THE NEGLECTED SUPPLEMENT CAPABLE OF CHANGING LIVES
…Why does this supplement continue to be controversial, when the alternative health community is reaping so many rewards from it?
I have found that taking iodine, only of the nascent variety mentioned below, to be of huge value for overall health and possible weight/fat management. Everyone’s need for iodine is different, so the results and how it’s supplementation impacts a person will of course vary greatly. Although this info applies to everyone, it applies especially to women.
If you are suffering from low energy constantly and have had some weight gain recently, there are a couple easy tests you can do to help determine if you may have a thyroid issue. And even if you do not, it is in my opinion, too often beneficial to supplement with iodine slowly and experimentally, to see how you may benefit from its use.
To test, the first would be the obvious bulging around the bottom half of the throat. There should be no protrusion in the area at all from mid-neck down to your collar bone. A more reliable test would be to take your under arm temperature each morning immediately upon awakening, before you actually get up out of your bed (I personally do not sleep on a bed, a topic for another time). Take the temperature each morning for ten minutes with no movement, for a week, then average the numbers out. If the average is below normal body temperature (approximately 97.8 to 98.2), your thyroid may be struggling.
Also note whether you feel cold readily during the day.
The form of iodine I suggest is one you can readily research yourself. I personally do not agree with using iodized salt as a way of getting the iodine we need. I believe the sodium burden is just too large, and I discuss a much much healthier salt option (crystal salt, not sea salt) as my go-to full-trace-mineral-spectrum salt that I can enjoy on my food liberally, with only very minimal excess sodium concern.
In my opinion, no other form of iodine should be used to obtain the supplemental iodine except the nascent variety, since the nascent iodine is not in an ionic form, and is actually a diatomic atom that duplicates the iodine that our biology is most used to using. This even includes not using food sources of iodine (green foods from the sea for example) due to the heavy metals present almost by default in the pollution-riddled fresh and salt waters of our day.
The controversy: “taking too much iodine is poisonous.” This applies to almost any supplement. The problem we in the western diet (spread all over the world now) have run up against is a huge imbalance between healthy levels of iodine, and the overloading of the other halides mentioned above due to water and diet exposure. In parts of Asia, their iodine intake is easily twenty times what ours is. And they have the corresponding health benefits to demonstrate this.
Almost everyone notices results supplementing with nascent iodine. Again, reason being the western diet as well as our water supply. Our water commonly contains both chlorine and fluoride (the latter of which I will elaborate on much more later and is of huge concern) and these are halides on our periodic table that can and do interfere with iodine uptake at the cellular level, directly competing with iodine making it a potentially troublesome problem for a great many people. Bromide is another halide that has been used in the manufacture of a lot of breads, further “choking out” iodine’s ability to be effective in our bodies.
Without enough iodine, a wide range of effects can be seen: weight and fat gain, low energy, depression and definitely an array of pain symptoms. The amount each person uses can is different, depending entirely on that individual’s own circumstances such as age and frequency of exposure to the above halides.
And think about this further complication: the very reason chlorine is put in the water supply to begin with is to help destroy the bacterial load. The problem is, it is not very discriminating. Therefore, if we’re drinking this every day from our public water supply, we are drinking small amounts of essentially an antibiotic of sorts (never mind the trace antibiotics already found in tested drinking water), that can and does impact our intestinal flora, our “good guys,” the healthy bacteria in our gut that we depend on not only for our immune system function, but for proper nutrient absorption and even creation in our bodies.
Important: I made sure I started out very slow when it came to supplementing with nascent iodine. It’s important because of its impact on bromide, fluoride and chlorine that is already in the body, displacing it, and can (and likely will) cause kidney discomfort as the body re-learns how to use something it is deficient in. Taking a little bit of crystal salt and lots of water, along with a reduction in iodine supplementation, reduced this burden and kidney sensation I experienced. Conventional medicine insists that five drops (I place it at or near various joints) at 200mcg per drop totaling 1000mcg for five drops should be the upper limit of safety, while alternative research is suggesting much higher amounts are applicable under illness conditions. I monitor my middle-back (kidney) for sensations, and back off it if I feel anything there, along with the extra spring water and crystal salt (search “salt push” if you experience back discomfort in the kidney area). At the time of this writing, I use about ten drops maximum per day, and will cycle it, taking a few days off every other week, or using less on occasion. I take it almost exclusively in the morning, sometimes an additional drop or two mid-day, and never past 4PM or so since it may keep me awake at night. On that note, it is an excellent mitochondrial supporter as well, helping us maintain our optimum daily energy levels.
This is just one of those “must supps” I feel, for most over-40-ers, and results in pain improvement, energy, clearer thinking, candida overgrowth control, and of course weight/fat loss are often the benefits of using this supplement.
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