Move Well

A major portion of a total wellness program is learning some different ideas about exercises. Studies abound on the importance of having a regular exercise program, yet you will rarely find any of these exercises, massages or specialized ideas for lymph drainage. The most important type of exercise to keep our breasts free of toxins help stimulate the lymph system.
• Exercise. Teresa Tapp at www.t-tapp.com has the best lymphatic drainage exercises that I have found.
• Use a rebounder to help clear lymph nodes.
• Lymph node drainers are available to help the lymphatic cleansing, drainage stimulation and immune enhancement.
• Body brushing: Use a body brush to get your lymph nodes moving. Directions included.
• Exercise/massage your breasts. There are several exercises that will help clear your lymph glands of debris. Sadly, these exercises are promoted and suggested to women only after breast cancer surgery as a way to clear their lymph nodes. Why can’t we incorporate these into our daily regimen to keep our lymph nodes clear all the time?
• Massage: Treat yourself to massages from a local deep tissue massage therapist. Ask for special support for lymph node drainage.
• 6. Go braless. Once a breast exercise regimen is implemented your chest muscles are stronger. You may want to consider not wearing a bra. Obviously, this step may not be for everyone. But statistics, although limited, do point to the fact that the longer you wear a bra the greater your chances of breast cancer. At the very least, wear your bra a minimum amount of time. Read Dressed to Kill by Singer and Grismaijer. Exercise without a bra if possible.


• Adjustments: Get adjusted by a chiropractor, biocranial specialist, or see an acupuncturist. Keep your body in alignment to allow drainage of toxins.
• Learn reflexology points that stimulate your mammary glands and lymph nodes. Directions included.
The Five Tibetan Rites
Exercise 1 Stand erect with arms outstretched, horizontal to the floor. Spin around clockwise, until you become slightly dizzy. Gradually increase (in increments of 2) practicing from 3 up to 21 repetitions per day, for each rite.
Rite 2 First, lie flat on the floor, face up. Fully extended your arms along your sides, and place the palms of your hands against the floor, keeping the fingers close together. Then, raise your head off the floor, tucking the chin against the chest. As you do this, lift your legs, knees straight, into a vertical position. If possible, let the legs extend back over the body, toward the head; but do not let the knees bend. Then slowly lower both the head and the legs, knees straight, to the floor. Allow all the muscles to relax, continue breathing in the same rhythm. Breathe in deeply as you lift your legs and breathe out, as you lower your legs.
Rite 3 Kneel on the floor, with the body erect. The hands should be placed against the thigh muscles. Incline the head and neck forward, tucking the chin against the chest. Then, throw the head and neck backward, arching the spine. As you arch, you will brace your arms and hands against the thighs for support. After the arching, return to the original position, and start the rite all over again. Breathe in
deeply as you arch the spine, breathe out as you return to an erect position.
Rite 4 Sit down on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you and your feet about 12 inches apart. With the trunk of the body erect, place the palms of your hands on the floor alongside the buttocks. Then, tuck the chin forward against the chest. Now, drop the head backward as far as it will go. At the same time, raise your body so that the knees bend while the arms remain straight. The trunk of the body will be in a straight line with the upper legs, horizontal to the floor. Then, tense every muscle in the body. Finally, relax your muscles as you return to the original sitting position, and rest before repeating the procedure. Breathe in as you raise up, hold your breath as you tense the muscles, breathe out completely as you come down. Continue breathing in the same rhythm as long as you rest between repetitions.
Rite 5 When you perform the fifth rite, your body will be face-down to the floor. It will be supported by the hands, palms down against the floor, and the toes in a flexed position. Throughout this rite, the hands and feet should be kept straight. Start with your arms perpendicular to the floor, and the spine arched, so that the body is in a sagging position.
Now, throw the head back as far as possible. Then, bending at the hips, bring the body up into an inverted 'V'. At the same time, bring the chin forward, tucking it against the chest. Breathe in deeply as you raise the body, breathe out fully as you lower it.
Breast Exercises
The breasts and under arm area contain the body’s largest lymphatic system. The system is located just underneath our skin. These lymph vessels are easily constricted because of their nearness to the skin. Unlike other blood vessels, which have pressure that allows them to inflate after constriction, lymph vessels do not regain their shape.
Unlike veins and arteries, lymph vessels have no internal pressure. They are easily compressed by external pressure (like a bra), and do not return to their original shape once constricted.
Lymphatic Breast-Care and Breast Cancer
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Lymphatic Congestion
This 54 year old client had no breast complaints, and was post menopausal. Her initial breast series included the thermogram at left, which includes an assymetrical vascularity in the left breast, circled. The thermal findings associated with this vascularity contributed to a left breast rating of TH 4.
Because the client was already working with an acupuncturist and suspected lymphatic congestion, she asked her acupuncturist to focus on clearing the left breast.* The thermogram at right resulted 5 months later.1
This 50 year old client had cancer surgery/treatment in the left breast in 1998. She had no current breast complaints. Her initial breast series included the thermogram at left, which includes assymetrical vascularity in the left breast, circled.
1 http://www.thermogramcenter.com/Before+After.htm
The client initiated a mini-trampoline bouncing regimen to address possible lymphatic congestion.* The thermogram at right resulted 7 months later.
It is essential to breast health to keep the lymph from becoming stagnant.
The lymph systems’ filtering devices and pathogen storage areas clean the breasts and blood of cellular debris, toxins, viruses, bacteria, cancer cells and other toxins. The storage areas are meant to hold “garbage” for a short time until our body can destroy and remove it. Impeded circulation and constriction in the lymphatic flow allows the “garbage” to ferment in our systems.
Toxins are believed to be the local beginnings of cancerous tissue. We need to make sure that toxins in our system are moved continuously through the veins and lymphatic vessels. The possibility of cancer increases when toxins cannot exit your body.
After many years of bra wearing, a good exercise regimen for a month is a very viable option for women who need to clear their lymph system along with a lymph node drainer. These exercises are great to tone, firm and strengthen your muscles. They help blood circulation and lymph drainage. Personally, they helped clear out my lumpy breasts overnight. My mother, who had a hard breast that doctors described as cooked after breast cancer radiation said the exercises made a huge difference. These exercises cleared her breasts within a month. She had suffered two years with hard, painful breasts.
Exercises/Massages
These exercises can be done in a variety of places. They can be done in bed early in the morning, in the evening, sitting up, laying down or while taking a bath or shower, etc. You area limited only by your time, space and privacy. Concentrate on doing these exercises 3-6 minutes apiece for a minimum of one month. You may then drop to a maintenance program, exercising once or twice a week for approximately two minutes daily on each exercise or whatever you feel necessary. You know your own body.
Nipple Stimulation: Gently rub your nipples and twist them gently for a few minutes. This action will release oxytocin, a homone which causes circulation to increase, blood to flow and is a natural orgasm enhancer. Constricting bras cause the release of prolactin, which reduces the circulation of breast fluids.
Nipple Circles: Using your fingers, lightly trace circles around your breasts. Start by circling the nipple and then make larger and larger circles around your breasts to help lymph drainage.
Nipple Ripple: You may use this instead of the circles. Use your fingers to gently smooth away from the breast/nipple in all directions. Begin by stroking from the breast to the armpit, then gradually move toward the nipple making longer strokes to the armpit.
Rotate and stroke from the breast lightly to the collar bone, and then longer strokes, from the nipple to the collar bone. Repeat light strokes from the sternum and then down from the breasts to the ribs.
Underarm Stimulation: Place one arm behind your head. Use the other hand to press under the arm or armpit and gently move tissue into the breast area. Repeat 10- 12 times on each side daily. Years of wearing bras, especially sports bras have migrated your mammary glands into your armpit area.
Remember, you do not want to constrict the lymph vessels that are located on the surface of the breasts. In the following exercises you need to hold your hands as close as possible to your chest, so that you are working on muscles that support your breasts. Use one hand to support the breast and keep the breast tissue in its own space while the other hand is massaging.
Massage: Use both hands to circle one breast as close as possible to the chest. Massage the breast with a kneading-like motion using lifting and pressing movements. This helps to release fluids.
Twister: Use both hands to circle one breast as close as possible to the chest. Twist breasts in a clockwise direction, then a counterclockwise direction.. Repeat on the other side. This exercise keeps your ligaments in good health and helps fight gravity.
Underarm squeeze: Place left hand under left armpit and push breast toward chest using palm of hand to massage side of breast firmly. Place right hand on the other side of breast, flat against chest for support. Squeeze breast with palm for 10 seconds. Release. Repeat cycle for several minutes, then change sides.
Ribcage squeeze: Come up underneath the left breast, just above the ribcage with the right hand. Push up firmly. Use the left hand to push down securely from the chest and keep your breast in its space. Push firmly for 10 seconds. Release. Repeat cycle for several minutes, then change sides.
Total breast squeeze: Circle breast close to the chest with both hands. Squeeze firmly for 10 seconds. This will cause blood to engorge the nipple and help in circulation. Release. Repeat cycle for several minutes, then change sides.
Chest Squeeze: Place right hand in center of chest, using palm to push toward underarm. Use left hand to hold breast in its space, keeping hand as flat and tight against body as possible. Squeeze firmly for 10 seconds. Release. Repeat cycle for several minutes, then change sides.
Bosom Buddies: Place each hand on each side with palms flat against chest. Fingers should be splayed out to circle underneath each breast, with thumb on top of breast. Squeeze together for 10 seconds, using your palms to apply pressure to the underlying chest muscles. Release. Repeat cycle for several minutes.
Wobble Exercise: Repeat the bosom buddy position. Instead of squeezing and holding, simply move or wobble the breast tissue from side to side. This creates space between your breast tissue and your ribs and allows lymphatic fluid to drain.
Additional breast exercises
You may remember some of these exercises from gym class, or weight lifting. Feel free to add more of these to your regimen.
Wall Pushups: Find an open area on the wall. Place palms 3-4 inches apart on the wall and plant feet firmly at that distance. Lean body in and use your muscles to push away from the wall. Repeat 20 times. Readjust hands elbow length apart on the wall and repeat exercise 20 times. There are several variations according to distance from the wall and distance of hands apart.
Floor Pushups:
Bar Bell Exercises: Bend over from the waist holding barbells out horizontally from the body. Bend elbows and bring bar bells to sides. Extend arms and hold bells out straight from sides. Repeat 20 times.
Weight Machines: Use recommended exercises for your machine for your chest or pectoral muscles.
Chair Exercises 1: While sitting in chair, hold hands at chest level, placing fingers of
one hand inside palm of the other hand with elbows at shoulder level. Pull firmly for 10 seconds, release, and repeat several times. Switch fingers and repeat pulling exercise.
Chair Exercise 2 : While sitting in chair, hold hands at chest level with palms together in upright position and elbows held at shoulder level. Push palms firmly together for 10 seconds. Release and repeat several times.
Are you “Dressed to Kill”
While most research has looked at outside factors, newer research is starting to look at what may be going wrong inside our breast tissues to allow cancer to develop. Specifically they are looking at the blockage of the lymphatic network in our breast tissues and under our arms. If you’ll remember from seventh grade science class, the lymph nodes function to filter out viruses, bacteria and other “stuff” circulating through our body. Just imagine all the scenarios that could happen if your house plumbing is plugged. Is it so inconceivable that breasts would react with swollen lymph nodes, infections, cysts, lumps, and eventually cancer after 20-30 years of pressure and blockage?
Bras-an intimate apparel item pushing up lingerie companies $6 billion sales-seem to be a double culprit. Pardon the entendre. Although it took 350 years to concede that corsets were very bad for our health, some health professional skeptics claimed bras would restrict the lymph system from the very beginning. After all, they were invented in the 1930’s only as a fashion garment-not for any documented reason for support. Is it just a coincidence that cancer rates have increased along with the bras’ popularity?
Sidney Singer, a medical anthropologist, and his wife began research on a bra-less approach when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. Their findings were published in Dressed to Kill by Avery Press in 1995. The medical community did not support their research, because it was not a controlled study for other risk factors. Singer and Grismaijer wrote Dressed to Kill in 1995. It was passed over by the medical community, but it should not be passed over by any woman wanting hands on information about what can be done to prevent breast cancer before medical intervention is ever necessary.
Singer, a medical anthropologist, surveyed 4,700 women in Fuji. Half wore bras and half went without. Although both groups had the same living environment and diet, the women who wore bras had the same breast cancer rate as American women. There was almost no breast cancer in Fuji women who did not wear bras.
Women who wore bras 24 hours a day had a 3 out of 4 chance in developing cancer.
Women who wore bras more than 12 hours per day had a 1 out of 7 risk.
Women who wore their bras less than 12 hours per day had a 1 out of 152 risk.
Women who wore bras rarely, or never, had a 1 out of 168 chance of getting cancer—the same rate as men.
The overall difference between 24 hour bra wearing and not at all was a 125-fold difference.
Although the medical community claimed it was a faulted study-known risk factors that are published in medical journals are mostly in the range of less than three fold differences.
Supporting Evidence
Bras create droopy, weak breasts-they rely on the bra for support and make the breasts unable to support themselves. Just like back supports, they eventually weaken the very muscles they were worn to support.
Many women don’t think they can go without a bra. Try the exercises for a month, then try to wear your bra less and less. If a bra is necessary wear one that is not too restrictive or constricting. Allow at least 1” of comfort along the bottom of your bra. More draining action will take place naturally if your breasts are allowed to move independently from your body.
Wearing a bra, especially an under wire bra or sports bra, prevents normal lymphatic flow that would likely lead to less than normal oxygen content or anoxia. Anoxia has been related to fibrosis. The vote is still out on fibrosis and a cancer connection-but until the final vote is cast I want to do everything I can to ease lymphatic constriction in my body.

Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 1

Mike: Many of you reading this may have heard about some of the benefits of plants from the ocean
and, in particular, brown seaweed. You may have seen some of the recent news stories about the
specific constituents of brown seaweed helping get rid of excess body fat, or you may have read
about them helping to eliminate radiation poisoning from the body, or perhaps even about some of
the anti-cancer effects of various seaweeds. Many of you are probably also familiar with the greatly
enhanced longevity of the Japanese people, who probably eat more seaweed than any other culture
in the world.
Today we’re going to be talking about one specific type of seaweed, brown seaweed, and the extract
form available in a product called Modifilan, and we’re going to be talking to Sergei Zimin, owner of
Pacific Standard Distributors Inc., which currently produces and sells Modifilan.
So thanks for joining me today, Sergei.



Sergei: Thank you for making this happen.
Mike: How long has your company been producing this product, and where does your brown
seaweed actually come from? Is it ocean grown or farm grown?
Sergei: The raw material we make our extract from comes from Russian waters; it’s actually a far
eastern part of Russia, off the Asiatic part of the Siberian continent, near the Kuril Islands between
Japan and Kamchatka. People may also know these islands by their controversial political
geography, which makes Japan claim this territory as their own northern territories while Russia –
which actually took those islands after the Second World War – claims them as well.
Our kombu – the common name of this variety of brown seaweed – is not farmed, and it’s not the
type of sea plant that is planted or gathered. It’s in the middle of the ocean, about 600 miles away
from the closest commercial port. The island around which we get this particular raw material is
called Urup.
Mike: How do you harvest this? Is this off of a boat, or do you have divers?
Sergei: A boat is involved, but it’s a little tugboat from which we gather bunches of leaves hand-cut
by divers and tow them to shore. The kombu leaves are huge. It’s the largest possible type of
Laminaria found in a natural habitat.
In order to make our product extract, you have to have a very large, elephant-type of leaf so you have
lots of the gooey inside parts to squeeze out. It’s like aloe vera. When you cut it in half, you can
even see some of the polysaccharide – that gooey substance inside the leaf.
So the divers cut them in shallow waters, probably not more than 15 meters deep – which is what,
like 45 feet deep – usually no deeper. They put several leaves in a bunch, tie them with a rope, and
the little boat brings them onshore. We gather raw material for our product twice a year.
The good thing about collecting this way – when we do it by hand – is that when you cut it with a
knife, you come to the same spot next year and the plant will have mushroomed. You’ll see four
leaves growing from exactly the spot where you got only one before. But if you do it by dragging –
like they do it in the northeast states, Ireland or Japan – you have to look for these plants somewhere
else. It’s not going to be sitting in the same spot. It’s not going to be in the same bay.
So in our case, when we harvested our first batch back in 1997, we didn’t have enough funds, force,
and money to hire any dragger or troller to get it. So we had to use divers. It turned out to be the
best investment in our business, because later, we were told that the way we do it helps our business
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 2
actually stay in business. We’re not afraid of losing the raw material because the more product we
cut, the more raw material we can expect to see next year if we come to the same spot.
But this particular kelp, Laminaria, is something only we can harvest in this particular quarter. And
the way we do it is very sensible in all aspects, including the business aspect where simply, the more
product you harvest, the more raw material you can expect to see next season. It comes from
territories close to the islands, but it’s quite remote from the continent.
Mike: Sounds like a very ecologically sustainable system of harvesting.
Sergei: Yes, it’s a clean place. That is actually one of the questions retail customers ask when they
find out about our product: “How far is the source of your seaweed from Chernobyl?” Because it’s
one of the very few places that people generally know about in the ex-Soviet Union, you know? But
it’s on the totally opposite side of the planet – a good ten thousand miles away from that place, and
it’s 600 miles – at least – away from the first public sewer system.
Mike: Yeah – Chernobyl is in Western Russia.
Sergei: That’s exactly the point. Chernobyl is in the Ukraine, which is in the western part; it’s actually
in Europe. So we are talking about islands that are in the far eastern part of Russia. You can’t get
any further. It’s still called Siberia, but Russians call it the “Far East.” This is where I’m from. I was
born and brought up on Sakhalin Island, which is the regional capital. My partner and I are both from
this region. That’s how business started: I have known of this product for about 20 years.
Mike: So after you harvest these leaves, you squeeze them to get the juice, dehydrate the juice, and
that’s the extract?
Sergei: It’s a little bit more complicated than that. We don’t just squeeze it, but it’s not a chemical
process. After we pull them to shore, we have to instantly dry them so they don’t rot, so we put them
on a wooden fence to dry out – it’s a very fast process, especially if you do it in the sun and the wind,
which is a constant factor on those shores. And then we put the dried seaweed in little rolls and
transport them to the mainland, where the initial processing takes place.
We put a very small amount of water in to bring them back to life, which is a very fast process. They
absorb an enormous amount of water, but at the same time, we have to use just enough to make the
leaves juicy again. So we skin them, and the outer part of the Laminaria leaves goes into something
that looks like a big meat grinder.
We don’t throw away the skin part of kombu leaves, we grind it into something that looks like a paste.
What is left behind of those leaves after we skin them is very thin, but you can touch it. It’s a small
layer, a very thin layer of gel, the inside part of the kombu leaves. We don’t put that layer through the
grinder; we cut it into chunks. That paste we get after we put the outer parts through the grinder; the
paste gets mixed with those chunks of the inner part of the kombu leaves, and it’s squeezed through
cheesecloth-like.
We throw away what stays in the net because this is actually the harsh part of the seaweed that
humans cannot digest. The only creatures that actually can eat seaweed and fully digest it, process
it, and turn it into something are the sea urchins and abalone. These are the only creatures that can
munch on seaweed and work it through completely, fiber-wise. Anyway, that disposal part goes
away, and the batch of gooey substance that was squeezed from the cloth goes into a cold vacuum
blower – it’s actually called a drying chamber – where it’s a low temperature, and we can turn this big
chunk of glue into something that dehydrates and starts to look like a big boulder. It’s like a big rock.
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 3
So we have to physically crack it into smaller chips and put it in a big, commercial coffee grinder.
This is the final step. We turn these chunks of rock into a powder, and this is what Modifilan is.
Basically, we can’t say that this is a juice of seaweed, because first of all it’s dried; it’s in a powder
form. By its nature, we can call it an extract, but at the same time it’s more mechanical extraction, a
coldwater-processing product made by natural means. We don’t break anything; we don’t take
anything out or add anything in terms of mineral content or composition. We simply make seaweed
mineral qualities available.
Mike: What about the heat? Is there ever any heat processing?
Sergei: No. There is no boiling or heating. It’s a little bit above room temperature when the leaves
gets squeezed, just because of the mechanics of the process, but the drying process is in a true cold
dehydration chamber.
Mike: So this probably explains why your product has such a potent taste and smell. I have some of
your product, and I’ve been using it for a while.
Sergei: It makes a big difference, yes? We do not kill enzymes.
Mike: That was one of my questions.
Sergei: We do not kill the living part, which is actually responsible for mineral transfer right after
you put it in your mouth. Sometimes you definitely taste the difference, and natural eaters will love
the flavor and smell of Modifilan powder. But for some people how it tastes comes as a surprise. If
you open up the capsules and put them under your tongue, they bite you!
That action actually shows that it’s a very alive food. Another thing is if you mix it with water, and just
put it at room temperature for a day or so, it will get rotten very fast. It eats itself up like crazy. The
so-called quantum properties of our product – which is the speed of polysaccharides, you know – is
very high.
There are dead foods. There are live foods, and then there are super-live foods. And I truly suspect
that we belong to the third category. If you put a good, fresh cut of meat out and see what happens
to it the next day, it’s the same thing with Modifilan. You can actually turn this into paste.
If you mix it with water and keep it in the refrigerator, it’s fine. But if you leave it at room temperature
or at a warm temperature, it really gets rotten very fast, which, again, proves that it’s a very alive
substance.
Mike: And for those consumers, too – especially in America – who may not be consumers of a lot of
seafood or sea vegetables, they may find the taste a little surprising at first, as I did. But intellectually
I know that that’s what I want, because it tells me the potency of this is very real, and that it doesn’t
have a lot of filler just to make it taste better. Besides, it’s not like you’re chewing on it, you’re just
swallowing some capsules.
Sergei: Yes, you’re right, there is no filler. We are a small company, administration-wise, and our
product has been made for 10 years now. We don’t use any fillers, no rice powder. Many
manufacturers of food supplements do it by default, because they don’t want to clean their machinery
often, and they want their powders to go into capsules easily. With our product, you really have to
stand next to the encapsulator and do a cleanup regularly. We don’t use any fillers or preservatives.
All you see in the capsule is just the extract itself, straight.
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 4
And again, the powder itself has a very interesting and unique taste. For a natural eater, it’s very
pleasant. Before I started to make this product, the way I used it was a tablespoon of powder mixed
into a glass of lemon-honey water. Just squeeze half of a lemon in a glass of water, put a teaspoon
of honey in there, and put a tablespoon of Modifilan, and you shake it together because that’s the
best way to mix powder in, and you drink it.
Very few people can do that because of its very strong taste, so the capsules are the best way to get
it, especially for somebody who is looking to get extra benefit from our product and needing to take
more of it. Eating six or eight capsules a day is very healthy – it equals a good level tablespoon of
powder. The vast majority of people will have a very difficult time consuming that much powder daily,
so capsules are a good way to get it.
Mike: Yes, absolutely. How many pounds of brown seaweed does it take to make one pound of
your product?
Sergei: It depends on the size. The larger the size of the kombu, the less per kilo. But for about 40
pounds of raw seaweed, only one pound of our powder comes out. So it’s a 40 to 1 extraction ratio.
With U-FN it’s about a 150 to 1, because we have to use a lot of seaweed to come up with a single
kilo of U-FN. It’s an expensive product, too.
Mike: Do you sell these products in powder form or only capsules?
Sergei: Only capsules. The powder form is available to those who buy it as ingredients for their
products, because most of our business is in manufacturing the substance itself. Most of our product
is sold in private label situations where people call it different names and sell it in different situations,
marketing through different channels. So they just sell it as-is, or sometimes they mix it with good
ingredients like probiotics or good enzymes. But yes, the product is available in powder, but it’s not
offered for retail. Our distributors, the ones who sell Modifilan in retail, they don’t have powder.
Uses for brown seaweed extract
Mike: Now let’s talk about some of the uses of your product – I’ve researched from many reliable
sources that the levels of iodine needed in the human body are much higher than what Western
medicine currently recommends.
Sergei: Ten times higher.
Mike: In fact, iodine is used in breast tissue; it’s used in prostate gland tissue. I think this is
important to note that the rates of breast cancer in Japan, for example, are significantly lower than
they are in the United States. This is mostly thought to be due to the consumption of two things:
seaweed and green tea.
Sergei: Yes, iodine and antioxidants. The first thing that happens to a woman when she develops an
iodine deficiency is a problem with her reproductive organs: breast deformation, calcification. The
tissue that is supposed to be penetrated by iodine turns into a calcified, sandy looking thing. This is
what shows up on the mammogram, and that’s the whole story. So again, iodine deficiency is not
about lack of iodine in the thyroid only, but it’s about the results of that.
Mike: Absolutely. I think that’s very important to note, because people will tend to think that iodine
is only for the thyroid, but it’s actually useful. The next thing that I wanted to mention is that most
people – not only in Western society but also around the world – live in a state of chronic mineral
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 5
deficiency. This is not only the macro-minerals like selenium, which is related to neurological
function; zinc, which is related to immune function and healing; and calcium, which controls heart
function, neurological function and brain chemistry; but also the trace minerals.
Brown seaweed has all of the 72 different trace minerals typically lacking in the bodies of Western
consumers. I cannot overemphasize the importance of getting trace minerals into your body, and this
looks like a great way to do it. It’s certainly not the only way, but this is an excellent way.
Sergei: It’s an interesting thing that in our product – although it’s made of seaweed, which sometimes
just resembles a shade of minerals – you can find some of those trace minerals that you find in
seaweed under the detection limit. In our product, you can actually detect those.
Speaking of selenium, manganese, and the vitamin B group, in Modifilan they are presented over
the detection limit. Yes, you call them trace minerals, but in Modifilan they test in higher volume.
They are still all together. They come to you not in a multivitamin pill, where you put different
crystallized minerals and vitamins in one batch, but in a natural shape and form in higher volume
than in regular seaweed.
Mike: Yes, that’s a great point. This is really a whole plant solution. These are not isolated
components that are being combined in an artificial way. This is right out of the ocean. It’s also
important to note that our blood mimics the mineral composition of ocean water.
Sergei: Yes, actually our lymph does. Human lymph and ocean water have the same chemical
mineral composition. Not many people know that, actually. The juice of seaweed and human lymph
are the same – if you cut your finger, and the blood dries out, there is a little yellowish crystal left
behind: a scab. If you cut seaweed, it will yield exactly the same substance on the top when it dries
on the leaf.
In Japan, wounded soldiers were given juice of seaweed when they didn’t have enough blood just to
keep them alive for several hours before blood would arrive. Before they were fermenting seaweed
there, they put it in clay or stone jars with ocean salt to break down the fibers, then they ate it. Or
they just chewed on that and spit it out or sucked on the seaweed leaf. In Korea, they’re doing a
better job still because they put seaweed in kimchi, where by means of fermentation they kill that fiber
that we remove. But for everybody else, seaweed became a commodity, and it started to sell on the
market a good fifty years ago. Everybody makes sure that they eat the whole thing when they buy it.
Mike: That seems like a really good way to release the nutrients, through fermentation.
Sergei: Yeah, and it becomes more active, but at the same time it becomes soft, like gum, so you
can work through that broken cellulose. The fermented foods are great, and if somebody has the
luxury of having time and the place to ferment their foods, the Kombu seaweed is one of the best
substances you can ferment and eat.
Eating Modifilan is probably the same as chewing on seaweed and spitting out the fibers. It doesn’t
look very good, but it’s how people in, say, the Mediterranean were eating grapes up until recently.
They just chewed on the grape. They suck on the juice and then spit the thing out. In Morocco,
where they have oranges growing in the streets, they just bite the fruit, chew it, and spit it out. The
whole thing about eating fruits, vegetables and especially roots, which are full of indigestible fibers, in
the cultures of people who grow them or were exposed to them by natural default is they didn’t
necessarily eat the whole thing. They just chewed on those things. The same thing is true in Japan:
they fermented it or they sucked on it.
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 6
Mike: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. All they really need are the nutrients, not all the cellulose.
Can you talk about the reasons people buy your product? What are they saying is their reason?
Because your product has so many different uses.
Sergei: Let’s talk about results which is what they get out of this product. Reasons are a different
thing. It’s all different what they see in it, but people usually get the same thing out of it. You get
more energy in your day, regularity in your bathroom trips, and improvement in your skin, hair and
nail conditions. These are the basic, little things that people see when they use this product for at
least three to five weeks. If somebody is interested in having results beyond these obvious, simple
things, if somebody is looking for our product with certain ideas in mind, usually it applies to their
understanding of mineral potency. In our product at the best possible level and availability are
mineral forms of seaweed. It’s thyroid support, endocrine system rehabilitation, and everything that
applies to that. There are numerous health conditions that – simply based on endocrine inefficiency
and thyroid inactivity – inhibit regular body functions.
So to answer your question directly, people who look for this product, people who want to buy this
product with certain health issues in mind, are the ones who know about mineral iodine as the only
food for thyroid; everything else comes secondary. When you make your thyroid wake up again and
regulate all the little glands around your body, including the pancreas, gall bladder, kidneys, adrenals,
even the liver, everything will come to you naturally if you simply feed your thyroid with this.
By its nature, the thyroid is fed by iodine. And we’re talking about iodine in ionic form, not liquid from
a brown bottle. One that comes out of the soil with your water or in the plants you eat in your diet; in
the sea water – which we can’t gulp much of anyway – and in the seafood, in fish, and in shellfish.
But the largest, molecule-wise, ionic form of iodine you can find is in seaweed. Again, to eat
seaweed itself is not the way to get the iodine delivered; you can’t get that much seaweed into your
system because it’s full of cellulose.
So, the main result people are looking for is relief from thyroid-related issues, and also the detox
quality of alginates, which people have known of for a long time.
Origins of Modifilan
Sergei: Modifilan was created in the late ‘60s in the Soviet Union at a time when alginates were
already researched and studied. Sodium alginates – chemical extracts from seaweed – were widely
known and used for detox purposes, but it was all IV application, where the sodium alginates were
mixed with this liquid and put directly into the vein. It was very complicated, there were side effects, it
had to be done in a true hospital setting, and it was expensive.
The whole idea with Modifilan was to deliver all the mineral qualities – including alginates, which
was the mineral they were after – in a concentrated juice of seaweed. They simply made alginates
available by eliminating an obstacle in the body – the cellulose. So that was actually the whole idea
of Modifilan. It was made in the Soviet Union for many years, but in very small quantities. It was not
very well known or available to most of the public – mostly just people involved in situations where
they had a certain degree of environmental exposure to toxicity, ionic radiation, and contamination.
After Chernobyl in 1986, it was first made in a larger quantity. About three tons of Modifilan was
produced, all at once, after Chernobyl blew up. That was the first time – and the last time, actually –
that Modifilan was produced in the Soviet Union in that quantity. Then the Soviet Union went apart,
and even Chernobyl became a good case study for Modifilan in terms of its applications beyond
alginates only. Unfortunately, the Soviet Union disbanded, and all of this information became
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 7
unwanted and too complicated, and the product was too expensive to make at the very beginning in
Russia.
Mike: As I understand, there were some very positive results in helping people eliminate radiation,
and even the chemical detoxification of this plant is documented in other contexts as well.
Sergei: Actually, more than 2,000 people were taking Modifilan on a daily basis for about two months
under the supervision of doctors. These were the guys who were re-excavating the whole area
around Chernobyl and changing the sewage system out. Two thousand people in a very
geographically enclosed situation were eating about two tablespoons per day, so it was actually a
good case study for the product.
There was something in this product that medical doctors didn’t know about, because again, the only
use that Modifilan was known for was the detox qualities of alginates. But the people who started
to take this product in a very unhealthy situation developed an interesting reaction to this product’s
use, even when they had pre-existing health conditions. Most of those people working around the
Chernobyl area were reserve-drafted people, ex-military men age 25 to 45. Most of those guys –
especially if you’re talking about those older than 40 – had quite a few unhealthy things in their lives.
Using Modifilan by default on that many people at the same time, people who were sleeping together,
eating the same food and all, that was a good thing for the research.
Mike: One of the things that really attracted me to this product is the fact that so many Westerners
have literally hundreds of toxic synthetic chemicals in their bodies. You can not live in society today –
at least not in the United States – without being exposed to all of these different chemicals that
become embedded in your heart, your kidneys, liver, brain and many other organs. One of the things
that was really exciting to me about your product was that I’ve read a lot of very reliable research
talking about the ability of sea vegetables to not only protect us from these toxic chemicals, but in
some sense to help us detoxify those chemicals as well. Can you speak to that in any way?
Sergei: Yes, I can. Many of our professional customers are licensed medical professionals, true MDs
or NMDs, who use this product for detoxification qualities. Being an absolutely natural product,
Modifilan is a very good alternative to biochemical chelation protocols. Sometimes you have to spend
a lot of money to be very strict about your diet and supplement yourself with many minerals, because
to chelate using chemically formulated protocols means you deplete your own mineral spectrum.
Speaking of the side effects of biochemical chelation protocols, Modifilan is a winner when detoxing,
because the detox or healing crisis effect is very mild. So yes, if you use our product in a situation
where one is contaminated, like off-chart PPM levels of mercury, lead, uranium or strontium –
especially those metals that do not belong to the nutritional table of metals – using this product for
about three to four months, in a quantity of six capsules a day for an average-size body, will make
people clean.
A good proof of this would be to do the same thing for three or four months after you start using our
product. Usually it takes about six to eight bottles of product used over a period of three to four
months to start to see a difference. A hair or urine test will give a great truth in terms of numbers, but
the main difference people will see is in how they feel. When they start to take this product, in about
three to five weeks – which seems to be an average introduction period for people with health
conditions, especially if there is toxicity involved – they will go through a detox stage that never lasts
longer than a week, and it’s very mild. It doesn’t happen to everybody, every time that they take this
product, but people will be aware of some of that effect. If it’s heavy metal contamination, you can
count on this product to do a very good job with a very modest level of detox symptoms.
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 8
The anti-cancer connection
Mike: Is there anything you can talk about, or are there any supporting studies about this seaweed
stopping tumor growth, or anything you can share?
Sergei: There are many studies on mineral qualities of seaweed as the source of anticancerous
agents, especially an element called fucoidan.
Since our product offers everything seaweed has in the most potent and bioavailable digestible form,
whatever your readers can find on the quite extensive range of health benefits of seaweed, will be in
Modifilan. I cannot go into the subject deeper than that, but I can say one thing: Whatever you see or
read about brown seaweed, expect our product to deliver this at the best level in terms of its potency,
volume, and bioavailablity.
If you’re talking about fucoidan itself, it’s evaporated oligomineral that has been very well known for
a long time. It’s been researched, studied, and described widely, and there are even some fucoidan
products available now in food supplement form. Mostly these are multi-level marketing efforts.
In our product, we have this element – this mineral – by default and by natural occurrence; it’s not an
extract that we have to put in. It’s in absolute, synergetic, natural combination with other elements
like iodine, protein, selenium, manganese, magnesium, and all the things that make a food a food.
It’s very modest in terms of its volume if you do a simple chemical test for how much of that is in
Modifilan, but the way it comes in Modifilan is absolutely natural.
So yes, our product can be successfully used to prevent, control, and fight problems involving health
conditions. We are definitely not turning this product into a medicine. Many of our clients are
licensed medical professionals who find this product useful in their practice as a tool, or they send
their patients to buy this product in certain situations. That makes us very firm believers in what we
do and make here.
Modifilan is our basic product, but we also make a product called U-FN. It’s another product made
from exactly the same type of extraction process as Modifilan, with some additional potassium and
calcium to stabilize and enhance one particular mineral element in the kombu – it’s the fucoidan in
a bioavailable form, a type you can eat which still delivers. If we go back to your question about the
possible help people with cancer can get from our product, they may expect Modifilan to help them in
this situation, but it is not a product that simply delivers more of fucoidan mineral qualities.
With everything else, Modifilan is a better product. For detox, for thyroid support in terms of mineral
iodine content, Modifilan is a better product to use, but U-FN is a product that needs to be looked at
by those who are looking for fucoidan.
Mike: Fucoidan is not technically a mineral – isn’t it man-made?
Sergei: No. It’s actually a created substance, yes.
Mike: We would call it a phytonutrient.
Sergei: Evaporated oligomineral is what they actually call it. If you do a detection of fucoidan in our
product, there is some in it.
Burning body fat with fucoxanthin
Mike: People are excited about the research showing that brown seaweed contains a certain nutrient
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 9
named fucoxanthin which burns fat. Now, you talk about something that’s interesting to Western
consumers, burning fat is a big concern.
Sergei: That’s the big hype in your world.
Mike: Yes, there’s a lot of interest in it. I’ve covered a lot of dietary products, and the impression that
most people get is not true – that they can just continue eating all their unhealthy foods, following an
unhealthy lifestyle, and thinking that one certain supplement is going to magically make them look
thin or athletic. That’s simply not the case.
Sergei: Especially if they will talk about a particular pigment found in brown seaweed, which I think
soon they’re going to sell in an extracted form. It looks like this particular pigment – which was
mentioned in these studies – is going to be sold in Costco in a bottle, an inexpensive one, and it will
say, “This burns fat. Read the papers.”
My take is that I think they approached it from the wrong angle. I think that brown seaweed’s
effectiveness in a weight loss situation is all about making your metabolic speed higher through
feeding your thyroid with mineral iodine, which the endocrine system benefits from. You will seem to
process calories faster and take up energy in a better, faster, more beneficial, and natural way.
I’m in total disagreement with the piece that appeared in Time magazine about it. Everybody called
here after that went out. I love it, but at the same time I feel shame because soon people will go
overboard with this. It will take maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months, but then the magic thing,
fucoxanthin, maybe mixed with some drinks, mixed with some vitamins or foods will start appearing
in the food supplements section. But it has nothing to do with the true benefit of seaweed which I
think is making the endocrine system perform better, and as a result, increasing metabolic speed.
Mike: Well, I agree completely, Sergei, and I think that for anyone to talk about losing weight while
they are simultaneously suffering from malnutrition and mineral deficiencies is ridiculous. What
people need to do first to lose weight is start nourishing their bodies, not with more calories, but with
more real food and high-density food like the whole plant with all of the nutrients in synergy.
There is certainly a danger that what may happen with this news is exactly what happened with the
hoodia gordonii – it’s being hyped up as a major weight loss aid, but 80 percent of the raw material
now being purchased by supplement manufacturers is actually counterfeit. The problem is there’s so
much demand for it.
Sergei: The first time I heard the word hoodia, you know what happened? It’s probably going to be a
new thing for you, because you don’t know Russian, right?
Mike: Ah, no.
Sergei: “Hoodoi” means thin in Russian. The first time I heard the product called “hoodia,” it made
a certain click in my head. “Hoodoi” means thin; “hoodet,” the verb itself, means to lose weight. So
when I heard the word and I started to sense all this very strong marketing effort behind it, it was
double trouble in my head – the name itself, and the way they sold it.
Mike: Well, but you know, if this information does catch hold, you could find yourself swept up in a
whirlwind, actually, whether you want to be or not, where brown seaweed is actually being discredited
because people will try some other counterfeit version of it.
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 10
Sergei: No, they simply will just buy brown seaweed, and they’ll go to the Whole Foods – which I
love; it’s where I buy my food—they will find out that brown seaweed is a kelp and that kelp is a
kombu.
They’ll go to the whole foods and buy kombu in a powder, a very thin, very fine looking powder that
looks okay to our eye.
But ask our colon how it looks and feels to this part of the body. It’s like a piece of shrapnel going
down, scratching everything off on its way. So people will simply buy Kombu, they’ll start to eat more
of that compared to what they did before if they ate any, and they will develop diarrhea. They will
develop constipation. They will have an excessive amount of iodine in their gut, because the sludge
in the lower part of the GI tract will never get processed properly because it’s non-soluble fiber.
Expect this to be one of the major problems for those who jump on the idea of eating kombu in
larger quantities. China put it in print today. Time magazine had it delivered into the mailboxes of
millions of people around the world. I see people this weekend reading this material on the Internet
or in newspapers or in magazines, then they’ll go to Whole Foods stores and ask if they have brown
seaweed. They’ll say, “Yes, of course. There it is.” A few bucks a kilo or whatever, and they’ll start
to eat it by the teaspoon or tablespoon, God forbid, and you see what will happen one week after that
– a very, very serious problem.
Mike: Just to clarify, too, the difference between that raw product and your product is that the
nonextracted product has all of that undigestible cellulose, correct?
Sergei: Yes. Our product is a fully soluble substance. It’s a soluble fiber. It does not produce any
sludge; you can’t find any sand in there when you mix it with water.
Brown seaweed for muscle building
Mike: Okay. I’ve got one more question for you. This one concerns the people who are involved in
strength training or body building. Myostatins are substances that inhibit the signal that turns off
muscle growth. So the theory is – and this is all just theory at this point, I don’t know that there’s any
research on it – if you take myostatins and you’re working out, then you will grow muscles larger than
normal because the signals are being controlled by the myostatins.
There are, in fact, some nutritional supplements in the body-building community that are focused on
these myostatins to control or regulate muscle growth. It’s my understanding that the
polysaccharides in brown seaweed also contain some amount of this. Are you familiar with that or is
that something you’ve looked at?
Sergei: No, but I sometimes say Modifilan is good for natural doping, because, again, it’s a means of
feeding your thyroid and controlling your adrenals. You simply have more energy, you are truly
awake, and you have more power. It’s as simple as that.
If somebody exercises regularly and they take our product, they sit-up, push-up, pull-up more than if
they’re not eating this product. But to answer your question, no. I didn’t know about anything of that
particular nature in our product. So I can’t say that we had any detection of this in Modifilan, in our
works, or in the sales efforts of those who offer this product to the bodybuilding community. I suspect
that using our product will be a helpful thing to do, because those who find the muscle growth in
active exercise balance will just be stronger. They will pump more iron.
It’s simple. You will run longer distances, and you will catch your breath faster, but only ones who
Ocean Medicine: The Miracle of Brown Seaweed Extract – 11
truly exercise regularly can see this. A healthy eater, when they start to eat our product, they won’t
see any of that detox effect – it’s only energy, regularity, things like that. Sometimes it’s just a few
days after you start Modifilan that you start to feel that.
Mike: Well, to summarize some of the benefits we’re talking about: endocrine function, immune
function, the adrenals and thyroid, also part of the endocrine system. Any other benefits?
Sergei: The simple things are hair, nails, skin, energy throughout the day, gastrointestinal problems
of a lighter type. When people have acid reflux, eating our product helps a lot with digestion patterns.
It regulates appetite, too. People who eat our product, eat less. Eating our product makes you feel
that particular limit. Let’s say you’re eating your breakfast, you feel that line where you’re satisfied
with your food, when you feel full, faster and more clearly when you take Modifilan. It’s an interesting
effect.
Mike: Yeah, I completely second that. I think that part of that may be the reduction of cravings, also,
through the mineralization.
Sergei: Probably so, but I was told some weird things like hormonal happiness, hormonal being full,
which adults lack. With a kid, when the little guy doesn’t want to eat any more porridge, he’ll twist his
head and spit it out where we adults will usually eat whatever is left on our plate.
The same thing applies with the lion. It catches the cow, munches it, and eats like crazy, then at one
point, boom: He just flips on his side. Then, if another cow comes over and licks his nose, he will not
even pay attention. It’s the same thing with hormonal happiness. So doctors know that there is a
strong connection between how people feel themselves mentally and endocrines.
That is why sometimes taking our product brings, what people call, a sensation of wellness. It’s one of
the things that we can proudly announce. I know that it will fall into the category of medical claims but
knowing this product myself very well and having it given away for a long time until we made it our
business, makes me very proud of saying it beyond the reason of now it’s being sold because we
make it.

The Great Iodine Debate

Iodine is critical to human health. It forms the basis of thyroid hormones and plays many other roles in human biochemistry. While the thyroid gland contains the body’s highest concentration of iodine, the salivary glands, brain, cerebrospinal fluid, gastric mucosa, breasts, ovaries and a part of the eye also concentrate iodine. In the brain, iodine is found in the choroid plexus, the area on the ventricles of the brain where cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is produced, and in the substantia nigra, an area associated with Parkinson’s disease.
Iodine is essential to normal growth and development. Iodine deficiency in utero and during growth can result in cretinism, a condition of severely stunted physical and mental growth due to prolonged nutritional deficiency of iodine or from untreated congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones (hypothyroidism). The condition is characterized by short stature, delayed bone maturation and puberty, infertility, neurological impairment and cognitive impairment ranging from mild to severe. Iodine deficiency also causes goiter, the gradual enlargement of the thyroid gland. Both conditions have led to public health campaigns of iodine administration in many countries. The addition of iodine compounds to table salt or water represents the first attempt to provide nutrient supplementation via "fortification" of common foods.

Iodine in Public Health Campaigns
In the past, endemic cretinism due to iodine deficiency was especially common in areas of southern Europe around the Alps. It was described by ancient Roman writers and often depicted by medieval artists. The earliest Alpine mountain climbers sometimes came upon whole villages of cretins. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, several travelers and physicians described alpine cretinism from a medical perspective, often attributing the cause to “stagnant air” in mountain valleys or “bad water”.
More mildly affected inland areas of Europe and North America in the nineteenth century were referred to as “goiter belts”. The degree of iodine deficiency was milder and manifested primarily as thyroid enlargement rather than severe mental and physical impairment. In Switzerland, where the soil is poor in iodine, cases of cretinism were abundant and even considered hereditary. As the variety of food sources dramatically increased in Europe and North America and the populations became less completely dependent on locally grown food, the prevalence of endemic goiter diminished.
Only in the early twentieth century did scientists discover the relationship of cretinism with lack of iodine and thyroid deficiency. The addition of iodine to salt or drinking water is credited with the reduction or elimination of cretinism and goiter, although cretinism still remains a serious problem in many rural sections of China.
In coastal areas, the action of ocean waves makes iodine gas. Once airborne, iodine combines with water or air and enters the soil. Plant and animal foods grown on soil containing iodine will take up iodine so that it becomes available in the food. It can also be absorbed through the skin from air in seacoast areas, which may explain why many report improved health after a visit to an oceanside resort, and why individuals with severe allergies to iodine risk a reaction if they venture too close to the sea.
Iodine and Breast Health
Japanese women have very low rates of breast cancer and consume high levels of iodine. This observation has led to the theory that high iodine levels in the Japanese diet, rich in seaweed and
Page 2 – The Great Iodine Debate
seafood, provide protection against breast cancer and other diseases of the breast. Proponents of this theory note that today one in seven American women (almost 15 percent) will develop breast cancer during her lifetime. Thirty years ago, when iodine consumption was twice as high as it is now (480 mcg per day) one in twenty women developed breast cancer. Thirty years ago, consumption of iodized salt was higher than it is today; in addition a form of iodine was used as a dough conditioner in making bread, and each slice of bread contained 0.14 mg of iodine. In 1980, bread makers started using bromide as a conditioner instead, which competes with iodine for absorption into the thyroid gland and other tissues in the body. Iodine was also more widely used in the dairy industry as a teat cleaner thirty years ago than it is now. According to this argument, 15 percent of the U.S. adult female population suffers from moderate to severe iodine deficiency. [1]
The correlation of iodine deficiency with breast cancer is strengthened by reports in the scientific literature. Women with a history of breast cancer are almost three times more likely to develop thyroid cancer than women with no such history, and there is a geographic correlation between the incidence of goiter and breast cancer. [2] Demographic studies show that a high intake of iodine is associated with a low incidence of breast cancer, and a low intake with a high incidence of breast cancer. [3]
Animal studies show that iodine prevents breast cancer, arguing for a causal association in these epidemiological findings. The carcinogens nitrosomethylurea and DMBA cause breast cancer in more than 70 percent of female rats. Those given iodine, especially in its molecular form as I2, have a statistically significant decrease in the incidence of cancer. [4] Other evidence adding biologic plausibility to the hypothesis that iodine prevents breast cancer includes the finding that the ductal cells in the breast, the ones most likely to become cancerous, are equipped with an iodine pump (the sodium iodine symporter, the same one that the thyroid gland has) to soak up this element. [5]
Similar findings apply to fibrocystic disease of the breast. In animal studies, female rats fed an iodine-free diet develop fibrocystic changes in their breasts, and iodine in its elemental form (I2) cures it. [6]
As far back as 1966, Russian researchers showed that iodine effectively relieves signs and symptoms of fibrocystic breast disease. Seventy-one percent of 167 women suffering from fibrocystic disease experienced a beneficial healing effect when treated with 50 mg potassium iodide during the intermenstrual period. [7]
A 1993 Canadian study likewise found that iodine relieves signs and symptoms of fibrocystic breast disease in 70 percent of patients. This report is a composite of three clinical studies, two case series done in Canada of 696 women treated with various types of iodine, and one in Seattle. The Seattle study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 56 women designed to compare 3-5 mg of elemental iodine (I2) to a placebo (an aqueous mixture of brown vegetable dye with quinine). Investigators followed the women for six months and tracked subjective and objective changes in their fibrocystic disease. [8]
An analysis of the Seattle study showed that iodine had a highly statistically significant beneficial effect on fibrocystic disease. Iodine reduced breast tenderness, nodularity, fibrosis, turgidity and number of macrocysts compared to controls. This 36-page report [9] was submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1995, seeking the agency's approval to carry out a larger randomized controlled clinical trial on iodine for treating fibrocystic breast disease. FDA declined to approve the study, because “iodine is a natural substance, not a drug.” But the FDA has now decided to approve a similar trial sponsored by Symbollon Pharmaceuticals.
Page 3 – The Great Iodine Debate
Other Benefits
Iodine may be helpful in treating other cancers because it induces apoptosis, programmed cell death. Apoptosis is essential to growth and development (fingers form in the fetus by apoptosis of the tissue between them) and for destroying cells that represent a threat to the integrity of the organism, like cancer cells and cells infected with viruses. In one experiment, human lung cancer cells with genes spliced into them that enhance iodine uptake and utilization underwent apoptosis and shrank when given iodine, both when grown in vitro outside the body and implanted in mice. [10] Some practitioners predict a wider use for iodine in treating cancer.
Iodine may have other benefits – for which more study is needed. Evidence indicates that increased iodine consumption replaces and therefore helps detox other halogens, such as fluoride and bromide, and even toxic metals like lead, aluminum and mercury. [11] One theory is that liberal amounts of iodine in the diet can protect against the harmful effects of fluoridated water. [12] Iodine supports the immune system and protects against abnormal growth of bacteria in the stomach. [13]
In addition to the thyroid and mammary glands, other tissues possess an iodine pump (the sodium-iodine symporter) which allows iodine concentration. Thus, it is logical to conclude that iodine plays an important role in these organs – the stomach mucosa, salivary glands, ovaries, thymus gland, skin, brain, joints, arteries and bone.
A History of Iodine Therapy
Iodine was discovered in 1811 and shortly thereafter entered the materia medica. It was used in large amounts until the mid-1900s for treating various dermatologic conditions, chronic lung disease, fungal infestations, tertiary syphilis and even arteriosclerosis. [14] The Nobel laureate Dr. Albert Szent Györgi (1893-1986), the physician who discovered vitamin C, wrote: “When I was a medical student, iodine in the form of KI [potassium iodide] was the universal medicine. Nobody knew what it did, but it did something and did something good. We 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.” [15]
According to the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1911, the pharmacological action of compounds containing potassium iodide, “is as obscure as their effects in certain diseased conditions are consistently brilliant. Our ignorance of their mode of action is cloaked by the term deobstruent, which implies that they possess the power of driving out impurities from the blood and tissues. Most notably is this the case with the poisonous products of syphilis. In its tertiary stage – and also earlier – this disease yields in the most rapid and unmistakable fashion to iodides, so much so that the administration of these salts is at present the best means of determining whether, for instance, a cranial tumor be syphilitic or not.” (Perhaps what the iodides did was remove toxic mercury from the bodies of syphilitics who had been treated with mercury-based medicines!)
Sarah Pope, our Tampa/St. Petersburg chapter leader, reports that her father, a pediatrician, routinely gave Lugol’s solution (a combination of iodine and potassium iodide) to treat congestion in the lungs and sinuses. The theory was that the iodide drops would thin the mucus and make coughing more productive. The dose was five drops in water, continued for several days. In his professional experience, the remedy cleared congestion and, in the case of asthmatics, dilated the bronchial tubes and assisted breathing. This author received the same remedy as a child – the taste of iodine brings back memories of being sick and in bed, and receiving the drops in orange juice.
The decline in the use of iodine in medicine began in 1948 when researchers Wolff and Chaikoff
Page 4 – The Great Iodine Debate
published a landmark paper on the thyroid effects of increasing amounts of potassium iodide, injected into rats. The authors stated: “Organic binding of iodine within the glands can be almost completely blocked by raising the level of plasma inorganic iodine (PII) above a certain critical level, which for the rat amounts to about 20 to 35 percent." [16] This effect became known as the Wolff-Chaikoff (W-C) effect. According to the conventional view, high levels of intracellular iodide suppress the transcription of thyroid peroxidase (TPO) enzyme, along with NADPH oxidase, leading to a reduction in the synthesis of thyroid hormone, thyroxin. [17] As proof of the W-C effect, the textbooks point to the fact that large amounts of potassium iodide can remedy hyperthyroidism. Another apparent confirmation is the thyroid-suppressing effect of several iodine-containing drugs, of which the most famous is amiodarone, which can cause both under- and overactivity of the thyroid. In a trial that compared amiodarone with other medications for the treatment of atrial fibrillation, biochemical hypothyroidism (as defined by a TSH level of 4.5-10 mU/L) occurred in 25.8 percent of the amiodarone-treated group as opposed to 6.6 percent of the control group (taking placebo or sotalol). Overt hypothyroidism (defined as TSH greater than 10 mU/L) occurred at 5.0 percent compared to 0.3 percent. [18]
Over time, these observations led to a decline in the use of iodine in medicine. While health officials came to a general agreement that iodine deficiency caused, in increasing order of severity, goiter and hypothyroidism, mental retardation and cretinism, authorities in the U.S. and Europe agreed upon a low Reference Daily Intake (RDI), formerly called the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), of 100-150 mcg per day. This amount will prevent goiters and other overt signs of deficiency but may not be adequate to prevent other conditions of iodine deficiency, and is much lower that the amounts formerly given routinely to patients.
Critics of the W-C effect note that the standard dose of potassium iodide was 1 gram until the mid-1900s, which contains 770 mg of iodine, over five thousand times more than the RDI. For many years physicians used potassium iodide in doses starting at 1.5 to 3 gm and up to more than 10 grams a day, on and off, to treat bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, apparently with good results and few side effects. Even today, dermatologists treat certain skin conditions, including fungal eruptions, beginning with an iodine dose of 900 mg a day, followed by weekly increases up to 6 grams a day as tolerated.
But the general use of iodine and iodine compounds in medicine has waned, as has its use as an additive in the food supply. Today’s medical establishment is wary of iodine as are public health officials. Thyroidologists cite the W-C effect and warn that TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) blood levels can rise with an iodine intake of one milligram or more.
In a 2000 review paper on use of iodine as a water disinfectant, author Joe Hollowell notes that studies indicate marked individual sensitivity to iodine; the most vulnerable to adverse effects are those with underlying thyroid disease and previous low iodine intake. Problems from consumption of iodized water – including both hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism – usually resolve after consumption is discontinued. A safe dose is 1-2 grams per day, and most can tolerate much higher amounts without problems. [19]
The Challenge
A challenge towards the reigning attitudes to iodine compounds came in 1997, when Dr. Guy Abraham, a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA, mounted what he calls the Iodine Project. He had his company, Optimox Corporation, make Iodoral, the tablet form of Lugol’s solution (which combines iodine and potassium iodide), and he engaged two family practice physicians, Dr. Jorge Flechas (in 2000) in North Carolina and Dr. David Brownstein (in 2003) in Michigan to carry out
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clinical studies with high doses of the iodine compound. [20] The project’s hypothesis is that maintaining whole body sufficiency of iodine requires 12.5 mg a day, an amount similar to what the Japanese consume and over eighty times the RDI of 150 mcg. The conventional view is that the body contains 25-50 mg of iodine, of which 70-80 percent resides in the thyroid gland. Dr. Abraham concluded that whole body sufficiency exists when a person excretes 90 percent of the iodine ingested. He devised an iodine-loading test where one takes 50 mg iodine/potassium iodide and measures the amount excreted in the urine over the next twenty-four hours. He found that the vast majority of people retain a substantial amount of the 50 mg dose. Many require 50 mg per day for several months before they will excrete 90 percent of it. His studies indicate that, given a sufficient amount, the body will retain much more iodine than originally thought, 1,500 mg, with only 3 percent of that amount held in the thyroid gland.
According to Abraham, more than 4,000 patients in this project take iodine in daily doses ranging from 12.5 to 50 mg, and in those with diabetes, up to 100 mg a day. According to these physicians, iodine at these doses does indeed reverse fibrocystic disease; allows diabetic patients to use less insulin and hypothyroid patients to use less thyroid medication; resolves symptoms of fibromyalgia; and stops migraine headaches. They report that the side effects of iodine, including hypo- or hyperthyroidism, allergies, swelling of the salivary glands and thyroid, occur in less than 5 percent. [21] Urine tests confirm that iodine at these doses removes the toxic halogens fluoride and bromide from the body. [22]
They believe that iodism, an unpleasant brassy taste, runny nose, and acne-like skin lesions, is caused by the bromide that iodine extracts from the tissues. Symptoms subside on a lower dose of iodine.
In 2005, Dr. Abraham published a long paper challenging the Wolff-Chaikoff effect. “The W-C effect is supposedly the inhibitory effect of peripheral inorganic iodide (PII) levels equal to or greater than 0.2 mg/L (10-6M) on the organification of iodide by the thyroid gland of rats, resulting supposedly in hypothyroidism and goiter. These rats never became hypothyroid and thyroid hormones were not measured in their plasma. Nevertheless, the W-C effect, which did not even occur in the rats, was extrapolated to humans. The correct interpretation of the results obtained in rats from the W-C experiments is: Iodide sufficiency of the thyroid gland was achieved when serum inorganic iodide levels reached 10-6M … These law-abiding rats refused to become hypothyroid and instead followed their normal physiological response to the iodide load. They were unjustly accused of escaping from the W-C effect. Labeling these innocent rats as fugitives from the W-C effect was a great injustice against these rodents.
“To the disgrace and stupidity of the medical profession, U.S. physicians swallowed the W-C forgery uncritically, which resulted in a moratorium on the clinical use of inorganic, non-radioactive iodine in effective amounts. However, this moratorium did not include toxic organic iodine-containing drugs and radioiodide. The iodophobic mentality prevented further research on the requirement for inorganic, non-radioactive iodine by the whole human body, which turns out to be 100-400 times the very recently established RDA… Prior to World War II and the W-C publication, U.S. physicians used Lugol solution safely, effectively and extensively in both hypo- and hyperthyroidism.” [23]
Abraham cites a 1970 paper which evaluated the effect of Lugol’s solution, administered at five drops (30 mg iodine/iodide) three times a day in five thyrotoxic patients. Following a well-designed protocol, they reported, "It is concluded that the rapid decrease in T4 secretion induced by iodine is not the result of an acute sustained inhibition of T4 synthesis (the Wolff-Chaikoff effect), but rather results from an abrupt decrease in the fractional rate of thyroid T4 release." [24]
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Abraham thus argues that in hyperthyroidism, iodine/iodide in Lugol’s at a daily dose of 90 mg induced a physiological trend toward normalization of thyroid function, "a beneficial effect, not the fictitious W-C effect as proposed by Wolff and Chaikoff. It is amazing that the W-C effect, which is still mentioned in iodophobic publications, has never been confirmed in rats by other investigators and has never been demonstrated in any animal species.
"In 1948, there was already evidence that the W-C effect, if it was for real in rats (and it was not), did not occur in humans. The Lugol’s solution and saturated solution of potassium iodide (SSKI) were used extensively in medical practice for patients with asthma. The recommended daily amount was 1,000-2,000 mg. This amount was used in patients with asthma, chronic bronchitis, and emphysema for several years. Hypothyroidism and goiter were not common in this group of patients. Those amounts of iodine would have resulted in serum inorganic iodine levels 100 times higher than the serum inorganic iodide levels of 10-6M claimed by Wolff and Chaikoff to result in the W-C effect.”
According to Abraham, iodine in amounts considered “excessive” by endocrinologists today represent only 3 percent of the average daily intake of iodide by 60 million mainland Japanese, a population with a very low incidence of cancer overall, and in particular of the female reproductive organs.
According to Abraham, “Medical iodophobia resulted in the thyroid hormone thyroxine replacing iodine in iodine deficiency-induced simple goiter and hypothyroidism. Thyroxine has been the most prescribed drug in the U.S. for several years. So, the manufacturers of thyroxine benefited tremendously from this deception. It also resulted in the destruction of the thyroid gland by means of radioiodide in patients with hyperthyroidism caused by iodine deficiency, although this condition had previously been treated successfully with Lugol solution. The radioablation of the thyroid gland with radioiodide resulted in 90 percent of these patients becoming hypothyroid within the first year and eventually joining the ever-increasing thyroxine-consuming population. “Supplying thyroid hormones to iodine-deprived individuals masks the iodine deficiency and can result in zombie-like effect. The patients are capable of performing physical work but are not able to think and reason at maximum capacity. An even greater negative effect is realized if iodine deprivation is combined with goitrogen saturation, using the potent goitrogens bromide, fluoride and perchlorate in the food and water supply.
“Iodine is involved in many vital mental and physical functions, and yet whole body sufficiency for iodine has never been determined. Why? Medical textbooks discuss inorganic, non-radioactive iodine only in relation to the most severe deficiencies of this essential element: cretinism, hypothyroidism and endemic goiter. Based on an iodine/iodide loading test developed by the author to assess whole body sufficiency for iodine, the amounts of iodine needed for whole body sufficiency and optimal physical and mental health are 250-1,000 times higher that the amount of iodine needed to control cretinism, hypothyroidism and endemic goiter.”
Thus, according to Abraham and his colleagues, the Wolff-Chaikoff effect is of no clinical significance. An elevated TSH, when it occurs during treatment with Lugol’s solution, is “subclinical”. This means that no signs or symptoms of hypothyroidism accompany its rise. Some people taking milligram doses of iodine, usually more than 50 mg a day, develop mild swelling of the thyroid gland without symptoms. Abraham believes that the vast majority of people, 98 to 99 percent, can take iodine in doses ranging from 10 to 200 mg a day without any clinically adverse effects on thyroid function.
The Debate
With Abraham’s work, and its popularization by physicians such as Jorgas and Brownstein, many health-conscious individuals began taking Lugol’s solution regularly, even without medical
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supervision. A challenge to this practice came from Dr. Alan Gaby in an editorial published in the Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, August/September 2005. [25]
“Recently, a growing number of doctors have been using iodine supplements in fairly large doses in their practices,” wrote Gaby. “The treatment typically consists of 12 to 50 mg per day of a combination of iodine and iodide, which is 80 to 333 times the RDA of 150 mcg (0.15 mg) per day. Case reports suggest that iodine therapy can improve energy levels, overall well-being, sleep, digestive problems and headaches. People with hypothyroidism who experienced only partial improvement with thyroid hormone therapy are said to do better when they start taking iodine. In addition, fibrocystic breast disease responds well to iodine therapy, an observation that has been documented previously. The reported beneficial effects of iodine suggest that some people have a higher-than-normal requirement for this mineral, or that it favorably influences certain types of metabolic dysfunction.
“While iodine therapy shows promise, I am concerned that two concepts being put forth could lead to overzealous prescribing of this potentially toxic mineral. First is the notion that the optimal dietary iodine intake for humans is around 13.8 mg per day, which is about 90 times the RDA and more than 13 times the ‘safe upper limit’ of 1 mg per day established by the World Health Organization. Second is the claim that a newly developed iodine-load test can be used as a reliable tool to identify iodine deficiency."
Gaby takes issue with the argument that the optimal human requirement is 13.8 mg per day, by noting that “the idea that Japanese people consume 13.8 mg of iodine per day appears to have arisen from a misinterpretation of a 1967 paper. In that paper, the average intake of seaweed in Japan was listed as 4.6 g (4,600 mg) per day, and seaweed was said to contain 0.3 percent iodine. The figure of 13.8 mg comes from multiplying 4,600 mg by 0.003. However, the 4.6 g of seaweed consumed per day was expressed as wet weight, whereas the 0.3 percent-iodine figure was based on dry weight. Since many vegetables contain at least 90 percent water, 13.8 mg per day is a significant overestimate of iodine intake. In studies that have specifically looked at iodine intake among Japanese people, the mean dietary intake (estimated from urinary iodine excretion) was in the range of 330 to 500 mcg per day, which is at least 2.5-fold lower than 13.8 mg per day."
Regarding the other argument in support of a high iodine requirement, namely that it takes somewhere between 6 and 14 mg of oral iodine per day to keep the thyroid gland fully saturated with iodine, “… it is not clear that loading the thyroid gland or other tissues with all the iodine they can hold is necessarily a good thing… Our thyroid glands have developed a powerful mechanism to concentrate iodine, and some thyroid glands (or other tissues) might not function as well after a sudden 90-fold increase in the intake of this mineral… relatively small increases in dietary iodine intake have been reported to cause hypothyroidism or other thyroid abnormalities in some people.”
As for the observation that iodine supplementation “promotes the urinary excretion of potentially toxic halogens such as bromide and fluoride. While that effect might be beneficial for some people, it is not clear to what extent it would shift the risk-benefit ratio of megadose iodine therapy for the general population.”
Abraham and colleagues promote the use of the iodine-load test, in which the patient ingests 50 mg of a combination of iodine and iodide and the urine is collected for the next twenty-four hours. The patient is considered to be iodine-deficient if less than 90 percent of the administered dose is excreted in the urine, on the premise that a deficient person will retain iodine in the tissues, rather than excrete it in the urine. According to the literature of a laboratory that offers it, 92-98 percent of patients who have taken the iodine-load test were found to be deficient in iodine.
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According to Gaby, “the validity of the test depends on the assumption that the average person can absorb at least 90 percent of a 50-mg dose. It may be that people are failing to excrete 90 percent of the iodine in the urine not because their tissues are soaking it up, but because a lot of the iodine is coming out in the feces. There is no reason to assume that a 50-mg dose of iodine, which is at least 250 times the typical daily intake, can be almost completely absorbed by the average person. While this issue has not apparently been studied in humans, cows fed supraphysiological doses of iodine (72 to 161 mg per day) excreted approximately 50 percent of the administered dose in the feces.”
Gaby expressed concerns about iodine toxicity: “Fairly modest increases in iodine intake have been reported to cause thyroid dysfunction, particularly hypothyroidism. In a study of 33 Japanese patients with hypothyroidism, the median serum TSH level decreased from 21.9 mU/L to 5.3 mU/L (indicating an improvement in the hypothyroidism), and one-third became euthyroid, when the patients stopped eating seaweed and other high-iodine foods for 1-2 months. In a survey of 3,300 children aged 6-12 years from five continents, thyroid glands were twice as large in children with high dietary iodine intake (about 750 mcg per day), compared with children with more normal iodine intake. While the significance of that finding is not clear, it suggests the possibility of iodine-induced goiter. In addition, there is epidemiological evidence that populations with 'sufficient' or 'high normal' dietary iodine intake have a higher prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis, compared with populations with deficient iodine intake. In a study of children in a mountainous area of Greece with a high prevalence of goiter, public-health measures taken to eliminate iodine deficiency were followed by a three-fold increase in the prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis. In addition, modest increases in dietary iodine have been suspected to cause hyperthyroidism in some people, an effect that is known to occur with larger doses of iodine.
“Other well-known side effects of excessive iodine intake include acne, headaches, allergic reactions, metallic taste in the mouth and parotid gland swelling. While the doses of iodine reported to cause those side effects have often been higher than those currently being recommended, some people appear to be especially sensitive to the adverse effects of iodine.” Gaby concludes: “The possibility that high-dose iodine/iodide can relieve certain common conditions is intriguing. Considering the positive anecdotal reports, an empirical trial of iodine/iodide therapy, based on the clinical picture, seems reasonable. The case has not been made, however, that the average person should markedly increase his or her iodine intake in an attempt to saturate the tissues with iodine. Nor has the case been made that the iodine-load test can provide reliable guidance regarding the need for iodine therapy. Thyroid function should be monitored in patients receiving more than 1 mg of iodine per day.”
Subsequent counter arguments by Drs Abraham and Brownstein and rebuttals by Dr. Gaby focused on the amount of iodine in the Japanese diet and the safety of ingesting large amounts. An important point made by Abraham and Brownstein is that the requirement for iodine depends on the goitrogen load. Bromine, now very prevelant in the food supply, is a goitrogen, and may increase our need for iodine. They also claim that many of the toxic effects reported in the literature were due to radioactive forms of iodine. Finally, they dispute the assertion that the values of iodine in seaweed consumed by the Japanese were computed in dry weight. “The average daily intake of iodine by mainland Japanese in 1963 was 13.8 mg, based on information supplied by the Japanese Ministry of Health, which used only dry weight in their calculations, confirmed by a phone interview of one of us (GEA) on June 21, 2005, with officials of this organization." [26]
Abrahams and Brownstein also defended the urine test for iodine loading, noting studies showing that organic iodine is not excreted in the feces. They also cited their own clinical experience. “Our experience at the Center for Holistic Medicine has shown that patients with the lowest urinary iodide levels on the loading tests are often the most ill. Many of these patients with very low urine iodide
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levels following the loading test have severe illnesses such as breast cancer, thyroid cancer or autoimmune thyroid disorders. All of these conditions have been shown in the literature to be associated with iodine deficiency. Positive clinical results were seen in most of these patients after supplementation of orthoiodosupplementation within the range of 6.25-50 mg of iodine/iodide (1/2 to 4 tablets of Lugol in tablet form).” [27]
In response, Gaby noted that “all but one of the references I cited discussed the adverse effects of inorganic iodine” and that while Dr. Lugol did use high doses of his combination iodine/potassium iodide compound, “they were recommended primarily to treat infections (iodine is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent) and hyperthyroidism, not as routine nutritional support for the average person.” Finally, he notes a review article, published in 2000, in which the authors state that in the 1920s and 1930s, when potassium iodide (KI) was widely used, many patients died of KI-induced side effects, particularly pulmonary edema and associated heart failure. [28]
Conclusions
It is axiomatic that there are no uncomplicated issues in the field of diet and health – and the subject of iodine is no exception. What conclusions can we draw from these conflicting assertions about iodine, especially supplementation containing iodide?
Let’s start by looking at the RDI of 100-150 mcg iodine per day. Most would argue that this intake is too low. Yet it is in line with what Weston Price reports in primitive diets. In preliminary analyses, he found a range of 24-32 mcg daily for the northern American Indians and 131-175 daily for the Inuit. [29] Apparently the Inuit of the far north do not eat seaweed. [30] Unfortunately, Price did not carry out more extensive measurements, especially among those he reported to eat seaweed – the Gaelic peoples of the Outer Hebrides and the Andean Indians of Peru.
It appears to be very difficult to estimate the iodine intake in diets that contain seaweed. Based on the reported values in seaweed, some have claimed levels of 12 mg (12,000 mcg) in Japanese diets, [31] leading Abraham and Brownstein to propose that “only mainland Japanese consume adequate amounts of iodine and that 99 percent of the world population are deficient in inorganic, non-radioactive iodine; that is, they have not reached whole body sufficiency for that essential element.” [32]
However, a published analysis of iodine intake in Japan found a range of 45-1921 mcg per day, [33] and Weston Price found healthy peoples consuming iodine amounts in the lower end of this range. Furthermore, without seaweed, it would be very difficult to exceed 1,000 mcg per day, based on values found in typical traditional foods. For example, one meal of cod, one meal of shellfish including the 20 grams of the hepatopancreas, and one meal of mussels, plus additional meat, vegetables and legumes would supply about 1,000 mcg iodine; diets based on meat, even organ meats, would supply considerably less.
The late distinguished researcher Emmanual Cheraskin and his colleagues conducted a survey of reported total number of clinical symptoms and signs (as judged from the Cornell Medical Index Health Questionnaire) and correlated the findings with average iodine consumption. An intake of approximately 1,000 mcg per day correlated with the lowest number of reported symptoms, that is, the highest level of health. [34]
Abraham and Brownstein argue that the human iodine requirement is 1,500 mcg per day (1.5 mg) which is difficult to achieve without using seaweed, iodized salt or supplementation. They argue that because of widespread bromide and fluoride toxicity, most people today require between 5 and 50
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mg per day, amounts only possible with supplementation; they do note that such supplementation should only be taken under the supervision of a physician to monitor iodine status. [35]
We cannot ignore the many reports of improved health using various types of iodine supplementation – whether through tincture of iodine on the skin, the atomidine protocol recommended by Edgar Cayce or use of iodine/potassium iodide compounds as proposed by Drs. Abraham and Brownstein. Increased exposure to goitrogenic mercury, bromides and fluoride compounds, and soy products ubiquitous in the food supply, coupled with declining levels of thyroid-supporting nutrients such as selenium and vitamin A in modern diets, may explain why some people need much higher levels of iodine than those found in traditional diets. Dr. Brownstein is to be credited with alerting the public to the dangers of bromides increasingly used in processed foods, sodas, vegetable oils, breads and even replacing iodine in teat washes for dairy cows, as well as in thousands of consumer products.
The Abraham protocol does carry a risk of adverse reactions and should be carried out under the supervision of a physician with experience in using it. As these physicians point out, consuming iodine in milligram doses should be coupled with a complete nutritional program that includes adequate amounts of selenium and magnesium, and, they claim, omega-3 fatty acids, and with careful supervision of detoxing reactions. According to Dr. Brownstein, chloride increases renal clearance of bromide and the use of salt or ammonium chloride shortens the time required for bromide detoxification. He recommends oral administration of sodium chloride (6-10 gm per day) or intravenous sodium chloride for increasing the renal clearance of bromide. [31]
Dr. Gaby’s call for a careful study should not be ignored. Not every physician reports the sterling results described by doctors using the Abraham protocol, and some individuals – including this author – have experienced adverse reactions to Lugol’s solution. The study should include a control group and groups using other iodine therapies, such as tincture of iodine on the skin, the atomidine protocol or even oral supplementation with elemental iodine rather than the iodine/potassium iodine combination. Comparison of the iodine-load urine test with the blood test for iodine status in relation to various symptoms of thyroid deficiency is another area begging for further research. Studies involving even a small number of individuals would be helpful in providing further answers to the great iodine debate.
SIDEBARS
Food Sources of Iodine
Plant Foods: Any food grown near the sea is likely to contain iodine, but especially rich sources include asparagus, garlic, lima beans, mushrooms, strawberries, spinach, pineapple and leafy greens. Coconut products, which always grow near the ocean, are good sources of iodine. Blackstrap molasses also provides iodine.
Seafood: Iodine levels vary widely in fish and shellfish, but all seafoods contain some iodine. In published reports, cod, haddock, whiting, oysters and mussels test high. The hepatopancreas (yellow “butter” or “mustard”) in lobster tested as an extremely rich source and it is likely that the hepatopancreas of other saltwater shellfish would contain high levels of iodine as well.
Butter: Butter from cows pastured on iodine-rich soil will contain iodine. Look for butter from farms located near the ocean, or that have used seaweed or fish meal as a soil amendment. The cows should also be fed sea salt. The combination of iodine with selenium and vitamin A in butter make this traditional fat an ideal food for the thyroid gland.
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Seaweed: Levels of iodine in seaweed vary widely according to species and how the seaweed is dried. One study found a huge range of 2-817 mcg iodine per 100 grams. Iodine content is reduced when seaweed is dried in the sun, and iodine may vaporize during cooking and humid storage conditions. Some Asian seaweed dishes contain in excess of 1,100 mcg iodine (Thyroid Oct 2004, 14(10):836-841). Seaweed contains lignans, phytoestrogens that can depress thyroid function. This may explain why thyroid problems (except for goiter) are common among the Japanese, even though they eat a lot of seaweed.
Salt: Five grams (one teaspoon) of unrefined sea salt, a conservative estimate of the amount typically consumed in a day, provides only about 3 mcg iodine; iodized salt provides over 1,500 mcg iodine per five grams. The FDA’s Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) for adults is 1,100 mcg per day; thus, it is possible to greatly exceed the UL by using iodized salt.
Mysteries of the Goiter Belts
The use of iodine supplementation in the goiter belts of the world – and these areas of endemic goiter and associated problems exist in a great many countries – represents one of the first public health initiatives involving treatment of the general population through the addition of a nutrient (in this case iodine) to water or food. “Mass prophylaxis” with iodine was pioneered by two countries, the U.S. and Switzerland. The first controlled experiment took place in the early 1920s in Akron, Ohio, where 5000 school girls took 0.2 g of sodium iodide daily in their drinking water for a period of ten days in the spring and autumn while an equal number of controls drank untreated water. Of those taking the iodide who began the experiment with a normal thyroid, none developed goiter, whereas 50 percent of the controls developed goiter. Following this study, several cities in the Great Lakes region started to add iodide to central water supplies and iodized salt entered the food supply. In Switzerland, many cantons introduced iodized salt, and those districts where it was used experienced a decline almost to zero in the incidence of goiter (http://whqlibdoc.who.int/monograph/WHO_MONO_44_(p443).pdf).
In spite of these successes, mass iodine supplementation programs met with much resistance, especially as side effects emerged. While the programs almost completely eliminated goiter, the prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis increased in areas with iodated water or in those using iodized salt. For example, a threefold increase in autoimmune thyroiditis was noted once iodine deficiency was eliminated in an area of endemic goiter in northwestern Greece, an association confirmed in clinical settings. In one study, dietary restriction of iodine reversed hypothyroidism in twelve of twenty-two patients; seven of the patients with reversed hypothyroidism were re-fed iodine and became hypothyroid again (Anthony P Weetman, Autoimmune Diseases in Endocrinology, pp 50-51).
In addition, further epidemiological studies have cast doubt on the simple association of goiter with iodine deficiency. Recently British researchers compared the distribution of endemic goiter in England and Wales with the distribution of environmental iodine. Despite a very clear goiter belt through the west of England and Wales, they found no patterning in the environmental iodine distribution and concluded that the presence of endemic goiter is no indicator of how iodine is distributed in the environment or vice versa (Stewart AG and others. The Illusion of Environmental Iodine Deficiency. Environmental Geochemistry and Health 25:165-170, 2003). Early observations of goiter belts in Switzerland recorded strange distribution patterns, with villages completely free of goiter next to villages where goiter and cretinism affected many people, and even the promoters of mass iodine supplementation have noted that iodine supplementation works best in conjunction with an improvement of general nutrition.
Like all things in nature, the relationship of iodine status to thyroid health is resistant to simplified explanations. Many other nutrients contribute to thyroid health besides iodine, and numerous
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environmental and industrial toxins can depress thyroid function. And the body’s ability to use iodine almost certainly has a genetic component. The moral: be wary of one-size-fits-all solutions and if you choose to supplement with iodine, be carefully observant of any side effects.
Forms of Iodine
Iodine (I2): Elemental iodine is available in a formulation called Thyactin by TriMedica, described as a “stabilized colloidal iodine preparation.”
Iodide (I-): Elemental iodine is unstable so it usually combines with another element, such as potassium or sodium. Salt is iodized using potassium or sodium iodide. Potassium iodide (KI) is available in tablet form in doses ranging from 0.23 to 130 mg. Lugol’s solution contains 6.3 mg of molecular iodine/iodide per drop; Iodoral tablets contain 12.5 mg iodine/iodide each. Both Lugol’s solution and Iodoral are one-third molecular iodine (5%) and two-thirds potassium iodide (10%). Most formulations of tincture of iodine are a combination of iodine and sodium iodide. Supersaturated potassium iodide (SSKI) contains 19–50 mg of iodide per drop. SSKI tablets are recommended in case of nuclear accident, to protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, but otherwise should be avoided.
Iodate: Iodine in combination with oxygen, such as potassium iodate (KIO3), is considered inferior to potassium iodide in terms of protection against radioactive iodine.
Endogenous Organic Iodine Compounds: In food and in the body, iodine is usually bound with protein compounds. The main iodine-containing compounds in the body are the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4, four iodine atoms joined to tyrosine) and triiodothyronine (T3, three iodine atoms joined to tyrosine).
Synthetic Organic Iodine Compounds: Drugs such as Amiodarone (an antiarrhythmic medication) contain iodine. The simplest organoiodine compound is iodomethane, used as a soil fumigant. More complex iodate compounds include nonylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol-iodine (C17H28I2O2) or Byacin, used as a germicide, as in teat washes.
Detoxified Iodine: Sold as Atomidine, the manufacturing method is called a “modified detoxification process” which involves a stage in which electricity is run through the iodine in saline solution to produce a solution containing free iodine.
Nascent Iodine: Similar to Atomidine, although requiring more electricity and a longer time to produce. The diatomic bond of the iodine molecule is broken and retains a high amount of electromagnetic energy. According to the manufacturer, “once in contact with fluids of the body, the charged atom of iodine starts a process of relaxation where it gradually loses energy over two to three hours.“
Iodine on the Skin
The application of iodine to the skin as a way of iodine supplementation has been a common practice for over one hundred years. In 1932, researchers from the College of Pharmacy at Rutgers University carried out experiments on dogs and rabbits. They determined that, in fact, free iodine does penetrate through unbroken skin, although about 88 percent of the iodine applied evaporates from the surface within three days. Colloidal iodine (I2 in aqueous solution) was found to evaporate more quickly than tincture of iodine (I2 in alcoholic solution), and tincture of iodine evaporated more rapidly than Lugol’s solution (iodine plus potassium iodide). The authors concluded: “… iodine which penetrates through the skin is removed only slowly from within this area into the body, thus forming
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an iodine depot in the skin for several days. In this prolonged retention of iodine within the skin, we see a favorable condition for a possible local prophylactic and therapeutic action.” More recent studies, these involving humans, indicate that application of iodine to the skin is not effective in preventing the uptake of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland; however, it is a slow but effective way to provide iodine supplementation, increasing serum levels at about 10-40 percent compared to oral ingestion (Abrahams, GE. The bioavailability of iodine applied to the skin. www.optimox.com).
Holistic practitioners have also applied iodine to the skin as a way to assess whole body iodine status – the so-called skin iodine patch test. The published data throws doubt on the effectiveness of the iodine patch test as a diagnostic aid. Many factors play a role in the disappearance of the yellow color of iodine from the surface of the skin including ambient temperatures and atmospheric pressure – the iodine will disappear faster in Denver than it will in Los Angeles. And in some people the iodine is reduced to iodide by the skin, which will result in the disappearance of the yellow color because iodide is white. Nevertheless, many have reported that the iodine applied to the skin remains longer after following the practice for several weeks, indicating a kind of saturation effect.
Unfortunately, we have no clinical trials on the use of iodine on the skin, but holistic practitioners have reported good results. For example, from Geoffrey Morell, ND: “A female patient with nodules on the thyroid gland and scheduled to have it removed applied tincture of iodine to the skin for over sixty days, at which point the stain remained for twenty-four hours. Upon reporting to the hospital for the operation, she was told that the nodules had disappeared and the operation was no longer necessary. In another case, a woman saw her visible goiter disappear after many weeks using tincture of iodine on the skin.”
The inefficient uptake of iodine from the skin and slow release can be seen as an advantage for those wishing to safely improve their iodine status without medical supervision. This treatment does not seem to provoke a detoxification reaction that often occurs with oral ingestion of Lugol’s.
Iodine applied to the skin is an excellent treatment for pre-malignant lesions, dark moles, keloid scars and other oddities of the skin. According to Dr. David Derry, “… iodine’s ability to trigger natural cell death (apoptosis) makes it effective against all pre-cancerous skin lesions and likely many cancerous lesions. The local site is replaced with normal skin.” He recommends topical iodine for insect bites as well (iodine4health.com/special/measurement/derry_measurement.htm).
For skin application, use mild tincture of iodine or Lugol’s solution, both available on the Internet.
Atomidine
Atomidine is a stable compound of iodine in a saline solution “that liberates the element in an atomic or nascent state on contact with an excess of solvent, such as the fluids of the body.” The use of Atomidine was popularized by Edgar Cayce, the so-called Sleeping Prophet, who gave medical diagnoses and suggested treatments in a trance. He often recommended the use of Atomidine, produced by Schieffelin & Company in New York, which he referred to as “iodine with the poisons taken out,” for a variety of conditions including thyroid and other glandular problems, sore throat, gum problems and infection (www/iodinesource.com/Excerpts.asp). A typical treatment consisted of “one drop in half a glass of water each morning for five days before the morning meal, leave off ten days, and then take again” or “three to five drops in water morning and evening.” He also recommended Atomidine for use as a gargle, as a douche and in topical preparations. (One intriguing ointment recipe called for adding 10 drops tincture of Benzoin, 5 drops Atomidine and 3 drams powdered snuff to 1 ounce ‘Oil of Butterfat’.”)
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A theme running through Cayce’s writings was the use of Atomidine as a gentle way of “cleansing or purifying the body,” alternating with days when Atomidine was not used. He issued the same precautions for foods containing iodine, especially seafood, which he said should be consumed occasionally but not everyday. In one reading he indicated that seaweed could be toxic because of its high iodine content.
A paper published in the 1930s to promote Atomidine, written by the Schieffelin & Company, is posted on the Internet (www.mnwelldir.org/docs/history/atomidine.htm). According to the report, Atomidine should be diluted when taken “and never given after a starchy meal.” The paper cites many cases of improvement when Atomidine is given for gum problems, as an antiseptic after surgery, gastrointestinal problems, urinary tract infections, high blood pressure, goiter, malaria and tropical fevers, venereal disease, infections of eye, ear, nose and throat, bronchitis and asthma.
Iodine Loading Protocol
Developed by Drs. Guy Abraham and David Brownstein, the protocol involves giving 50 mg iodine/iodide per day as Iodorol® and monitoring the excretion of iodine in the urine. The high levels of iodine/iodide are necessary to replace bromine and fluorine (and also chlorine) that have built up in the tissues, due to years of toxic exposure.
The iodine/iodide loading test is based on the concept that the normally functioning human body has a mechanism to retain ingested iodine until whole body sufficiency for iodine is achieved. During supplementation with iodine, the body progressively adjusts the excretion of iodine to balance the intake. As the iodine content in the body increases, the percentage of the iodine retained decreases, showing up as an increased amount of iodide excreted in the 24-hour urine collection. When whole body sufficiency for iodine is achieved, the absorbed iodine/iodide is excreted as iodide in the urine.
In the U.S. population, the percent of iodine load excreted in the 24-hour urine collection prior to supplementation with iodorol averages 40 percent. After three months of supplementation with 50 mg iodine/iodide per day, (four tablets of Iodoral ) most non-obese subjects not exposed to excess goitrogens achieve whole body iodine sufficiency, arbitrarily defined as 90 percent or more of the iodine load excreted in the 24-hour urine collections.
In addition to monitoring iodine excretion, Brownstein and colleagues also monitor urinary excretion of bromide and fluoride, goitrogenic halogens that the iodide gradually replaces over the course of supplementation. To facilitate the excretion of bromine, Dr. Brownstein recommends a combination of vitamin C, unrefined salt and magnesium, including baths of Epsom salts and sea salt. The patient is advised to avoid all sources of bromine, including fire retardant in carpet, clothing and mattresses, and bromide-treated breads, baked goods and grains. Bromine and chlorine are used extensively in materials in automobiles of recent vintage – in the seats, armrests, door trim, shift knobs – so avoidance of riding in cars with the windows closed is important.
Dr. Brownstein reports numerous benefits from the protocol including reduced need for thyroid medications, reduced allergies, increased energy, reduced fibromyalgia, weight loss, clearing of ovarian cysts and reduction of hypothyroid symptoms such as brain fog. In his experience, side effects including metallic taste in mouth, sneezing, excess saliva and frontal sinus pressure occur in less than 5 percent of patients.
For ongoing thyroid protection, it is important to avoid sources of bromide, fluoride and chloride (including environmental perchlorates, often found in drinking water). That means drinking purified or filtered water instead of tap water, consuming organic food (conventional produce and grains are
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treated with bromide-, chloride- or fluoride-containing pesticides and fumigants), avoiding bromated breads and consuming plenty of unrefined sea salt along with an iodine-rich diet.
Sources: http://www.optimox.com/pics/Iodine/loadTest.htm#6; http://iodine4health.com; http://iodine4health.com/ortho/brownstein_ortho.htm.
Iodine Content of Foods
SOURCE
IODINE CONTENT
mcg/100 g
IODINE CONTENT
per typical serving
Dried Kelp
62,400
31202
Iodized Salt
7,600
15203
Saltwater fish [1]
330
330
Blackstrap Molasses
158
24
Catfish
118
118
Beans, dried
115
58
Seafoods
66
66
Spinach
56
28
Vegetables
30
15
Milk and Milk Products
14
14
Eggs [4]
13
13
Seal Meat
3
3
Seal Blubber
12
12
Seal Kidney
5
5
Seal Liver
10
10
Whale Meat
1
1
Whale Blubber
15
8
Cod Flesh
74
74
Cod Liver
32
32
Wild Fowl
5
5
Caribou [5]
0.4
0.4
Oysters
46
46
Mussels
107
107
Lobster Hepatopancreas [6]
2,250
450
Uniodized sea salt [7]
50
33
Report from Germany
“Here in Germany we are suffering from an epidemic of autoimmune thyroid disease due to the government’s huge campaign to iodize our salt and water. The food industry uses iodized salt for all products. Animal feed and milk is iodized. The German government claims that the earth has no iodine and that natural foods do not contain enough iodine. Even food for fresh water fish is iodized.
“The German thyroid league admits that iodization has caused a rise in autoimmune diseases of the thyroid. About ten million Germans are affected. Doctors tell us about studies showing that these patients should not eat iodized food as it makes their disease worse. Thyroid illnesses are painful and hard to heal. The thyroid gland controls our body’s metabolism. Also, the eyes can be destroyed. The standard therapy is to remove or radiate the sick gland. Then the patient needs thyroid hormones to survive.
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“The sad thing is that most people don’t even know that what they eat is iodized. In Germany iodized salt in packaged food has to be declared but iodine in salt in restaurants or in bread is not labeled.
“The German iodization program is not popular with the public at all. We had it during the Third Reich and it took quite a lot of government campaigning to bring back mass iodization, a public relations campaign to convince people that iodine is healthy and has no dangers at all. Government officials say that people can choose iodized or noniodized salt but no one mentions the hidden salt. In the Third Reich they called it “silent iodization,” to avoid any resistance.
“I have run a self help group for thyroid patients for years now and it is a very difficult situation for patients to not have enough food! It is even difficult to get all the information we need.
“We hear a lot of discussion about fluoride in the water but I am surprised that there is none about iodine. In Germany they sell salt with iodine and fluorine – both affect the metabolism and can damage the thyroid gland. Natural salt has the advantage of giving us minerals we need and in a way that our body can handle instead of the low quality chemistry added to food or water. I know that the healthy thyroid gland needs more than iodine. It also needs vitamins A and C, and many other minerals. A natural diet can offer more benefit for our health and fewer dangers and side effects. The tragedy is that the WHO has started to ban natural foods. In India, Himalayan salt was banned and iodized salt then sold five times as much as natural salt. Poor people can’t afford the natural salt and so many didn’t have any salt at all anymore. The German media reported on protests in India and I don’t know whether natural salt is allowed again.
“Here in Germany, thousands of thyroid patients are signing a petition asking the Bundestag to change the law, and to require iodization labels on packages.”
– Ute Aurin
Reaction to Iodoral
“Three articles appeared recently in The Original Internist concerning clinical research with the use of iodine/iodide in megadoses. Our medical group, consisting of three MDs and one ND/Acupuncturist decided that we should try to find out whether any one of us was iodine-deficient. Our practice is in the Great Lakes region that was described as the ‘Goiter Belt’ by David Brownstein. We therefore followed Brownstein’s recommendation for the iodine/iodide loading test. Five individuals within our office took the test and, by the criteria outlined, we were all iodine-deficient.
“Three of us, two MDs and our Laboratory Director, then proceeded to take the 50 mg of Iodoral a day with the intention of repeating the iodine/iodide loading test after three months of treatment. After about six weeks of continuous treatment, I experienced dysphagia [difficulty swallowing], resulting in lower chest pain on swallowing both food and fluids. This was particularly marked with hot fluids, a totally new experience for me. I told the Laboratory Director that I was going to discontinue taking the Iodoral since I had concluded that it was the potential cause. To my surprise, she told me that she had experienced exactly the same symptom and had also discontinued the treatment. The other two MDs who took the treatment did not experience this symptom. Some four weeks after discontinuation of the Iodoral, we both continue to experience the same kind of dysphagia, although it is much milder. We can only conclude that we experienced some esophagitis though this has not been proved by further study.
“If this is indeed a toxic effect of the Iodoral, we concluded that it needed to be drawn to the attention of the CAM medical community. If the conclusions are correct, we should expect to hear that other ‘guinea pigs’ have experienced something similar. The question remains in our minds as to whether the test outlined by Brownstein is an accurate determination of chronic iodine deficiency. It may well
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be that iodine has a sensitive dose relationship like that which is so well known with selenium, for example, and with other minerals. The question, put so eloquently recently by Alan Gaby is whether we are embarking on a strategy that can be toxic for some while beneficial for those sick individuals reported by Brownstein and his co-author, Guy Abraham. Indeed, as Gaby questioned later, of the 4,000 patients treated by the Michigan Clinic, how many were carefully monitored in detail for potential side effects? Since gastroesophageal reflux (GER) is mentioned in a drug commercial as a common affliction, it might be that some patients who are being treated with high-dose iodine would never conclude that GER might be related to the iodine consumption. It might not be recognized as a side effect even by a physician, since it is so remote from any expected or predicted symptom.”
Derrick Lonsdale M.D., FAAP, FACN, Westlake, Ohio – The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, April 2006
1. Haddock, whiting, herring
2. Assumed serving of 5 g dried kelp (Nutrition in Japan, 1964. Nutrition Section, Bureau of Public Health, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tokyo, Japan, March 1965).
3. Daily intake if 5 g iodized salt consumed.
4. These 11 values from Ensminger AH and others. The Concise Encyclopedia of Foods and Nutrition. CRC Press, 1995, p 587.
5. These 10 values from Anderson S and others. Iodine Content of Traditional Greenlandic Food Items and Tap Water in East and West Greenland. International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2002 61:332-340.
6. These 3 values from Dermelj M and others. Iodine in different food articles and standard reference materials. Fresenius’ Journal of Analytical Chemistry 1990 338:559-561.
7. Aquaron R. Iodine content of non iodized salts and iodized salts obtained from teh retail markets worldwide. http://www.webiodine.com/dl/engl/pdf/lit/4.1.14.pdf.
How Much Iodine?
FDA: The Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) is set at 150 mcg per day for men and women with a Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) of 1,100 mcg per day. This amount would be greatly exceeded by those using even modest amounts of iodized salt.
Traditional Diets: Iodine levels in traditional diets varied widely. Weston Price reports 131-175 mcg for the Inuit (about the level of the DRI) and 25-34 mcg for Canadian Indians (considered very low, although they did not exhibit thyroid problems). Based on the reported values in seaweed, some have claimed levels of 12 mg (12,000 mcg) in Japanese diets, although a published analysis of iodine intake in Japan found a range of 45-1921 mcg per day (J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 1988 Oct;32(5):487-95). Without seaweed, it would be very difficult to exceed 1,000 mcg per day, based on values found in typical traditional foods (see chart, page 47).
Cheraskin Recommendations: In a study of reported daily iodine intake versus reported total number of clinical symptoms and signs (as judged from the Cornell Medical Index Health Questionnaire), an intake of approximately 1,000 mcg per day correlated with the lowest number of reported symptoms, that is, the highest level of health.
Abraham/Brownstein Recommendations: Abraham and Brownstein argue that the iodine
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requirement is 1,500 mcg per day (1.5 mg), which is difficult to achieve without using a species of seaweed high in iodine, iodized salt or supplementation. They believe that because of widespread bromide and fluoride toxicity, most people today actually require between 5 and 50 mg per day, amounts only possible with supplementation, which should only be taken under the supervision of a physician to monitor iodine status.
Commercial Vegetable Oils and the Thyroid Gland
Although Dr. Weston Price found healthy populations groups that consumed fairly low levels of iodine, studies indicate that in modern times, most people do best at the upper end of the scale, taking in around 1,000 mcg per day. Often overlooked in this discussion are the many factors in the modern diet that depress thyroid function and increase our need for iodine – not only exposure to halogens like fluroide, chloride and bromide, but also deficiencies in vitamin A, vitamin B6, selenium and magnesium. Reduced exposure to halogens and abundant intake of these key nutrients probably reduces our requirements for iodine.
Another modern dietary factor that interferes with thyroid function is the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids from commercial vegetable oils – by some estimates these omega-6 fatty acids contribute 20 percent of calories in “civilized” diets. As pointed out by Stephen Guyenet in his Whole Health Source blog, omega-6 fatty acids may suppress thyroid signaling. He cites studies showing that corn oil greatly suppresses the liver’s response to T4 when compared to lard, safflower oil suppresses the liver’s response to T3 when compared to beef tallow, and linoleic acid suppresses the response of brown fat and the liver to T3. The liver is one of the main sites of thyroid hormone-responsive heat production. In fact, in the 1970s researchers were considering omega-6 lineleic acid as a treatment for hyperthyroidism.
Thus it is likely that those who avoid commercial vegetable oils and minimize omega-6 consumption, while emphasizing intake of nutrient-dense animal fats like butter and cod liver oil, would have iodine requirements much lower than 1,000 mcg per day, and would be able to meet their iodine requirements with a diet of whole foods, especially one containing sea food.