitation sort of way?)

No. I'm not saying iodine is bad because of that reaction - it was just a similar feeling to estrogen supplementation without - what I'm guessing - the negative effects of excess estrogen. It was just a similar "good" feeling, initially. As far as thyroid, I was just commenting on someone saying that it can cause excess estrogen in some people. I didn't know that and would like to know more. I don't think thyroid is bad, it makes me able to function - it does not give me the same "alive" feeling. If I have too much I get hyper symptoms which are certainly not pleasant. I just know, especially since hitting menopause, that I have symptoms of estrogen dominance and if one thing (iodine) can help with that and another (thyroid) may not, then I want to explore that.

 

[dookie]

@austin06

Well, the cysts and insatiable libido are definitely bad signs. So maybe iodine isn't good. Can you talk a bit about what it did with your water retention? Did you notice changes in bloating/swelling of thighs, lips, arms, legs, muscles, etc? Basically, did things become more "constricted" and compact, or more enlarged, flabby, bloated?

Not sure what you mean by the "alive" feeling. I find that healthy things tend to be "calming", but in a focused way, while things that "energize" are somewhat excitatory

 

[Steven Bussinger]

He recommends a quart or more of OJ everyday. That’s about 500 mg.

Right. I think I misunderstood Peat's position. I can't find a source right now for what I stated earlier, but that may be because it was an audio interview (KMUD or Danny Roddy). However, he is strongly against SUPPLEMENTAL vitamin C due to concerns about the modern manufacturing method. Also, he says that we get up to 4-5 grams of vitamin C in diet via meat and other foods. And vitamin C increases absorption of iron, so one has to be careful about that.

"Yes, more than 20 years ago, I pointed out the amount of heavy metal
contamination, and the frequent reactions I had seen, to Pauling, and he
just said I should use Bronson's C, as if that would have been made with
anything except Hoffman-LaRoche's stuff. (It was Pauling's own
description of the manufacturing process for sulfuric acid, using a
"lead room," that got me thinking about the dangers of things
manufactured with it.) I guess ADM is making a large fraction of
ascorbic acid now, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of it was worse
than when the heavy metal studies were published several years ago.

Ray Peat's experiences and work with C:
The alteration of production processes in vitamin E manufacture when the
evil soybean monopoly bought the industry from Eastman Chemical is
analogous to what happened earlier in the vitamin C industry, as profits
were maximized. The dramatic vitamin C studies in the 1930s often used
only 15 or 25 milligrams per day. In 1953, my first experience with it
(which was still sold as "cevitamic acid")involved 50 mg per day, and
over a period of just 2 or 3 days, my chronic awful poison oak allergy
disappeared. Up until this time, it was still too expensive to sell in
large doses. Around 1955 or '56, new manufacturing methods made it cheap
(and, for some reason, the name changed from cevitamic to ascorbic) and
the average tablet went up to 500 mg. The first time I tried the new
form, around 1956, I developed allergy symptoms within a couple of days.
Over the next 20 years, my own increased sensitivity to synthetic
ascorbate led me to look for such reactions in others. The same
people who reacted to it often reacted similarly to riboflavin and
rutin, which were also made from cornstarch by oxidation. I ascribed the
reaction to some industrial contaminant that they had in common,
possibly the heavy metals introduced with the sulfuric acid. The heavy
metal contamination of synthetic ascorbate is so great that one 500 mg
tablet dissolved in a liter of water produces free radicals at a rate
that would require a killing dose of x-rays to equal. The only clean and
safe vitamin C now available is that in fresh fruits, meats, etc. The
commercial stuff is seriously dangerous.

from: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ort ... opics/1876

 

[Sheila]

Greetings

Iodine supplementation is an interesting topic and seems to oddly polarise opinions more than say, boring old calcium or testicularly-challenging bromine. Now why is that? What does it suggest psychologically that other elements don't? Iodine seems to resent being confined to one place, it always wants to be free to go where it pleases if the inside of my cupboards are anything to go by. I have many forms dotted around here and they all want to be, at least partially, elsewhere. Iodine likes to migrate.

Irrespective of this peculiar quality, the responses to >1mg dose, over time, seem very person specific, despite 100 yrs+ ago, it being noted as a 'cure all' which makes me conclude there was something to it - since back then, experiences trumped theory. But then mercury was thought of similarly useful before that. And in times of old there was no suggestion of adequate selenium and/or Vit C/b-vits protocols in the cohort of patients treated with it, seemingly successfully. Could it be that internally, higher dose and acutely, it was just a very good disinfectant? Now that might make some sense. Today, with the proliferation of other halide ions (including in SSRIs), oestrogenicity, and a whole host of other competing, complicit and confusing factors, it's not hard to see why this topic is far from cut and dried.

It seems to me that, on the cohort reporting anecdotally here, and in my own experiences, that the dear women appear to have a lot more trouble with higher levels of iodine supplementation than the gentlemen, the former also of course have higher rates of endocrine dysregulation across the board. So one would have to think that oestrogen's (over) presence and ability to farg things up comes into play within the varying responses we see and also the potentially poorer levels of liver based detoxification in women if oestrogen-in-the-wrong-places is given an iodine-assisted shove off the bus (so to speak). I firmly concur with Dookie's: "I find that healthy things tend to be "calming", but in a focused way, while things that "energize" are somewhat excitatory", and have generally concluded that somewhat excitatory, almost manic energy fits high (if transient) oestrogen nicely.

On the other hand, I have had a handful of women report to me that kelp supplementation (approx 150mcg elemental iodine equivalent per day) helped them to get pregnant when nothing else would; and similarly successful reports wrt fibrocystic breast disease. I used that strategy myself years ago, clearing breast cysts with Iodoral (12.5mg KI/I2) daily in about a month. My mistake was perhaps continuing on with 'excellent' (but in retrospect, excitatory) energy after that, until a full hypothyroid state arrived quite sharply, with little warning, at around month 3. Way back then I didn't pay quite the attention I would now and only have myself to blame, and this was after reading all the literature available, but not perhaps sufficient anecdotal reports - a case of the theoretical seducing the practical or it seemed like a good idea at the time. When people I respect urge caution with mercurial supplements like iodine, and the past use and context is swirled within the mists of time, it now gives me more pause for thought but that may also be a feature of getting older. I am not sure, despite what is claimed by both sides, iodine supplementation at any level can cure that!

Best regards

Sheila