Alternative Health Products & Books
From Pain & Stress Center Products
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Iodine
Your thyroid gland needs iodine to function properly.
During the early 1900's, the iodine/iodide solution, called Lugol solution, was used extensively, effectively and safely in medical practice, for both low activity and above normal activity of the thyroid gland. The RDA system for vitamins and minerals, established in 1980, included iodine. The RDA for iodine was based on the amount of iodine/iodide needed to prevent goiter, extreme stupidity and hypothyroidism.
Since then, several studies have demonstrated a relationship between low iodine intake and fibrocystic disease of the breast, both in women and lab animals. The minimum amount of iodine required for control and prevention of fibrocystic disease is equivalent to 0.1mg/kg body weight/day.
Several studies have shown convincing evidence connecting inadequate iodine intake and breast cancer. Women living in Japan consume a daily average of 13.8 mg total elemental iodine and experience the lowest risk for breast, ovarian and uterine cancer.
Over the last 2 decades, the risk for breast cancer in the U.S. has risen from 1 in 20 to to 1 in 8, since bread manufacturers discontinued including iodine in the making of bread.
Dr. Guy Abraham, a former professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UCLA, mounted what he calls “The Iodine Project” in 1997 after he read the Ghent paper on iodine for fibrocystic disease. He had his company, Optimox Corp., make Iodoral, the tablet form of Lugol’s solution, 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 clinical studies with it.*
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. 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 and measures the amount excreted in the urine over the next 24 hours. He found that the vast majority of people retain a substantial amount of the 50 mg dose. Many require 50 mg a 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.*
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. These investigators have found that iodine does indeed reverse fibrocystic disease; their diabetic patients require less insulin; hypothyroid patients, less thyroid medication; symptoms of fibromyalgia resolve, and patients with migraine headaches stop having them. To paraphrase Dr. Szent-Györgi, these investigators aren’t sure how iodine does it, but it does something good.*
Lugol soution is a time-tested preparation with a proven track record for over 150 years. Two drops contain 12.5 mg iodine/iodide. Iodoral® is a precisely quantified tablet form containing 5 mg iodine and 7.5 mg iodide as the potassium salt. The tablets are coated with a thin film of glaze to mask the unpleasant taste and minimize potential gastric upset of the liquid forms of iodine.
- acne-like skin lesions in certain areas of your body
- headache in the frontal sinus
- unpleasant brassy taste
- increased salivation and sneezing
Potential Side Effects:
NOTE: Part of he above was taken from the Iodoral packaging which has complete references within.
* From 2006 article by Dr. Donald Miller, cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington in Seattle.
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