Iodine

[Kierkegaard]

I'm currently finishing Brownstein's book on iodine as well as Lynne Farrow's The Iodine Crisis. Both books recommend 12-50 milligrams of iodine, compared to the RDA which is 100 micrograms, for pretty much everyone. The oft-cited study about Japanese reveals that they consume around 13-14 mg of iodine per day. And yes, there is plenty of controversy regarding high iodine dosing.

After thinking about it a lot (including the arguments against high-dose iodine), I'm ordering an iodine loading test, which includes measuring bromide and fluoride. This is considered the best test by Brownstein and his colleagues. Blood testing seems unreliable, because the ranges don't take into account that we've reduced iodine by 50% in the last forty years, and all ranges reflect a 95% of a sample for any given population -- meaning blood testing should have too-low ranges for what's appropriate with iodine levels.

Furthermore, as Brownstein points out (and IMO is the most important section in his book), iodine is a halogen, and halogens compete fiercely with one another, the others being bromide, flouride, chloride, and astatine. Bromide in particular is considered problematic, because it has replaced what were previously sources of iodine in the American diet; in the 70s it replaced iodine in bread and baking goods, and iodized salt has low bioavailability, meaning it doesn't get into your cells as good as iodized bread, which is no longer available. Bromide is also all over the place, such as in flame retardants.

Back to blood testing: serum levels of iodine might tell you absolutely nothing, or even give you a false idea of security, because it doesn't take into account the effect of bromide and other halogens in knocking iodine off its receptors; anything knocked off its receptors goes where? Yeah, back to the serum, raising the level of iodine in the blood because it isn't being utilized by the cells. People with thyroid resistance have this problem, where seemingly normal or high free thyroid levels actually mask real thyroid symptoms because the thyroid hormones aren't getting into the cells.

So blood testing seems to be pretty useless. That's why spot urine testing or better yet iodine loading comes in. The latter involves taking 50 mg of iodine and then collecting urine for 24 hours; according to Abraham and Brownstein, you should have a 90% saturation rate of iodine, which would be reflected in excreting this much iodine in the urine. But according to Brownstein, of the over 1,000 patients he's tested, about 95% fail this criterion, many by a longshot, and all of his patients have bromide levels that are too high.

Finally, even though iodine is associated with the thyroid, it's actually a chemical that's utilized by every cell in the body, including especially prostrate cells for men, breast tissue for women, and thyroid for both.

The big question, though, is dosing. Japanese studies point out 13-14 mg is okay, and Brownstein and Abraham note huge successes with 12-50 mg because extra iodine is needed to kick off halogens that were previously occupying iodine receptors. That said, even though this is nonparametic data (been waiting all day to say that fancy phrase), the reviews of Iorodal's 12.5 mg pills are pretty incredible (and many of the low-rating reviews are because of price issues and ignorance about detox reactions). Combine this with the thousands of positive responses of even higher doses with Brownstein and his colleagues and it seems like high dose iodine can be very much needed for many people. But far from all, because again this is all relative to 1) basic requirements (e.g., Japanese consumption), 2) levels needed to displace other halogens, and 3) other health conditions, such as Hashimoto's. According to Brownstein, you have the best chance for success by taking 100 mg B2, 500 mg B3, 4-10 g of vitamin C, 100-200 mcg selenium, and consuming 1-2 teaspoons of unrefined sea salt (which limits bromide toxicity symptoms) while doing the iodine protocol.

My plan is to start low and go slow, using one drop of Lugol's 2% solution (equal to 2.5 mg of iodine) and going up from there. I've had hypothyroid symptoms for years, despite supplementing with selenium, iron, and up to 30 mg of hydrocortisone per day.

All that jibberjabber aside, has anyone had any responses to iodine supplementation (Iodoral, Lugol's, etc.)?

 

[David Jackson]

Hi there,

I read some of the Iodine literature like Brownstein's work, and was inspired to try it; this was probably about 2 years ago, now. Naturopaths were doing saliva Iodine tests on me, and always finding that my Iodine levels were very low. They told me I would not recover until I fixed this. So, I have it a shot; I think at one point I was taking around 30mg of Lugol's per day. The only time that I ever noticed anything from it was in the first few days that I started taking it; when I got the bromide detox symptoms that are mentioned. And, yes, a salt solution did banish them.

Regardless of how much Iodine I took, my saliva levels never improved, and it was all coming out in my urine. After different things to try and absorb it, I just gave up after some time and focused on other things. I've made a good deal of improvement since then, mostly from subtle energy healing work, of all things, like auras, chakras, Qi, prana, frequencies, etc. I've been meaning to give the Iodine another go, since I was measuring very low on the tests.

Would you mind reporting back to this thread with your experiences, and any test results you get done for Iodine? I'd be interested to hear...

 

[Kierkegaard]

Hi there,

I read some of the Iodine literature like Brownstein's work, and was inspired to try it; this was probably about 2 years ago, now. Naturopaths were doing saliva Iodine tests on me, and always finding that my Iodine levels were very low. They told me I would not recover until I fixed this. So, I have it a shot; I think at one point I was taking around 30mg of Lugol's per day. The only time that I ever noticed anything from it was in the first few days that I started taking it; when I got the bromide detox symptoms that are mentioned. And, yes, a salt solution did banish them.

Regardless of how much Iodine I took, my saliva levels never improved, and it was all coming out in my urine. After different things to try and absorb it, I just gave up after some time and focused on other things. I've made a good deal of improvement since then, mostly from subtle energy healing work, of all things, like auras, chakras, Qi, prana, frequencies, etc. I've been meaning to give the Iodine another go, since I was measuring very low on the tests.

Would you mind reporting back to this thread with your experiences, and any test results you get done for Iodine? I'd be interested to hear...

I'd be happy to. I have to order the loading test, and then immediately after taking it I'll start Lugol's.

Maybe you weren't taking enough? Brownstein reports his patients taking up to 100 mg. Were you also taking the supplements mentioned above? The B2 and B3 are ATP cofactors that are also needed for organification of iodine, according to Brownstein.

But it seems like SOMETHING happened if you got detox effects. I also know nothing about saliva measures; Brownstein says the only reliable measures are spot urine and urine loading tests. Do you have any symptoms of hypothyroidism?

I just found this incredible remark by Dr Sherry Tenpenny from her talk uploaded to Youtube on iodine, where she's talking about people with normal free T3/T4 but slightly elevated TSH (e.g., 2.5-4, which fits me perfectly) but still have hypothyroid symptoms: "This is really an iodine deficiency issue, especially [if patients complain of hypothyroid symptoms]...the TSH is going up because it's trying to capture all the iodine that's floating around up there as best as it can, and it's trying to put it into the tissues, particularly for the thyroid."

 

[David Jackson]

Maybe you weren't taking enough? Brownstein reports his patients taking up to 100 mg.

Quite possibly I was not taking enough. Each Iodine test was costing me $100, and the Naturopaths were costing a lot to, just to talk to them. Every test was saying I was not absorbing any of the Iodine I was taking; meanwhile, I was getting really good benefits from these subtle energy healing techniques that alternative practitioners were giving me for free! So I just got frustrated with the whole Iodine thing and all the Naturopaths, and I haven't been back yet. Still seeing the alternative healers, and still getting benefit.

So, yeah, I didn't do it exactly like Dr. Brownstein would have liked... I just got frustrated, and said, to hell with this for now.

Were you also taking the supplements mentioned above? The B2 and B3 are ATP cofactors

Yes, I was taking them. Again, maybe not enough of them, and maybe not enough Iodine? I would have to replicate things with more patience to know for sure, really.

But it seems like SOMETHING happened if you got detox effects.

Yes, something happened for sure, but just that first weekend that I really started taking a decent amount. I can't remember how much; maybe 10mg or something. It was like the worst brain fog ever, and I just lost all motivation to do anything... finally it occurred to me that this might be the Iodine doing it's detox; I took some salt and it cleared up very quickly. That lasted a few days, and that was all that ever happened. Initially, this encouraged me to take lots, but then I never saw any further effect.

One Naturopath was saying it takes a long time to correct Iodine deficiency, another was saying I needed to eat seaweed instead, another was saying I needed to do some kind of detox before I could absorb Iodine... like I said, I was just like, damn all this!

I also know nothing about saliva measures; Brownstein says the only reliable measures are spot urine and urine loading tests.

I am in New Zealand, and this is what the Naturopaths here use. You take no Iodine at all for 24 hours, and then you measure the amount in your saliva and in your urine. It's meant to give you a reading of how much is in your body, and how much the body is excreting. I do not know it's reliability.

I went on curezone.org, and ask the Iodine people what they thought of all this; some of them doubted the reliability of the saliva test. You said you were ordering your test; can you tell me where in the world you are, and where you ordered the test from?

Do you have any symptoms of hypothyroidism?

Well, yes, but so do most with CFS... which is interesting for Iodine supplementation.

I haven't had a blood test done in a long time, but the last one I did, which was around the time I was trying the Iodine, my TSH was 1.3. My T3 was 4.4 and my T4 was 18.1. I'm planning on getting some bloodwork done soon, so it will be interesting to see what they are now.

 

[Hip]

Back to blood testing: serum levels of iodine might tell you absolutely nothing, or even give you a false idea of security, because it doesn't take into account the effect of bromide and other halogens in knocking iodine off its receptors

As far as I am aware, there is no such thing as an iodine receptor.

According to this article:

Iodine is taken up on the basolateral side of the thyroid epithelial cells by sodium-iodide symporters.

So sodium-iodide symporter would appear to be the correct terminology for the cellular machinery that takes up iodine from the blood, rather than "receptor". A symporter is a transport device located on the cellular membrane that transports molecules across this membrane.


This study found that:

In rats, bromine inhibits:

iodine uptake by the thyroid gland,
oxidation of iodide to iodine,
incorporation of iodine to tyrosine residues,
coupling of tyrosine to thyronine,
and, as a consequence, leads to increased TSH secretion.

However, the inhibitory effect of bromine in patients is sufficiently slight as to be compatible with the absence of detectable effects of a high intake of bromine on the thyroid gland of healthy volunteers

 

[Gingergrrl]

Interesting thread and for some reason iodine and careegenen is the only thing I am still allergically reactive to (that I know of.) It must be very high histamine?

 

[Kierkegaard]

As far as I am aware, there is no such thing as an iodine receptor.

According to this article:


So sodium-iodide symporter would appear to be the correct terminology for the cellular machinery that takes up iodine from the blood, rather than "receptor". A symporter is a transport device located on the cellular membrane that transports molecules across this membrane.

Yeah, I'm not finding much in the research to support an iodine receptor either. I'm still learning here. Perhaps it's a matter of iodine affecting other receptors, e.g., hormone receptors?

This study

found that:

I tried looking up the source that backs this claim and could only come up with an abstract:

Sodium bromide was administered orally in capsules to healthy volunteers in doses of 0, 4 or 9 mg Br-/kg/day using a double-blind design. Each treatment was given to seven males for 12 weeks and to seven non-pregnant females (not using oral contraceptives) over three full cycles. Special attention was paid to possible effects on the endocrine and central nervous systems. At the start and end of the study, a full medical history, the results of a physical examination, haematological studies and standard clinical chemistry and urine analyses were recorded for each subject. These showed no changes for individuals following treatment, except for some incidence of nausea associated with bromide-capsule ingestion. Mean plasma-bromide concentrations at the end of treatment were 0.08, 2.14 and 4.30 mmol/litre for males and 0.07, 3.05 and 4.93 mmol/litre for females of the 0-, 4- and 9-mg Br-/kg/day groups, respectively. Plasma half-life was about 10 days. In the females taking 9 mg Br-/kg/day (but in no other group) there was a significant (P less than 0.01) increase in serum thyroxine and triiodothyronine between the start and end of the study but all concentrations remained within normal limits. No changes were observed in serum concentrations of free thyroxine, thyroxine-binding globulin, cortisol, oestradiol, progesterone or testosterone, or of thyrotropin, prolactin, luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone before or after the administration of thyrotropin-releasing hormone and LH-releasing hormone. Analysis of neurophysiological data (EEG and visual evoked response) showed a decrease in delta 1- and delta 2-activities and increases in beta-activities and in mean frequency (Mobility parameter) in the groups on 9 mg Br-/kg/day, but all the findings were within normal limits.
​

Seems relatively harmless, but in a paper by Guy Abraham, he reveals more deleterious effects not mentioned in the abstract:

The lowest serum bromide levels that will result in significant mental and physical symptoms is at the present unknown. Fuortes(60) proposed 30 mg/L as the highest non-toxic level of serum bromide. In 1938, Clark (61) reported that small doses of bromide resulted in dullness, apathy, and inability to concentrate. Sangster, et al,(62) evaluated the effect of daily oral ingestion of bromide for three months at 4 mg/kg BW and 9 mg/kg BW in seven male and seven female volunteers. At the 4 mg/kg BW level, five of the seven males complained of increased sleepiness and decreased ability to concentrate. Decreased amplitude of brain waves in the temporal and central areas were observed in these subjects. Mean serum bromide levels pre-intervention were 5.6 mg/L for the males and 4.8 mg/L for the female subjects. Under steady state conditions at 12 weeks post-intervention, the mean serum bromide levels were 160 mg/L for the seven male subjects and 240 mg/L for the seven female subjects. These levels of serum bromide associated with the above symptoms were much lower than the arbitrarily set limit of 500 mg/L for bromide toxicity.
​

Regarding the 500 mg/L limit, he states earlier in the paper:

By toxicological standards, serum levels of bromide below 500 mg/L are considered non-toxic; 500-1,000 mg/L, possibly toxic; 1,000-2,000 mg/L, serious toxicity; 2,000-3,000 mg/L, coma; greater than 3,000 mg/L, possibly fatal.(53) There is a gray zone between the upper limit of normal serum bromide, that is 12 mg/L, and the lower limit of serum bromide considered toxic, that is 500 mg/L. This gray zone needs further investigation.
​

So it seems like the source you cited doesn't really come close to this 500 mg/L limit, and there are indeed symptoms (at least according to Abraham's reading of the paper; I don't have access to the full paper) that went with the ingestion of bromide, which would actually fit with the changes in neurophysiological data mentioned in the abstract. I don't get why the stuff in the Sangster et al. paper wasn't mentioned in the abstract.

As for changes in thyroid, this paper's abstract points out that, "it is also known that iodine deficiency may give rise to clinical symptoms of hypothyroidism without abnormality of thyroid hormone values." So considerations of iodine deficiency in a clinical setting shouldn't hinge on thyroid blood values -- another reason to follow an actual physical evaluation when making a thyroid diagnosis -- and relevant to the paper you cited, bromine (which in this case wasn't completely clinically relevant, not reaching the 500 mg/L limit, despite significant symptoms not reported in the abstract that were in the bowels of the paper itself) or other halogens might do their damage without even changing thyroid blood values. Scary stuff.

As an interesting aside, the late John Lowe (a chiropractor who knew more about thyroid than virtually all MDs out there), who had thyroid hormone resistance himself, considers a possible treatment for CFS to be supraphysiological doses of T3/cytomel, enough to "cause an endocrinologist to have a heart attack." This is a position also held by another thyroid expert, Kent Holorf. Not only is TSH a lousy indicator of thyroid disease; all thyroid blood values are potentially useless on a case-by-case basis given possible receptor issues (whether we're talking iodine and halogens or just plain 'ol hypothyroidism), not least of all because of the ranges which reflect 95% of a population itself probably has a good chunk that has hypothyroidism, meaning the ranges should actually be contracted a good deal insofar as they're useful at all.

 

[Kierkegaard]

Yes, something happened for sure, but just that first weekend that I really started taking a decent amount. I can't remember how much; maybe 10mg or something. It was like the worst brain fog ever, and I just lost all motivation to do anything... finally it occurred to me that this might be the Iodine doing it's detox; I took some salt and it cleared up very quickly. That lasted a few days, and that was all that ever happened. Initially, this encouraged me to take lots, but then I never saw any further effect.

One Naturopath was saying it takes a long time to correct Iodine deficiency, another was saying I needed to eat seaweed instead, another was saying I needed to do some kind of detox before I could absorb Iodine... like I said, I was just like, damn all this!

There's clearly more research that needs to be done regarding iodine. The stuff I've been looking at seems contradictory and complicated, especially regarding dosage.

I am in New Zealand, and this is what the Naturopaths here use. You take no Iodine at all for 24 hours, and then you measure the amount in your saliva and in your urine. It's meant to give you a reading of how much is in your body, and how much the body is excreting. I do not know it's reliability.

I went on curezone.org, and ask the Iodine people what they thought of all this; some of them doubted the reliability of the saliva test. You said you were ordering your test; can you tell me where in the world you are, and where you ordered the test from?

I'm in the US, Texas. I'll be ordering from Hakala Labs, and it sounds like the same test you're describing where you take 50 mg of iodine and do a 24 hour urine collection, which Brownstein and others in the iodine movement consider the gold standard. Even if it isn't the gold standard, it's got to be plenty better than bloodwork for reasons I've mentioned above.

Well, yes, but so do most with CFS... which is interesting for Iodine supplementation.

I haven't had a blood test done in a long time, but the last one I did, which was around the time I was trying the Iodine, my TSH was 1.3. My T3 was 4.4 and my T4 was 18.1. I'm planning on getting some bloodwork done soon, so it will be interesting to see what they are now.

Those are in pmol/L, right? Do you have the ranges for the T3 and T4, and are those total or free numbers?

I mentioned in my last post how Dr Lowe and other docs believe in starting PWCs on T3 meds, believing that some PWCs can have thyroid hormone resistance. It'd be hard finding a doc willing to take that shot, though.

I've tried doses of T4 only, T4 with slow-release T3, and naturally dessicated thyroid, and except for now with slight success at 50 mcg T4 they all caused me to feel more fatigued with worse brain fog and muscle weakness -- not what you associate with iatrogenic hyperthyroidism, or hypothyroidism with insufficient cortisol or iron, where the symptoms are anxiety, too much energy, etc. I then went on to try selenium, up to 30 mg of hydrocortisone, and am currently trying to raise my ferritin to around 150 at one excellent doc's recommendation by taking iron, but so far nothing gives. This is why I think iodine might be something to try, especially given my history of slight goiters at seemingly random times.

Actually, I'm on testosterone replacement therapy, and notice that I have low tolerance for estradiol (the main and most potent form of estrogen), and if I go beyond 25 or 30 pg/ml (which for the vast majority of guys on TRT is no problem at all) I start having worse symptoms of hypothyroidism, and so I started feeling really bad after being on TRT for the first few months because my dosage and injection schedule were too high and too infrequent, respectively, causing huge increases in estradiol. Estradiol is bad because it increases thyroid-binding globulin, which lowers free thyroid hormone levels. So then I lower my dose and start a supplement called diindolylmethane, or DIM, which changes the metabolites of estradiol (lowering "bad" cancer-promoting estrogens and increasing "good" ones), and two days into it I notice a sudden increase in clarity and reduction in brain fog, which later resulted (after lowering my dose a bit more) in two weeks of feeling outstanding -- better than I've ever felt, and then things very, very gradually started getting worse and worse over the next two years.

My suspicion is that DIM, which is made up of cruciferous vegetables, which are goitrogens and also are known to inhibit the uptake of iodine, in addition to taking thyroid hormone (which also, according to data presented by Brownstein, lowers iodine), has caused gradual reduction in iodine. I've been down enough dead ends to get my hopes up, but if this doesn't take care of my hypothyroid symptoms, I really have no idea what's going on. Once you try iron, selenium, cortisol, and iodine, there's little left for thyroid cofactors.

 

[Kierkegaard]

Interesting thread and for some reason iodine and careegenen is the only thing I am still allergically reactive to (that I know of.) It must be very high histamine?

Or the fillers. What are your reactions? They could be part of detoxification from halogens.

 

[David Jackson]

Those are in pmol/L, right? Do you have the ranges for the T3 and T4, and are those total or free numbers?

These were my levels, ages ago:

TSH: 1.3 mIU/L ( 0.4-4 )
T3: 4.4 pmol/L ( 2.5-6 )
T4: 18.1 pmol/L ( 10-24 )

I've been down enough dead ends to get my hopes up, but if this doesn't take care of my hypothyroid symptoms, I really have no idea what's going on. Once you try iron, selenium, cortisol, and iodine, there's little left for thyroid cofactors.

Yes, I've felt like that too, at times. I was very relieved just to be able to get some improvements from simple techniques to improve my body's subtle energies; I left all of the supplementation speculation behind for a while. Will probably have to return to it eventually, though.

Well, I hope that the test gives you some answers, and the Iodine gives you some results! Please let us know what you find; I, for one would be interested to hear, because I do intend to go back to the Iodine at some stage.

 

[Kierkegaard]

These were my levels, ages ago:

TSH: 1.3 mIU/L ( 0.4-4 )
T3: 4.4 pmol/L ( 2.5-6 )
T4: 18.1 pmol/L ( 10-24 )

Aw man, those are total levels, not free. There's no telling what your actual free T3 and free T4 levels are. You should ask your doc about getting them pulled. You can't make diagnoses based on bloodwork without looking at free levels.

Yes, I've felt like that too, at times. I was very relieved just to be able to get some improvements from simple techniques to improve my body's subtle energies; I left all of the supplementation speculation behind for a while. Will probably have to return to it eventually, though.

Well, I hope that the test gives you some answers, and the Iodine gives you some results! Please let us know what you find; I, for one would be interested to hear, because I do intend to go back to the Iodine at some stage.

Regarding your difficulty with supplementation, I found this passage from Brownstein's book right up your alley:

Iodine may be absorbed through the intestines resulting in an elevated serum level of iodine, but the target cells are unable to uptake the iodine. This can occur if the NIS and/or the pendrin transporter systems are damaged. Certain goitrogens, such as bromide, can bind to the NIS causing damage to the transport system. The end result of this damage would be iodine deficiency in the target cell.​

He then goes on to discuss a case study of a guy who started with 12.5 mg iodine and didn't feel any better, and it turned out his salivary/serum level was low at 9.3 (should be 42 according to Brownstein), and that increasing his dose to 50 mg caused an immediate boost in energy. He also cites a study he and Abraham did on repairing an iodine transport defect with vitamin C and unrefined sea salt. Here's the study if you're interested: http://www.optimox.com/iodine-study-11

So maybe increasing your dose is what's needed? I can't tell you that.

 

[David Jackson]

I've been meaning to read his stuff; thanks for that quote.

What do you mean about the free levels of T3 and T4?

 

[David Jackson]

I looked at the test results, and this is what they said:

T3 (Free): 4.4 pmol/L ( 2.5-6 )
Free T4: 18.1 pmol/L ( 10-24 )

And I am just copy and pasting from the lab results here...

 

[Kierkegaard]

I looked at the test results, and this is what they said:

T3 (Free): 4.4 pmol/L ( 2.5-6 )
Free T4: 18.1 pmol/L ( 10-24 )

And I am just copy and pasting from the lab results here...

Okay, I was just having a problem with the conversions. In the states we typically use pg/mL for free T3 and ng/dL for free T4. With that conversion in mind I came up with 2.9 pg/mL (2.0-4.4) for free T3 and 1.41 ng/dL (0.82-1.77) for free T4 (I included the ranges on my own labs).

Your free T3 is on the lower side. You might benefit from a trial with naturally dessicated thyroid or (assuming you convert T4 to T3 well) levothyroxine. My doctor likes to see free T3 at at least 3.3, and TSH should be below 1. These are just his suggestions.

 

[David Jackson]

OK, thanks. Well, these were taken a long time ago; there is no telling what they are now. I'm intending to get some more done in a week or two.

 

[Hip]

I tried looking up the source that backs this claim and could only come up with an abstract:

You may be interested that you can access the full text of most papers these days via Sci Hub. For the paper you were looking at, the full version is here.

So it seems like the source you cited doesn't really come close to this 500 mg/L limit,

In this study on 183 randomly picked healthy individuals, they found blood bromine levels range from 2.5 to 11.7 mg/L. And here it states that maximum blood concentration of bromine range up to 15 to 30 mg/L.

So outside of poisoning and industrial exposures, I wouldn't have thought you are going to get near 500 mg/L.



In my own tests taking iodine supplements (12 mg of iodine + 12 mg of iodide daily), I find that this boosts my energy and motivation a bit, but I notice it takes around 10 days of this iodine supplementation before the energy-boosting benefits kick in.

Then when I stop taking iodine, I find it takes around 3 days before I notice my energy begins to decline.



Note that iodine supplements and tinctures usually consist of not just iodine, but also iodide, in the form of potassium iodide or sodium iodide. For example, each 12.5 mg tablet of Iodoral® iodine contains 5 mg of iodine, and then a further 7.5 mg of iodine as potassium iodide.

I believe one reason that iodine supplements and tinctures are formulated with both iodine (I2) and potassium iodide (KI) is because iodine is normally only slightly soluble in water, but the addition of KI to the water allows much more iodine to dissolve. Ref: 1



Though in any case, it seems that orally consumed iodine is mostly converted into iodide in the stomach; here it says that:

Iodine appears to be inactivated by combination with gastrointestinal contents. Absorption is poor due to rapid conversion of iodine to iodide. (Reynolds, 1989; Gilman et al., 1990).

And here it says:

When taken by mouth iodine is rapidly converted to iodide and is stored in the thyroid as thyroglobulin. Iodine reaches the blood stream mainly in form of iodide, and it is incorporated into the thyroglobulin form in the thyroid gland.

So when you supplement with iodine + potassium iodide, it seems that most of the supplement reaches the blood as iodide.

Having said that, this paper found that in iodine-deficient rats, administration of iodine (I2) seemed to have effects in different tissue compartments compared to administration of iodide (I-): iodide seemed more effective at targeting the thyroid gland; whereas iodine was more effective at targeting the mammary glands.

The authors provided a possible explanation for this:

Peroxidase is required to convert I- to elemental I2 for organification in the iodine pathway of the thyroid gland. Mammary glands have modest amounts of peroxidase, whereas the thyroid has abundant quantities.

So in other words, because the thyroid gland has lots of peroxidase, this gland can more easily convert iodide back to iodine, and thus make full use of the iodide in the blood.



I am not sure that the energy-boosting benefits I observed with iodine supplementation actually come from the effects of iodine on metabolism. I have a chronic recurrent urinary tract / kidney infection, and when it flairs up, I noticed a considerable increase in fatigue, which often occurs in urinary tract infections.

Now it just so happens that potassium iodine has strong antibiotic effects in urinary tract infections; so I wonder if my increase in energy after 10 days of iodine / potassium iodide supplementation actually comes from bringing my urinary tract infection under better control.

Possibly iodine / potassium iodide supplementation might also help reduce gut infections and dysbiosis.



I have also tried low dose triiodothyronine (T3) supplementation, up to 15 mcg daily (although by a standard thyroid hormone test, I am not hypothyroid). This did not seem to provide any benefits, and I am guessing that if I was low in T3, I would have felt better on this low dose T3 regimen.

 

[bluelemonade]

Last year I started taking iodine and slowly, over about two months, got up to 12.5 mg. I started with iodine drops of 150mcg. Then I used Lugol's 2% which have about 3,000mcg per drop. That gave me more control over building up slowly. Then I bought Iodoral tablets which are 12.5 per tablet, but you can also break them in half if you want. I took the high iodine doses for about six months. My top dose was 25mg a day. Then I slowly started to taper off. Several times during the taper period I felt bad so I had to increase iodine and tinker around with my other supplements before trying to taper again.

Throughout all of this, I was also experimenting with vitamins and minerals. Now I think it's important not to look at iodine alone, but to look at iodine along with all the other vitamins because they all work together. If you are low in something, you might not be able to get iodine into the thyroid, for example, and you'll just pee it out. I think this is why different people have such different results with iodine, because it really depends on other nutrients, and I don't think it's been studied enough to know which ones.

I got into this because of sudden deteriorating health and not getting any help from the five different specialists I tried seeing. Eventually I did get diagnosed with a thyroid issue, with a TSH of 9.5 at that time. But that was only AFTER I figured it out on my own, and then specifically demanded that test. By the time of the TSH of 9.5, I was even feeling much much better. Prior to that I had lost my voice for weeks, had chest pain, edema, high blood pressure, and other hypothyroid symptoms which came on very quickly. The iodine stopped the progression of all of that and I felt so much better. So I declined the medication and decided to keep going on my own with my iodine and various foods and vitamins. I tried to be very scientific in my self-treating so I could figure out what was going on.

I bought all of the vitamins separately, instead of a multi-vitamin, because I wanted to control the form and amount of the vitamin and I wanted to know what effects each had on me. I didn't start out that way, but over time, after a lot of reading, it seemed like the only way to control how much I was getting of various things. I also kept a journal daily of everything I was feeling so I could look back and tell what worked and what didn't. And here's what I learned from my personal experience, which seems to be supported in the research I found on pubmed as well:

The b-vitamins are very much related to your absorption and use of iodine. I noticed that when I was dealing with low B2 (riboflavin) and B6, I had to increase my iodine intake just to feel normal, not have a headache or feel tired. When I was low in certain b-vitamins but taking high amounts of iodine, my salivary glands swelled up slightly.

You need iodine to make saliva. Your salivary glands will pick up a lot of iodine if it's not taken up by the thyroid first. In fact, by paying attention to my salivary glands, I got a lot of information. They would kind of ache sometimes, and then I might notice later in the day that my mouth was dry and I knew I was low in iodine. I would take more iodine and feel better, and the dry mouth would go away. But sometimes I had way too much saliva!

At one point during the last year, I read this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23378454 And I read this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17921382

I started taking oil based vitamin A (retinyl palmitate), about 25,000IU a day, and that significantly improved my symptoms. Before the retinyl, I felt very sensitive to changes in my daily iodine intake. After a few months of vitamin A supplementation, I could skip several days of iodine, and then take a big dose of iodine, and not have it affect me very much. The World Health Organization has done some research on vitamin A and goiter if you're interested in searching up that research.

Iron also affected me. You need iron to incorporate iodine into thyroid hormone. Iron was the easiest to figure out because you can just ask for your ferritin levels to be checked. I felt better when my ferritin rose above 40.

Zinc also affected me, and that's probably because of it's relationship to vitamin A and B6.

I noticed a difference as well from vitamin D. That one is also easy because everyone tests for it now.

Selenium and vitamin E are written about in the research on iodine, but I didn't personally experience a relationship. Probably I wasn't deficient in those.

One of the most amazing things I noticed which I think is specifically from the iodine and the B6, is that the three breast lumps which had appeared in the last two years have now completely gone away. They didn't go away from iodine at first, only after adding B6. My breast lumps were biopsied and were fibroadenomas and I was told they would be there forever unless I had them removed. Well, now they are gone. I'm actually looking forward to my mammogram so I can tell my OB about iodine and B6, even though I expect she won't believe it.

My mother-in-law also did the iodine tablets and her thyroid nodules are completely gone. Her radiologist said he's never seen that happen in his 20 years of practice. But when my MIL told him about the iodine, he completely dismissed it. It's so sad because it's such a cheap and safe thing to try.

Just a last note, green tea, black tea and white tea all contain fluoride which will get into your tea and will interfere with the endocrine system. Organic tea has this problem too.

 

[Little Bluestem]

However, the inhibitory effect of bromine in patients is sufficiently slight as to be compatible with the absence of detectable effects of a high intake of bromine on the thyroid gland of healthy volunteers

Many of us here are not healthy.

 

[frog_in_the_fog]

Being that I have a history of hyperthyroid, would taking high dose iodine be a bad idea? I have been avoiding iodine.

 

[Kierkegaard]

Being that I have a history of hyperthyroid, would taking high dose iodine be a bad idea? I have been avoiding iodine.

Actually, you might look up the research on using low-dose lithium to reverse hyperthyroidism. It might be lithium orotate, which is over the counter, but it might be the pharmaceutical version. As for iodine, I'm not sure but think it's possible as a treatment. Your best bet would be to find an iodine-savvy doc and see his or her opinion.