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Happy Spurling - Regular Font
Kayla Lanier - Bold Font
Hey guys, today we're going to be talking about iodine. This is our second episode in our iodine series and we're going to be sharing some interesting facts and a little more history on the topic of iodine.
Today I'm going to actually be citing from a book by Lynn Farrow that's called Iodine Crisis: What You Don't Know Can Wreck Your Life. And the reason that I want to kind of read from some of these excerpts is because the information is just phenomenally good and well researched. Lynn Farrow is actually an investigative journalist prior to all of her experience. with her health issues. So this is a lot of her story and then how this kind of unfolded. And she actually has a website called breastcancerchoices.org. And we're going to link that in the show notes because I would encourage everyone after this podcast, because there's no way that we could cover all of the information in this book, that you actually check that book out. You can get it on Audible. Not expensive at all. And it's It's just a phenomenal read on the research that's been done there.
So iodine, which we've talked about before, is an essential micronutrient, which means that every cell in our body needs it. Iodine can be very powerful and we actually, our bodies have built in compensation mechanisms to conserve it.
That's the good news. So the body can try to salvage iodine at all costs. because of the importance of it in every cell of our body.
The bad news is that iodine deficiency has actually become a public health crisis because it's so vulnerable to displacement from everything from environmental toxins like bromide, pesticides, and food additives. And that's actually what's causing the iodine deficiency that we have in our country.
Yes, and would it be fair to say that iodine has been demonized for the last 30, 40 years?
Yeah, I think it would, and especially after looking at all the literature, you can see that there was just a huge shift from 1901 and back. Actually, they've been using it much longer than that. But the documentation in the pharmaceutical books, as far as prescriptions that were given, iodine was regularly given as a medication to treat multiple health issues. And then there was a shift in the 1970s where bromide started to be added to cars and homes and mattresses and food.
And the problem with that is that bromide displaces iodine in the receptor. So they're not actually able to correspond in the same place or to work together. So bromide is kind of a bully and it can push iodine out of the cell, which means that you can be iodine deficient even in the presence of iodine, possibly in your diet. But as we know, that's a lot harder to do in your diet than it sounds like.
Right. And so iodine, it primarily comes from like soil. Would it be like in mineral? It's like as far as like vegetables, fruits, or is that not right?
Yeah, so there's actually some marginal iodine content in some foods, but typically it's more coastal food, fish and seaweed. And people ask, well, can't I just eat a lot of fish? And it's like, well, from the book information that I have in the research, you would need the equivalent of four pounds of fish a day to meet the iodine that you need. And you would also need to do that in place of the fact that you're not taking in bromide and all these different ways to push it out of the cell.
Right.
So the research is showing that in our country, even though we don't think we have an iodine problem, it has been demonized. Doctors have actually been taught through what was apparently some faulty medical research that Iodine was dangerous and that there was a shift away from using it. That happened when Penicillin and some other antibiotics came on board because Iodine had routinely been used for an antibiotic and that was considered old fashioned and they just kind of ushered Iodine out and ushered antibiotics in and the only thing they really use Iodine for medically in most cases it's just as an antibacterial agent.
Right, and it does have the skull and crossbones on it. Because it's labeled as poison.
Yeah. Which the tincture of iodine is based in alcohol and that shouldn't be ingested because that's really what the skull and crossbones is about. It isn't about for an oral use, but it isn't because of iodine, it's because of the tincture itself.
But it kind of got started that it was just old fashioned and that we don't need to we've progressed and a lot of the health history books even through her research she actually went to some auctions and obtained pharmacy books where they had I guess written prescriptions out and how many times that I done was prescribed for everything. It was one of it was the most used nutrient for tumors and removing tumors, which is phenomenal.
But then it was also used for everything from hair thinning to weight loss or mood issues. Like it had a broad array that they used it for, and it was recognized that the medical equivalent of it, that even though it was a nutrient, it was very much a medicine. And of course that shifted. And we, so we're at a place now to where we have 50 percent less iodine coming into our lives.
And we excrete twice as much as we did even 50 years ago. So we're losing it because of the bromide and these other things that can, fluoride and bromide really compete for iodine in the receptor. And so those are like, we're being flooded with bromide, which is flushing iodine out at a rate. So it's very possible, not just possible. It's likely that 95 percent or more of people in the U. S. are not just low of iodine, but completely iodine deficient in a way that is really affecting health.
Right. And of course, would you say it affects the thyroid more than anything else?
Yeah, and that's kind of how the misinformation has gotten promoted, really, is that, that there were some studies done that showed that the thyroid, when they were given Iodine, that it actually takes it up. And they thought, well, that's a bad thing. You don't want to make the thyroid work too much because Iodine is going to force the thyroid. What we now know, and they knew probably, years before they started messing with all of it, is that iodine is needed completely by the thyroid, but it's also needed by every cell in the body.
But when you're deficient of iodine, and you start, you know, maybe getting it in food or taking it in, the thyroid is going to sequester what it needs, because it's how it regulates all of our hormones. So, Iodine is responsible for every hormone in our body, not just thyroid hormone. But when you get deficient in iodine, that's the first area that's affected, is the thyroid.
And that's where a lot of people will show up that they don't have a thyroid problem on a lab, but they have all the symptoms, inability to lose weight, brain fog, all the things that we associate dry skin, all, you know, Cystic acne. It's like all these things that are textbook for thyroid conditions, but they get their labs and it's like, no, you're, all your thyroid numbers are within range.
And that's where it's so confusing, but the iodine deficiency symptoms are actually just like thyroid symptoms because that's the first step of a thyroid problem. One reason that women have a lot of trouble with like the inability to lose like post baby weight is because when you are pregnant the fetus requires so much iodine that it will be pulled away from the mother and if you're iodine deficient then you just end up with very low levels.
So after pregnancy or during pregnancy Most thyroid conditions begin during that time, and it's because the, one of the main reasons is iodine is dropped down for the fetus, which is so important, but then there's not enough left for mom, and so you end up having these post menstrual issues and stuff with like even period changes and all that, and if you breastfeed afterwards, which is a wonderful thing, the baby needs high amounts of iodine because it needs it in every cell for brain development and everything. Then it'll pull it out of the mom in order to access it. So it's kind of like, you're really left depleted at that point. And that's why it's so important for pregnant women to make sure they're getting a lot of iodine.
And it does affect their IQ, their child's IQ.
Thank you. Yeah, 15 points lower for an IQ if a child is born to a mother who is iodine deficient. That to me is like, it's mind-blowing to think about that how significant one micronutrient can be that you literally increase the chances of mental retardation for a child if you're deficient in iodine.
And most of us are just barely passing. Like, the body will try its best to use iodine and prioritize where it goes, but then if you do that long enough, you end up with these major health problems. So, one of the things that kind of started the research, and I guess the look into iodine, was that the goiter belt, you know, like Michigan...
Which we had mentioned in the previous podcast, which was interesting. I mean, which I mean, goiter is, is it common now?
It's not because when they did the research, which actually began with veterinary medicine, because of infertility, they started trying to see what is missing because that whole belt of states that literally didn't have iodine in the soil, they started having major health issues, not only with people, but with animals too.
So cattle weren't reproducing. So the study was done that if they could add iodine, because it was a missing nutrient to the feed of the animal, would it help with infertility? And it 100 percent did.
But that's where we got the 150 microgram dose that was then set for humans, that is the RDA, which is the Recommended Daily Allowance, which means, and remember, the bare minimum.
Just for us to not develop a goiter.
Yeah, so if you don't want a goiter, then you're probably okay with doing 150 micrograms a day, but if you want good health, it's going to require a lot more than that.
So, it's more survival dose, not optimal dose.
Yeah, which is where we tend to find ourselves in this country, unfortunately, is that we have a whole country of people who are very unhealthy and sick, and their labs are fine, but it is not optimal. That's a whole nother conversation for someone to function at an optimal level compared to just being alive, and I know we talk about that all the time on the podcast, that your life should be about optimal health, not just trying to not die. Which I think a lot of us are just trying to stay alive.
It's not thriving in the U.S.
Yeah, yeah, right, to, to actually say, I want to feel good, and not accept that as we get older we're going to feel bad, which is something that, that we have come to accept because it's becoming so true, but I don't think it was always the case, and if iodine can affect brain health like that in an infant, 100 percent know that it's going to affect us the same way, which is where brain fog is, is such a huge problem for people, and we blamed it on COVID, long haulers, activated viruses, like all this stuff.
But it's like very likely that we just don't have enough of an essential nutrient in order to feel better and we can't get any information in and out of the cell because there's inflammation from environmental issues. They put bromine in our mattresses. It's in our furniture. It's in our food. So, like, in 1971, prior to that, they used iodine to work as a dough conditioner in baked goods.
And it worked great. What's interesting is that at some point, as a nation, bromide replaced iodine in all processed food.
Which the information is very vague on. We don't really know how that happened. Who did that? Who came up with that?
It seemed that someone made a decision and just said, okay, we're switching iodine out of the food source, which is what caused a huge part of the problem with Goiters, is now it wasn't even coming in in an, you know, an additive form. And then not only that would've been bad enough, but to replace it with a very agent or bromide the other problem that's gonna be an antagonist and push what little iodine you had out of the cell.
And so we created a two fold problem, which honestly means that most of us are iodine deficient. And I've had people say, well, how do you test for that? And we mentioned the skin test before, which is not highly accurate, and we know that because iodine dissipates in the air. So depending on if someone's dehydrated and they do the patch test, which is putting a little bit of iodine, you wait for it to absorb.
There's some credibility to that, but most of it, there's so many variables that make that test not completely accurate. If you're dehydrated, that may evaporate very quickly, but it's a moisture issue, not really an iodine. You can test for iodine in a blood test, you can ask for that, but it is very inaccurate because Iodine is so important in the body that, that we keep an exact amount of iodine and sodium in our bloodstream in order to keep us safe, and so you're going to see that even if you have a very low level, most of the time it's going to represent in a serum test.
The best test that Dr. Brownstein, he has a book and he's a medical doctor that has been the forerunner of iodine research and using it in his medical practice for years now with great success. He actually, you know, talks about that, the iodine loading test, which is where you actually take an amount of iodine that's 50 milligrams and then you do a 24 hour, an hour urine test and you test how much of that iodine has been excreted.
So this has to be done with an iodine literate practitioner, but when he's been doing those tests over the years, and we're going to link his book too, which is phenomenal. He's got several books, but his, he's got one on iodine that's called Why Iodine, Why You need it and Why You can't Live Without it.
But in that, that test is showing that, and he's. He's taken care of probably thousands of patients and said that 95 plus percent of those are iodine, severely iodine deficient. And these are people coming to him with thyroid disease, hair loss, you know, all kinds of issues, heart palpitations, aphid, like things that we would think, oh, that's thyroid, or that's this condition, when really it is eventually. But in the beginning, it's actually probably just that you don't have enough of that nutrient to fire your cells. I mean, this is kind of a big deal, you know?
I mean, I'd honestly never even heard of it until you started talking about it when you started doing this research and I mean, good luck trying to find an article on Google because there's nothing there except warnings about iodine dosage.
And the dangers of iodine. So, and that's where, you know, is there a danger in doing too much iodine? There's a danger in doing too much of anything.
Yeah, the poison is in the dose.
Yeah, but then you also have to think of the danger of not having enough available at all. So it's like risk over benefit. The risk of iodine, if you have healthy kidney function, is it's just going to go through the kidney.
So this isn't something that's like a fat soluble nutrient that you're worried about building up huge amounts and not knowing. It's actually something that. If you did have an issue then you just stop taking iodine. I know I'm oversimplifying that and of course this isn't meant to be medical advice and this is not meant to treat or diagnose.
This is a conversation which is, you know, to try to put our listeners into information zones that they may not be plugged into because it's new and it's building, but it's also very ancient in the healing practices.
Right. It's not entirely new. It's new in our culture, but I feel like, honestly, this is something that's very important, especially if you've tried everything, diet, hormonal replacement therapy, and you're still not losing weight. This is something that I feel like mom has a lot of knowledge on.
Yeah, and you, you have to go to me, like if you want to go down the rabbit hole and you start doing the research for yourself, and I guarantee you'll probably walk away with the same conclusion that this is so important. Like it's, it's definitely something that people need to know because we do see that.
And I see it in practice where someone's here and they're doing all the things. They're following the diet plan. They're doing the supplementation. They're working on insulin regulation. We're working on sex hormones, and it's, the weight is not budging, and yet it's like, are we missing something? So simple and so cheap, and that's the other thing.
There's no real research being done on iodine because one is it's not patentable, and it's not profitable for them.
So it's very affordable. It's not, it's not an expensive supplement.
It's in the dark. And you don't need a prescription for Iodine. There's specific types. The Lugol's Ioderol tablets are what are mainly talked about in the books that I've read as far as the clinical dose. And you're talking, like a hundred and fifty micrograms of iodine is such a minute amount. It's enough to not get a goiter. So if that's your goal, you know, we're doing great. But if we want a goal for optimal health, we're not even touching those margins at all. And you know, with an iodine Literate practitioner, you're actually often taking up to these high milligram doses, so not micrograms, but milligrams, which is a totally different conversation.
But if you're deficient, that can be what it takes for someone to be able to get a change in their health. And the fact that iodine deficiency is so linked to breast cancer, uterine cancer, thyroid cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer. So there's all these cancers that you think about that begin as maybe fibroids or fibroids Cysts even in that too. That's definitely there, not maybe, but you've got people with like ovarian cysts. It's a most of the time that's an iodine issue and I have a lot of clients where they were taking iodine. Maybe nascent iodine drops which are great and it's like three drops which ends up being a couple milligrams to six depending on where you get it.
But nothing's changing. Maybe their thyroid medication works a little better. We can kind of get it in to see a little bit of improvement. But it's like you, it's because if your feeling well with a teaspoon you might build it up over the course of your entire life when you've already had other health problems come up. But you know, for me, it's like if medically in the medical records in 1906, and this is cited in the Iodine Crisis book, they considered iodine the universal medicine. And they used it to treat goiter, atherosclerosis, syphilis, uterine fibroids, mercury lead and arsenic poisoning. So you think about the heavy metal load that we have in this country, and you think about how much people are trying to detox and all that, and metals are so difficult to get rid of.
Iodine can do that. Swollen glands, prostatic hypertrophy, so people, men that have to get up and go to the bathroom a lot and they can't eliminate, that's usually an iodine issue. So again, we're not diagnosing or treating, but these things are heavily connected to that. They used it for scarlet fever, bronchitis and pneumonia, obesity, depression, breast pain, eczema, genitourinary diseases, malaria, ovarian cyst, rheumatism, gastralgia, tonsillitis, and a cough.
So because Iodine is antiparasitical, antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, all of those things, and it's like, this stuff is amazing. I think you have to You know, I think we have, I have a new appreciation for Iodine after researching it for the last year, but getting in touch with these books and seeing it all laid out has been amazing.
It was actually cited in the Merck, the Merck's medical manual in 1899 to treat these things. So this was not hooey fooey, like, you know, like some kind of weird naturopathic care that people often think about. I think that's what, you know, they're like, this was medical information. And so the other question people will say is, you know, is it safe to supplement?
Yes, it is. But you know, you have to have people that have experience. and know kind of how to do it. I will say in her book, she actually lays out and she's very clear that's not to diagnose or treat you. But there are actual protocols that thousands of people have used when they were able to work with a practitioner or if they weren't able to get into the doctor.
So that book is so valuable to just have and I would encourage you to listen to it on Audible and actually have those copies and then go over to her website to get more information. And I know It's called breastcancerchoices.org, but there's an Iodine investigation within that site, which is phenomenal.
Where patient to patient, they've shared their success stories, and you would be amazed. And Iodine has to have accompanying nutrients, so sodium is very important in Iodine, and so is, the companion nutrients. It's like selenium and zinc and vitamin C and vitamin A. So the things that we think that we do for thyroid health are, guess what, the companions for Iodine, which is amazing.
I mean, that if you have all of those together and you know what you're doing with it, it's miraculous. I mean, and it's been provided for us. Some people say, well, I'll just eat seaweed and I've talked to people about that before. The problem with seaweed is that our oceans are so polluted with heavy metals that if you try to do enough of that to get these larger doses of iodine, it's probably not going to work because you're, you're shooting yourself in the foot in a lot of ways.
Exactly.
Anyway, so we've kind of touched on a few things, but the stories and that you're going to be able to read and just people's personal experiences. There's a partial list of conditions that are now being helped by Iodine, which is allergies. That's an amazing one to have people be helped with Iodine for allergies.
Brain fog, dry skin, cysts and nodules, fatigue, thyroid, ovarian and cognitive problems. So just unclear thinking, menstrual irregularities, weight gain, breast pain, I mean, it goes on so far that you're just like, and it sounds too good to be true, but I think sometimes the simplest things can be what helps us heal, and we're looking for all these great answers and combinations and all the stuff to work with it, and it's like, I think we're just missing minerals.
And micronutrients, and if we don't have those, our body was designed to run them. And we're not going to outrun the fact that we need them. So it's definitely something pretty interesting.
So what can we do?
Well, one of the important things that we can do is take out bromide, which is one of the main competitors for iodine in the receptor. So bromide is going to push iodine out of the cell like we talked about, which means that even the iodine that you do get, you're not able to actually get it into the receptor. So some of the things that you can do is avoiding certain foods, because particularly flour products, so breads and baked goods.
Most of the time those are, well all of the time they're gonna have Brom mod or be Brom made. So of course, that's where limiting things like that are gonna help you because you don't get an overload of Brom mod. The UK banned BROMATE in bread in 1990. Canada banned BROMATE in bread in 1994, and there was a proposal in Australia to do the same, but it's waiting to be finalized.
So in the U. S. we don't have any laws on bromate or potassium bromate being added. So it's added to a lot of different things. When drinking water that contains bromide, you know, like if you're dealing with any kind of a city water situation, then you can have bromide in that. So you want to just try to not have, you know, your water content coming from a city water source or a water system of any kind like that.
So making sure you have good quality water. Toothpaste, mouthwash, and gargles, typically have potassium bromate because it's an antiseptic. So that is going to be something to try to look for as an ingredient in your toothpaste and mouthwash and gargles. And it may cause bleeding and inflammation of the gums if it's in your toothpaste.
So you definitely want to watch having it in that.
Wow, that's crazy. I haven't even checked my toothpaste. I wonder if it's in the natural toothpaste.
Yeah, I don't know. I need to check those too. And the interesting thing is they also use bromine as a flame retardant. So if that makes you feel good about ingesting it in your bread products or your toothpaste, but it's actually exposed, we get exposure on our skin too.
So if you have a new vehicle that's gonna have higher bromine levels. Probably just because it's new, and so like, maybe some seat covers, and things like that. Just to keep you from having so much contact, but again, you know, you're still exposed to it. But you can kind of limit it that way too.
Would you say that limiting the foods is the most important? What you consume. I know we can't exactly protect ourselves from like surfaces, like sheets.
Mattresses, and it would be really difficult to, well we could sleep on the floor, maybe throw everything out in the yard, but, but I don't think most people are going to want to do that. I particularly don't want to do that, but your drinking water source, I think, think about the things that you have the most of. We have water every day, hopefully in a large amount. You want to make sure that's sourced really well. If you need a water filtration system, that can actually be checked to make sure that it can filter out things like that.
And then toothpaste and mouthwash gargles. I mean, those are things you're doing twice a day, you know, so probably more exposure in that. But definitely the foods. And just keeping everything to a minimum that are gonna, the things that will compete with iodine. And then also considering reaching out to someone about iodine protocols because you do need an iodine literate practitioner, and if anyone has any questions and they want to reach out to our office, I'd be glad to talk about information for that.
You know, it's interesting that iodine was used for thousands of years. It's even been documented in the Egyptian papyrus documentation that they used to They used it for breast cancer, they used seaweed, and so it was well accepted for years and years, and actually had an addition added to it for all the purposes, but then there was this really stealing of iodine, which basically just kind of faded away, and then it became the enemy that you shouldn't use it, and that maybe too much iodine is bad for the thyroid, and too much of anything is, is bad, but not enough of it isn't the answer either. It's getting to a sufficient amount.
So there are actual tests that can be done through iodine loading tests where we can actually order those tests where you can actually go through that, um, with even literate medical doctors or you can come to a practitioner and we can really talk about the options for that so that you can actually know how much of a deficiency that you actually have.
You know, something that's been basically demonized that was once used even in the Merck manual as a guide to go by has now all of a sudden become kind of taboo for the last three decades. And it was really based on a faulty research paper. One non peer reviewed research paper caused iodine to, basically, it was thought that it would be harmful to the thyroid.
And there was really no basis for it. And so It's been still taught for 30 plus years in medical schools that iodine is bad for the thyroid and that it was supposed to be a fundamental law that it was, but it has actually been debunked and reversed multiple times. So you know, I think a lot of it is just understanding that maybe some of the very best things that we had in medicine haven't actually been new inventions.
But it would be going back to something that is so elemental and completely necessary for every cell in our body. Why would we think that all of a sudden we don't need iodine? And if that's related to all of the health crisis that's in our country. And I'm not saying that iodine can fix every single thing in the world, but I think it can fix a whole lot.
Especially the thyroid situation that is completely out of hand. So maybe there will be another passing through where iodine will be picked back up again and used again. for all the wonderful benefits that it has in the general medical field. But until that time, you need to find a good iodine literate practitioner that can help you work through that if you're having any of these issues.
Or, you know, even just brain fog and dementia and problems with clear thinking and stuff that we see people struggle with so much may be as simple as iodine. I want to end with a quote that is from Arthur Schopenhauer. And it actually says,
Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized, in the first is ridiculed, in the second, it is opposed, and in the third, it is regarded as self evident.
I hope we're in the third of the iodine. Because it's definitely something that needs to be addressed for people. Because how tragic would it be if health is completely devastated just because we don't have something included in our daily life that we were meant to have and probably one of the cheapest things that you could do for yourself too.
So, anyway, pretty interesting stuff. I enjoyed the conversation. We hope you guys did too. And I'm sure I will circle back on this topic because I didn't even scratch the surface on all of the information. What did you think about it? Were you surprised or?
Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting and honestly, people would say it's borderline conspiracy theory when you start talking about it because you probably get a lot of dirty looks from just like Western medicine, people who work in Western medicine because iodine has been demonized for so long.
And I think the beauty about it is like maybe you're being misdiagnosed for something when really it's just as simple as a mineral.
Yeah, so food for thought and reach out to us if you guys have any questions.
SHOW NOTES:
The Iodine Crisis: What You Don't Know About Iodine Can Wreck Your Life - https://amzn.to/4bWhzKb
Iodine: Why You Need It. Why You Can't Live Without It - https://www.drbrownstein.com/shop/p/iodine-why-you-need-it-why-you-cant-live-without-it
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