Therapeutic Actions of Iodine - The Supplement that Provides the Most Bang for Your Buck!
This article is long, but it contains important life-altering information. Please use the index to bring you to different sections.
1. Most Bang for Your Buck!
I can’t do justice to the immense benefits of iodine. It is admirable, superior, amazing, unbelievable, and fantastic. It can’t easily be described with adjectives. Instead, I shall recommend a couple of books.
The book “The Iodine Crisis” by Lynne Farrow is a fabulous resource for anyone interested in iodine. This book cannot be recommended highly enough!
Lynne Farrow is a whistleblower. Her own experience with breast cancer led to the discovery that someone had stolen a medicine with proven benefits reaching back 15,000 years. A medicine that not only helped her but has helped millions. She currently serves as the Director of Breast Cancer Choices, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to scrutinizing the evidence for breast cancer procedures and treatments. Lynne is the editor of IodineResearch.com, where she has compiled materials for both beginning and advanced iodine investigators. Visit Lynne's website at LynneFarrow.net.
Another fabulous resource for the importance of iodine is the book “Iodine - Why You Need It - Why You Can’t Live Without It” by David Brownstein, MD. This book teaches about the most crucial companion nutrients you can take along with your iodine supplementation. Dr. Brownstain writes: As iodine levels have fallen over 50% during the last 40 years, thyroid disorders including hypothyroidism, Hashimoto’s disease, Graves’ disease, and thyroid cancer have increased near-epidemic rates.
Those books summarize the benefits of iodine and prove it’s not dangerous. Here is a list of the benefits of taking sufficient amounts of iodine published in an article by Dr. Brownstein. Please note that this is an incomplete list.
Iodine is an essential element in the human body, and you can use it in your daily life for the following reasons:
The Many Ways Iodine Can Improve and Even Save Your Life!
a. 16 Examples of Conditions Treated With Iodine- Keloids
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Infections
- Hemorrhoids
- Ovarian Cysts
- Breast Disease
- Prostate Disease
- Vaginal Infections
- Fibrocystic Breasts
- Parotid Duct Stones
- Peyronie’s Sebaceous
- Cysts Thyroid Disorders
- Dupuytren’s Contracture
- Excess Mucus Production
- Headaches and Migraines
- Antibacterial
- Anti Cancer
- Antiparasitic
- Antiviral
- Mucolytic Agent
Lack of iodine is responsible for the following:
- Balding
- Depression
- Weight gain
- Low energy
- Constipation
- Poor concentration
- Dry and dulling skin
- Brittle hair and nails
- Abnormal menstrual periods
In addition, Web MD has chimed in on hypothyroidism (caused by lack of iodine) having the following symptoms, “An unexplained weight change is one of the most common signs of a thyroid disorder. Weight gain may signal low levels of thyroid hormones, a condition called hypothyroidism.” Web MD continues, “Hair loss is another sign that thyroid hormones may be out of balance.”
Both hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism can cause hair to fall out. In most cases, the hair will grow back once the thyroid disorder is treated. And finally, hypothyroidism can cause many other symptoms, including:
- Constipation
- Dry skin, and brittle nails
- Abnormal menstrual periods
- Numbness or tingling in the hands
Unfortunately, because of severe and endemic corruption in western medicine, iodine has not been researched properly. Further, iodine has been incorrectly labeled dangerous, as explained below, because of corrupt research by scheming doctors who only care about their carriers within the for-profit pharma system that has taken hold in the US and most nations. In western medicine, supplementation is doled out only to prevent goiter. Every cell in your body needs iodine. This is ignored in western medicine.
A few articles on iodine can be found on the NIH website that are very interesting:
Povidone Iodine can help treat herpes, as published by NIH.
- Iodine is well known for killing bacteria and viruses. Iodine has been reported as a possible agent against COVID-19 infection and a possible agent to limit vaccine adverse events, as published here.
- Povidone Iodine helps strip viruses in the throat and nasal cavity, including COVID-19, as proclaimed by an independent thinker, an ear nose, and throat doctor; Dr. Domb, and this simple research by the Betadine company, a leading manufacturer of povidone iodine. Further research is now underway, sponsored by the manufacturer.
Iodine deficiency is quite common and may lead to a goiter, the enlargement of the thyroid gland in the neck, hypothyroidism, and a host of other diseases mentioned above. To avoid this, Dr. David Brownstein recommends you take iodine supplements daily.
The quantity and frequency of your iodine supplementation are most safely determined in cooperation with an iodine literate health care professional, i.e., your iodine literate Naturopathic Doctor. On average, an iodine literate doctor would have you take anywhere from 6mg (6,000 mcg), which is a one-half dropper full of 2% Lugol’s Iodine per day, up to 25 mg, which is two dropper fills twice a day, i.e., in the morning and evening (total 50 mg per day).
Before you go believing your regular old MD about iodine, read Who Stole Iodine? A Short Story below. Unfortunately, 99% of all doctors in the US have been corrupted into believing that anything above the RDA dose of iodine is dangerous. Nothing is further from the truth.
2. Can Iodine Harm My Thyroid?
To answer this important question, please see the following exchange published at The Association for the Advancement of Restorative Medicine. It's an interview between Michael Friëdman [MF], ND, and Dr. David Brownstein [DB].
MF: The big question or the big fear is: when you give iodine to many people, are any of them going to become hyper/hypothyroid? Have you ever had patients become hyper/hypothyroid positive when you gave them iodine?
DB: I’ve had a few patients become hyperthyroid. They had autonomously functioning nodules; that’s a contraindication to iodine. Unfortunately, unless you’re going to do a radioactive iodine scan on everybody before you give them iodine, you don’t really know who those are. That will only occur when you give them iodine. In our practice of thousands of patients on it for over 16 years of using it, we’ve had maybe a total of 10 patients who we diagnosed with autonomously functioning nodules. And those patients simply can’t take iodine until they get their nodules removed either through radioactive iodine treatment or surgical removal.
MF: Do you think it’s possible the iodine caused the hypothyroid or is it because they already had hypothyroid?
DB: No, I have not seen iodine precipitate a hypothyroid state. They may have a hypothyroid condition when iodine is started, but I do not believe iodine causes hypothyroidism.
MF: So, when you give an iodine prescription -- let’s say someone has Graves disease, whether they’re hypo or hyper, do you give the same iodine then?
DB: Sometimes, I use more. I’ll start them at 25 mg and quickly move up. The old-time treatment for Graves’ disease was iodine in high doses, and it works marvelously in the vast majority of people who do it.
MF: Let's say someone comes in and they’ve got Graves’ and there’s just a little bit of tachycardia, and their TSH is really suppressed and the iodine level is low, you just start them off with 25 mg a day, and then go up once a week?
DB: Well, I will start them off on things to help their thyroid work better such as magnesium, vitamin C, and selenium. Correcting their nutritional imbalances is part of that initial evaluation. And then, in two weeks I’ll try a therapeutic trial of iodine and usually start at 50mg.
3. Instant Fix for Food Poisoning!
Iodine tincture is the best cure for settling your stomach when you have food poisoning after eating something upsetting or not so fresh.
What’s in the iodine tincture?
Iodine drops consist of 3 ingredients; elemental iodine, iodide, and water.
Directions for How Not to Fall Victim to Food Poisoning
To make sure that never happens, all you need to do is take a tincture made from the above 3 ingredients. Take 12 drops in ¼ cup of water and drink it. Consume no food with it, only ¼ cup of water. If your stomach does not improve within minutes, consider repeating the dosage every two hours until you feel better.
Generally, it only takes 3 minutes to start feeling better!
How does it work? Doesn’t the iodine tincture kill my good flora?
The iodine tincture has millions of tiny iodine particles suspended in the water-based tincture. Once it comes into contact with the food in your stomach, it attaches to it. It can only attach itself to something once. You may notice that if you dip your finger into the iodine tincture, it will turn yellow. If your stomach is empty and you still have food poisoning, it means your harmful pathogens are now in the upper part of your intestine.
When you take the iodine tincture, you may kill those pathogens and some of your good flora but not all the good flora as they are further below in your intestine. We have not heard that this is a problem, and you can remedy this by taking probiotics.
4. How Much Iodine Should I Take to Get Started?
How to Take Iodine as a Supplement?
What To Do If You Want to Take Iodine Tincture for Nutritional Purposes and not because you have food poisoning?
In that case, you don’t want to kill the bugs or healthy gut microbes in your digestive tract with the iodine supplement. Since they enhance your health instead of harming you, you need to mix your iodine tincture in juice or food. This will bind the Elemental Iodine to the food and render it only effective on the food while unable to kill anything in your intestines.
Once the iodine has been bound to food and inactivated in such a way, it will only serve as a nutrient. This is how it should be taken every day unless you suspect food poisoning.
Taking Lugol’s daily as a supplement: Mix in juice or with food prior to consuming it. This binds the iodine with your food and not your good flora. Remember complementary nutrients!
Taking Lugol’s for food poisoning: Mix 1 dropper full in ¼ glass of water and drink all at once.
How Much?
Dr. Brownstein Recommends That You Take 6-50 mg/day of Iodine (consisting of elemental iodine and iodide). One dropper full of 2% Lugol’s is equivalent to 12 mg iodine.
Why take more than RDA?
- Every organ and all tissues contain iodine.
- Iodine is present in every cell in the body.
- Organification of lipids will only occur with iodine intake over the RDA. In other words, if you only take the RDA amount, you will suffer from a lack of iodine.
How to Get Started?
It is best to find an iodine literate researcher or a healthcare professional to help guide you. If you live close to San Diego, California I recommend Bio Med Health Center. Do some research. You could start here. Visit the following resources:
Read “The Iodine Crisis” by Lynne Farrow and “Iodine - Why You Need It - Why You Can’t Live Without It” by David Brownstein, MD.
In What Form Should I Take Iodine In?
Why Is Elemental Iodine Better As A Supplement Than Seaweed Or Iodide?
- Iodide does not naturally absorb into the breast tissues of women nearly as well as when compared to men. Elemental iodine does.
- Seaweed tends to absorb residual fallouts from nuclear disasters and is often contaminated. Additionally, since it only has iodide, not elemental iodine, you need to take it in huge amounts, and even then, its benefits are limited.
- It's best for both sexes to take Elemental Iodine as a supplement instead of seaweed or iodide.
- Elemental iodine is available in tincture or tablet presentations.
When Taking Iodine, Always Support Your Body With the Following Companion Nutrients
- Selenium (see note below): 200-400 mcg per day
- Magnesium: 400-1200 mg per day
- Vitamin C: 3,000-10,000 mg per day
- Vitamins B2/B3 (2 x B Complex supplement): 100mg riboflavin and more.
- Minerals from unrefined salt (Celtic): 1/2 tsp. or more per day or another source of colloidal minerals, like fulvic mineral supplements.
The amount of iodine you take depends on your need and is best determined in cooperation with an Iodine Literate Doctor. Most adults should take from 25 to 50 mg/day. Always make sure to take iodine with Selenium and the companion nutrients.
Selenium is the most important companion nutrition to be taken with elemental iodine
General Tips for the Iodine Loading Protocol
- Start slow but don’t be afraid of increasing dosages
- Take the companion nutrients
- Check pre and post levels of iodine
- Your doctor or researcher may want you to get an ultrasound before starting treatment
- Liver and kidney cleanses
- Exercise
- Clean Diet (no trans fats, focus on whole foods)
- Drink plenty of water
- Stay 100% gluten-free
- No aspartame!
Look up the iodine loading test in Resource Listings in the book The Iodine Crisis
What Your Conventional (Non-Iodine Literate) Doctor May NOT Know:
Don’t get fooled when people say that iodine damages the thyroid! The all-mighty pharmaceutical industry has discredited iodine for decades resulting in most doctors being iodine illiterate, holding onto untruths about iodine, and not relying on the facts.
To set the record straight, according to research, when iodine has been shown in studies to damage the thyroid, concurrent selenium deficiency is always the true culprit. Research shows high amounts of iodine without selenium tend to induce AIT (Auto-Immune Thyroiditis) and goiter.
Selenium Has The Following Benefits:
- Selenium taken with iodine reduces goiter and inflammation of the thyroid gland.
- Selenium supplementation also reduces TgAb (thyroglobulin antibodies), which may be elevated by taking iodine.
- Selenium taken with iodine increases the regulatory immune cells, preventing autoimmune diseases.
- Selenium is also necessary for the body to produce glutathione peroxidase, which detoxes pesticides, mercury, chlorine, and bromide, all extremely harmful to your health.
Selenium Levels May Be Directly Impacting Your Health!
While selenium is essential, you need to check if you have the MTHFR mutation. MTHFR stands for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase. People with high levels of this mutation can worsen their health with side effects to match when taking selenium. Therefore, we recommend getting tested for this mutation first.
5. Who Stole Iodine? A Short Story
Iodine was the most popular drug in the 1930s. A Nobel laureate physician who discovered vitamin C in 1928 and who was a medical student in the early 1900s, Albert Szent Györgyi, once wrote:
“When I was a medical student, iodine in the form of KI was the universal medicine. Nobody knew what it did, but it did something and did something good. Our students used to sum up the situation in this little rhyme:
‘If ye don’t know where, what, and why, prescribe ye then K and I.’”
From 10 preparations listed in the pharmacopeias in 1851 to 1,700 approved names for iodine-containing products in 1956, there is no doubt that this remarkable substance has been used extensively throughout history.
Why did the Doctor Cry Wolf?
Iodine cures so many ailments, and this had become clear as day in the 1930s. However, there was a problem. Iodine wasn’t profitable! In addition, it interfered with the use of radioactive iodine, which was invented in the 1940s. Iodine had become a thorn in the side of the “medical industry” as it stood in the way of a multitude of highly profitable patented drugs.
Dr. Wolff fixed that problem for the “medical industry” in 1948 when he studied iodine in isolation from other nutrients and without conducting measuring hormone levels in the rats beforehand. While Dr. Wolff was right about one thing, that iodine was essential, his findings on it being the culprit of thyroid shutting off were false.
Dr. Wolff’s botched “research” unlocked a windfall of highly profitable “innovation” in cancer research and X-Ray technology. A sure bonanza and a golden ticket for Dr. Wolff, who was exalted to high office in the NIH, Clinical Endocrinology Branch (CEB).
Drug corporations had problems with their development of x-ray technology. While it worked well for the skeletal system, the contrast media necessary to see organs didn’t work so well.
What was the problem? Lots of people ate bread! Bakers used potassium iodide-fortified grains and flour to bake bread. It caused interference with their contrast media that contained radioactive iodine, rendering the x-ray useless.
No study is ever sponsored without good reason. Dr. Wolff conducted a study on rats that have chemical and hormonal metabolism similar to humans. In this study, he fed iodine to rats. However, he didn’t measure hormone levels in the rats prior. He blatantly falsified the conclusions of his study and claimed with great alarm that iodine was poison because it caused the thyroid to shut off. Needless to say, the medical industry LOVED it.
Dr. Wolff’s study is called the Wolff–Chaikoff effect and is still held in high esteem by the for-profit medical industry and iodine illiterate doctors. Soon after the study was published, bakers were asked not to use iodine in bread. The RDA for iodine in the US was set to barely avoid goiter. Look up www.optimox.com and search for iodine study.\
6. Chemicals that Displace Iodine
A goitrogen is any substance, microbe, or food that suppresses thyroid function. We will cover 3 such chemicals: Bromine, Chlorine, and Fluoride. All of them displace iodine! Link to Research.
Avoid Bromine! The edible kind is banned in Europe, and the flame retardants have been severely restricted. Brominated vegetable oil (BVO), used in some citrus-flavored drinks in the US, is banned in Europe and Japan.
Lynne Farrow writes in her book, The Iodine Crisis, “In my opinion, the worst exposure to bromine comes from brominated fire-retardant chemicals called BFRs. They are located in rugs, cars, mattresses, upholstery, electronics, children’s pajamas, draperies, and other items, including children’s toys. Bromide dust drifts out of the items, is inhaled, and gets into our bloodstream.”
She continues, “Look for bromide on labels as “BVO,” which stands for brominated vegetable oil. Some sodas and sports drinks contain bromide. Mountain Dew is the best-known beverage for containing brominated vegetable oil (BVO). If you have ordinary toast with breakfast, a sandwich, and Mountain Dew for lunch, and then drink a brominated sports drink after your five o’clock jog, you have medicated yourself all day long with bromine and helped purge iodine from your tissues.”
Avoid Fluoride! Pharmaceuticals frequently use fluoride-based compounds as excipients. Look for Appendix D in Lynne Farrow’s book, The Iodine Crisis. “Fluorine is a poison with no place in any living metabolism.” Fluoride is also added to the water to make things worse for us. Only bone char carbon filters and reverse osmosis filters can remove fluoride from water.
Avoid Chlorine! Chlorine can be removed from water using various filters such as reverse osmosis, ultraviolet light, and activated carbon.
7. Dumbing the Population Down!
Take iodine and get smarter! There are many indications that cognitive performance improves with increased iodine intake. Here are two examples of lack of cognitive performance and iodine:
Autism spectrum disorder has no single known cause. However, research has shown that urinary iodine was found to be significantly lower in autistic boys. Again, research is lacking, and further studies are needed. There is one study that indicates that people with autism lack iodine. Here is the conclusion from that research, titled “Iodine in autism spectrum disorders”:
Conclusion: The severity of certain symptoms in autism is associated with iodine status in maturing boys. Thyroid hormones were within normal reference ranges in both groups while urinary iodine was significantly lower in autistic boys suggesting that further studies into the nonhormonal role of iodine in autism are required.
Retardation: In 1996, China was estimated to have ten million people suffering from mental retardation because of iodine deficiency in the soil. As reported by NY Times “China Confronts Retardation of Millions Deficient in Iodine.”
8. Minerals are Good & Some Salt is Actually Good
As pointed out by Dr. David Brownstein, you need to fortify the body with minerals when taking iodine. Dr. Brownstein uses Celtic salt for that purpose. In my opinion, you can also supplement with fulvic acid.
Dr. Brownstein came up with a mineral loading protocol he called “The Salt Loading Protocol'' designed for iodine users to clear bromide and many other detox symptoms. Doctors have used salt for over a hundred years to clear bromide symptoms. Read about it in Salt Your Way to Health, by Dr. David Brownstein.
According to Dr. Brownstein, unrefined Celtic salt helps the body safely detoxify from the toxic halides bromine, chlorine, and fluoride that can be released when iodine is taken.
Avoid Iodized Salt!
Speaking of salt, iodized salt is really not that good for you. Get your iodine from supplements. There is hardly any iodine in the fortified iodine salt. Research shows that just 10% of the iodine in iodized salt is bioavailable—that is, completely absorbed by your body.
The average gram of iodized salt is thought to contain 0.075 mcg. But that measurement is taken at the factory. You get less than half that when you finally sprinkle it on your food! Plus, you get no minerals from it! Additionally, approximately 70% of the salt used by commercial industry in the US is not iodized salt.
9. How Much Iodine to Take to Avoid Nuclear Fallout?
When there is iodine sufficiency, there is little (or no) radioactive iodine uptake by the thyroid gland.
|
Amt. Iodide Ingested (12 days) |
% Uptake Radioactive Iodide by Thyroid |
|
10 mg |
4% |
|
15 mg |
1.9% |
|
30 mg |
1.6% |
|
50 mg |
1.2% |
|
100 mg |
0.6% |
- RDA is 150 mcg/day - this is inadequate to supply the body’s needs
- Dosage must be individualized
- Use a combination of iodine and iodide
- Perform appropriate pre and post-testing
- Doses generally range from 6-50 mg/day
Iodine provides the most essential ingredient in thyroid hormones:
- T4 contains 4 iodine atoms
- T3 contains 3 iodine atoms
Without sufficient iodine, the thyroid is simply unable to make thyroid hormones! You get sick with:
- Graves’ disease
- Hashimoto’s disease
- Chronic thyroiditis
- Toxic multinodular goiter
- Subacute thyroiditis
If doctors tell you that Amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis (AIT) is caused by either iodine or desiccated thyroid replacement, it's because of iodo-phobia.
Iodine levels declined 50% from 1971 to 2012, according to NHANES (The US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey).
Minor differences in iodine excretion produce large increases in thyroid disorders!
(Google: Median Iodine excretion Aalborg Copenhagen)
X-ray fluorescence scanning can measure the stable iodine content of the thyroid gland:
- Mean value of 10 mg iodine/thyroid in normal population
- 56 subjects with autoimmune thyroiditis (normal thyroid levels) had a mean value of 4.7 mg iodine/thyroid
- 13 subjects with autoimmune thyroiditis and hypothyroidism had a mean value of 2.3 mg iodine/thyroid
- Lowest concentration of iodine in thyroid found in thyroid cancer—75% of patients studied had <20ug/g on scanning
If iodine were the cause of autoimmune thyroid disorders, you would expect more iodine in an affected gland (Google: Okerlund, M. Medical Applications of Fluorescent Excitation Analysis. 1979)
Iodine doses up to 161 gm/day did not cause changes in normal human thyroid cell proliferation. Iodine is not associated with autoimmune thyroid illness unless it was given in large doses along with a goitrogen such as IFN.
Research shows that bromine, chlorine, and fluoride displace Iodine in the body.
Hashimoto's Thyroiditis has increased by over 50% from 1935 to 1937, according to Mayo Clinic results.
Avoid radioactive iodine. Radioactive iodine will bind to all tissues where iodine is bound: glands, breasts, prostate, ovaries, etc. All tissues of the body utilize iodine.
6,841 patients with thyroid cancer received an average dose of 162mCi of iodine. Increased risk of primary malignancy of 27%.
Definition of radioactive iodine: Radioactive form of iodine, often used for imaging tests or to treat an overactive thyroid, thyroid cancer, and certain other cancers. For imaging tests, the patient takes a small dose of radioactive iodine that collects in thyroid cells and certain kinds of tumors and can be detected by a scanner.
How to minimize radioactive iodine from damaging your thyroid? Ingest enough iodine to maintain iodine sufficiency and therefore maintain maximal suppression of radioactive iodine uptake by the thyroid gland.
“Medical iodophobia is the unwarranted fear of using and recommending inorganic, non-radioactive iodine/iodide within the range known from the collective experience of three generations of clinicians to be the safest and most effective amounts for treating symptoms and signs of iodine/iodide deficiency (12.5-50 mg/day).” - Dr. G. Abraham, 2004
Iodine and Companion Nutrients • 50 mg Iodoral minimum (may start with 12.5 mg). • Some practitioners may recommend another form of iodine such as Lugol’s solution. Iodoral is the Lugol’s formula in tablet form specially designed to avoid gastric irritation. • Vitamin C: 3,000 mg per day (more may be necessary to detox bromide). • 300-600 mg magnesium oxide (Iodine Investigation Project participants prefer magnesium glycinate or magnesium citrate.) • 200 mcg selenium. The selenomethionine version is preferred by many. • 500 mg niacin (B3) twice a day (NOT niacinamide). Start lower to avoid the flush. 100 mg Vitamin B2 three times a day. The ATP Cofactor may be used as an alternative. • ½ teaspoon of unprocessed sea salt added to the diet. (See reference on the following page.) • ¼ teaspoon unprocessed salt in 8 oz. water twice a day as needed. • A comprehensive vitamin and nutrition program. • (February 2008) Dr. Guy Abraham cautions that “excess calcium supplementation (2,000-3,000 mg/day) has been the most common cause of poor response to iodine supplementation.” Vitamin Research News Vol. 22. Number 2. • Protocol Update 2009: Data gathered from the Breast Cancer Choices Iodine Investigation Project participants reports that The ATP CoFactors help speed iodine absorption and normalize TSH levels.
Several iodine babies have been born—very smart and alert tykes! Go to their website:
website: http://Curezone.org/forums/f.asp?f=815
Forty years of psoriasis disappears.
Iodine Project — The iodine research group began publishing its findings in 2002 under the leadership of Guy E. Abraham, MD.
See http://www.optimox.com/pics/Iodine/IOD-08/IOD_08.htm
(1) Pittman, James I, et al. “Changing Normal Values for Thyroidal Radioiodine Uptake — NEJM.” New England Journal of Medicine.
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM196906262802602
(2) Look up www.optimox.com and search for iodine study
Dr. David Brownstein’s PowerPoint