Simple Test to Check Your Iodine Levels

Iodine Deficiency

Iodine deficiency is common. Not only is iodine important for thyroid function, but it also enhances immune function, reduces the incidence of breast cancer and fibrocystic breast disease. Regulating iodine levels has also helped some women with hot flashes. (Donald Miller, MD. Extrathyroidal Benefits of Iodine, Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons)

About 1 billion people worldwide were still susceptible to health problems stemming from iodine deficiency, despite the growing use of iodized salt to prevent them.

Do this simple test to check your levels:

1. Go to the drug store and purchase a bottle of tincture of iodine (the original orange-colored solution)

2. Before going to bed, paint a 3x3 inch patch on your skin (arm, inner thigh or belly)

3. In the morning check the stain. If there is no color remaining, you are iodine deficient.

The stain should last for 24-48 hours. The sooner it disappears the more profound your iodine deficiency.

If you do have an iodine deficiency you should be on supplemental iodine.

Check with your naturopath to get the proper supplements for you.

You may need to start out with a higher dose and a stronger product and slowly work down to a maintenance type of product over a period of several months.

You should work with someone so that you won't cause damage to your body. This is a hormonal thing and it can be rather tricky, especially if you are taking other medications and supplements.

Carlson Fish Oil & Flax Seeds

Flax seeds are

• a useful addition to most peoples' diets
• the richest commonly available plant source of alpha-linolenic acid (omega-3's)
• the best food source of the phytochemical lignan
  Flax contains 100 times the concentration of lignan as wheat bran, the next best source and is believed to have anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral and anti-cancer properties.
• is a great alternative to psyllium and is great for constipation

• Grind flax seeds in a coffee grinder for a few seconds to break them into rough pieces.
  Omega-3's are the least stable of the fatty acids, so the oil turns rancid quickly if it is exposed to heat, light or air.
• Grind the seeds shortly before you eat them, and store any surplus in the freezer.
  

1. Begin by adding 1 Tbs ground flax seeds to 8oz water at bedtime.
2. (Flax expands 20 times in volume and should be taken with a generous amount of water.)
3. Do this for a few days then increase to 2 Tbs for a few days.

**The goal is to have 2 to 3 bowel movements per day. **

You may consume up to 3 Tbs per day until you achieve your goal, then back down to 2-3 tsp. of ground flax seed per day.

Cautions:
After the initial use as described above, you should not eat more than 2-3 tsp. of ground flax seeds per day.

• Flax should be used sparingly and probably alternated with other ground seeds, like sunflower, sesame and pumpkin, which will help to balance the omega six and omega three ratios.
• Pumpkin seeds are beneficial for prostate health.

If you are consuming flax seed for the Omega-3, then fish oil is a better choice.

Choosing both gives you the fiber and the Omega-3.

I use 2-3 tsp. ground flax and 2-3 tsp. Carlson Fish Oil everyday.

Carlson Fish Oil

Fish oil and cod liver oil are a wonderful source of omega-3.

Americans consume a dangerously insufficient amount of omega-3, a fat essential to good health but only found in fish and cod liver oil and a few other foods.

Meanwhile, our intake of omega-6, another fat found in corn, soy, sunflower and other oils, is far too high.

The ideal ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 should be 1:1, but the typical ratio ranges from 20:1 to 50:1!

Aside from the benefits to cancer patients, fish oils protect your body in a number of ways:

• Helps fight and prevent heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's, arthritis, diabetes, ulcers, depression, hyperactivity and many other diseases
• Increases your energy level and ability to concentrate
  Provides greater resistance to common illnesses such as flu and cold
• Helps pregnant women avoid premature births, low birth weight and other complications
• Fish oils also provide a healthier alternative to eating fresh fish, many of which are contaminated by mercury.

Breast Cancer Prevention and Iodine Supplementation

by Jeffrey Dach MD

Hollywood, Fl 33021

A good friend of ours just went through an ordeal with breast cancer.

The incidence of breast cancer has increased to 1 in 8 women, with 4,000 new cases weekly.

You might ask, could there be a preventive measure which is safe, cheap and widely available that has been overlooked? The answer is YES , and it’s the essential mineral, Iodine , which was added to table salt in 1924 as part of a national program to prevent Goiter. It turns out that this same Iodine in table salt is the key to breast cancer prevention as proposed by the following list of prestigious doctors: Guy Abraham, MD (1), Robert Derry MD PHD (2) (3), David Brownstein MD (4) (5), George Flechas MD (6), Donald Miller, M.D. (7) (8)

Our Diet is Iodine Deficient

The problem is that we have been told to avoid salt because it causes high blood pressure, so dietary intake of iodine has dropped to low levels and we have a generalized iodine deficiency in the population. Currently 15% of the US adult female population is classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as iodine deficient. (9)

The RDA for Iodine is too Low for Optimal Health

According to Guy Abraham MD, our dietary intake of Iodine is too low, set at 150 mcg by the government RDA. Dr. Guy Abraham tells us that a healthier level of Iodine intake would be 100 times greater at 12.5 mg, which is the average Iodine intake for Japan, and this higher Iodine intake could explain why the Japanese have the lowest rates for cancer of the breast, prostate and thyroid.

How Safe is Iodine Supplementation?

Very Safe. Iodine is the only trace element that can be ingested safely in amounts up to 100,000 times the RDA.

Iodine Deficiency causes Fibrocystic Breast Disease, Breast Cancer and Thyroid Cancer

Iodine, a well known topical antiseptic and antimicrobial agent, also directly kills cancer cells and serves as the key player in our body’s surveillance system for removing abnormal pre-cancer cells.

There is considerable medical research to support this statement. Dr. B.A. Eskin published 80 papers over 30 years researching iodine and breast cancer, and he reports that iodine deficiency causes breast cancer and thyroid cancer in humans and animals. (11) (12) Iodine deficiency is also known to cause a pre-cancerous condition called fibrocystic breast disease. (13) Ghent published a paper in 1993 which showed iodine supplementation works quite well to reverse and resolve fibrocystic changes of the breast, and this is again the subject of a current clinical study. (14) (15)

Despite its obvious potential, not much has been done with Iodine treatment over the past 40 years in the United States. Since iodine isn't patentable and is therefore unlikely to be profitable to market, there is no money to fund studies for “FDA approval". However, FDA approval is not required since Iodine is already an additive to table salt at the supermarket.

Iodine Deficiency Diseases

As an interventional radiologist working in the hospital for 25 years, a large part of my job was evaluating thyroid abnormalities, nodules, and cysts with ultrasound, radionuclide scans, and needle biopsy. Although it was obvious these common thyroid abnormalities were due to iodine deficiency, I often wondered why none of the patients ever received iodine supplementation. The obvious answer is they should have been and that this is a blind spot in mainstream medicine. Another part of my day was spent reading mammograms and breast ultrasound studies. Fibrocystic breast disease was quite common, and these women would return for needle aspiration procedure of the many breast cysts, and needle biopsy of the benign solid nodules. Many of these ladies returned multiple times for the procedures because the medical system had no useful treatment to offer them. Well, as we have just discussed, we now know there is a very useful medical treatment, namely, Iodine supplementation which not only resolves breast cysts and fibrocystic breast disease, it also resolves ovarian cysts and thyroid cysts. Actually Iodine supplementation has always been available, but again this is a blind spot in mainstream medicine, and hospital based physicians are unaware of it.

Which Iodine Supplement ?

There are many.

1. Lugol's Solution has been used for many years.

2. A new one is the 12.5 mg Iodoral tablet from Optimox (16) and is the iodine supplement tablet made by Dr. Guy Abraham, a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA

I take one Iodoral tablet (12.5 mg Iodine) daily as do all of my family members.

Iodoral is available without a prescription as a nutritional supplement from VRP (Vitamin Research Products).

A bottle of 90 tablets is about 25 dollars plus shipping. Visit this page of my web site for more thyroid related information. regards from Jeffrey Dach, M.D.
_______________________________________________________________ References for Iodine and Breast Cancer Prevention _______________________________________________________________

(1) Guy Abraham MD Iodine references at Optimox.com (2) Breast Cancer and Iodine : How to Prevent and How to Survive Breast Cancer by Dr. David Derry M.D., Ph.D. (3) Dr. David Derry Answers Reader Questions Brought to you by Mary Shomon, Your Thyroid Guide (4) Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without It (2nd Edition) (5) Clinical Experience with Inorganic Non-radioactive Iodine/Iodide David Brownstein, M.D. (6) George Flechas www.optimox.com/pics/Iodine/IOD-10/IOD_10.htm (7) Iodine for Health by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD (8) Iodine in Health and Disease by Don Miller MD (9) Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 1996;66(4):350-62. Total diet study: estimated dietary intakes of nutritional elements, 1982-1991.Pennington JA, Schoen SA. Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Washington, DC 20204, USA. (10) Effect of daily ingestion of a tablet containing 5 mg iodine and 7.5 mg iodide as the potassium salt, for a period of 3 months, on the results of thyroid function tests and thyroid volume by ultrasonometry in ten euthyroid Caucasian women by Guy E. Abraham M.D., Jorge D. Flechas M.D., and John C. Hakala R. Ph. (11) Bernard A. Eskin et al. Rat mammary gland atypia produced by iodine blockade with perchlorate. Cancer Res. 1975 Sep;35(9):2332-9 cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/35/9/2332 (12) Cancer Research 46, 877-883, February 1, 1986] © 1986 American Association for Cancer Research Dietary Iodine Deficiency as a Tumor Promoter and Carcinogen in Male F344/NCr Rats1 Masato Ohshima2 and Jerrold M. Ward3 cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/reprint/46/2/877 (13) Hartmann, Lynn C. , et al. Benign Breast Disease and the Risk of Breast Cancer . N Engl J Med Volume 353;3:229-237 July 21, 2005 (14) Ghent,W.R., Eskin,B.A., Low,D.A., Hill, L.P.. Iodine replacement in fibrocystic disease of the breast. Can J Surg 1993; 36:453-460. (15) Clinical Trial for Iodine treatment of Fibrocystic Breast Disease (16) Iodoral from Optimox (17) Guidance on Potassium Iodide as a Thyroid Blocking Agent in Radiation Emergencies, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), December 2001 (18) Bernecker C. Acta Allergol. 1969 Sep;24(3):216-25. Intermittent therapy with potassium iodide in chronic obstructive disease of the airways. A review of 10 years' experience.

For more information see also,
http://www.jpands.org/vol11no4/millerd.pdf

Journal of American Physicians & Surgeons