Iodine, Breast Cancer And Heart Health

Outside the thyroid gland, the highest concentration of iodine is found in the female breast.  As iodine levels increase, breast cancer rates drop. Iodine will also relieve fibrocystic breast disease in most cases.

There are many iodine supplements. I use and recommend Lugol’s iodine, about four to six drops in water per day. Everyone needs iodine because there is little to none in our soils now.

Iodine drops are great for water purification. Iodine is a natural antimicrobial, making it an excellent remedy for bacterial, fungus or yeast infections. Iodine therapy is about the simplest treatment there is that is so all-important.

Essential Mineral

Besides being involved in the thyroid gland and the female breasts, iodine is essential for heart health. Alternative doctors often prescribe iodine therapy for heart arrhythmias.

Iodine is helpful for those with cold hands and feet, chronic fatigue, menopause problems, hypothyroidism, and hyperthyroidism. Iodine also safely displaces or flushes chlorine, bromine, fluorine, lead, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum and mercury from the body. In today’s world, this is huge!

Iodine feeds your thyroid function, a vital component of overall health. Conventional doctors pay little or no attention to iodine tests. Yet, a deficit of iodine, as most people have, is so harmful to health and well-being.

The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for iodine is outright deception. The medical establishment, embodied in the Institute of Medicine, says 1,100 micrograms per day is sufficient for adults and less for children.

Guy Abraham, M.D., at UCLA School of Medicine and researcher of iodine, says that 12.5 milligrams per day (that’s 12,500 micrograms) is the optimal dose — that’s more than 11 times more than the RDA. Chances are very high that most of us are not getting nearly enough iodine.

Dosages

We think in terms of overdose, but the risk of underdose may be the highest risk when taking nutritional supplements. The big exception to this would be taking megadoses of synthetic vitamins. When we use synthetic instead of natural or organic, we go from food to pharmacology. Pharmacology is the making of chemicals in the laboratory. It is not food or nutrition.

The high risk of public fixation on the RDA is that we underdose on vital nutrition as in vitamin D and iodine.

We have to think of iodine in the United States as a dietary supplement because there is little in the soils that would translate into food production. The Japanese consume more iodine mostly from seaweed and they have much lower rates of breast cancer. In fact, they have much lower rates of all cancer, including prostate cancer.

Thyroid Health

Forty percent of the U.S. population has hypothyroidism, which is low thyroid function leading to a multitude of illnesses, including heart disease and cancer.

Many people are on thyroid medication (hopefully on Armour natural thyroid); they should also be taking iodine. The reason is that, unless we get enough iodine with our thyroid supplement, we may be increasing the risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer. The fact is, if we had enough diet iodine, we wouldn’t have low thyroid function and wouldn’t need medication.

Hypothyroidism is a nutritional deficiency of the vital mineral iodine. It is an extremely fundamental factor affecting health.

Check Your Thyroid

You can check your own thyroid function. It’s simply a matter of body temperature. The normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees F.

Take your underarm temperature in the morning before you get out of bed and as you wake up, preferably with a shake-down mercury thermometer. Leave the thermometer on the nightstand or table by your bed at night. Take your morning temperature at rest, underarm temperature for five days in sequence and record your average — which you get by adding up the results and dividing by five.

If you are as much as one degree under 98.6, you are hypothyroid and you at least need daily iodine supplementation. I can’t go into it here, but conventional blood tests in a doctor’s clinic do not accurately show your thyroid function. Tens of thousands of people are struggling daily with low energy and obesity just because a blood test showed “normal” thyroid function. Do the body temperature test on yourself and your family.

If your thyroid is 2 to 4 degrees low, you need thyroid hormone by prescription from your doctor. Ask for the Armour natural. You should also take a daily iodine supplement.

Cataplex F from the Standard Process Company is an excellent thyroid supplement. I take it along with four to five drops of the Lugols iodine mentioned above.

Cataplex F is also excellent for muscle cramps. Take three to eight tablets daily. Or if you are having leg cramps, chew four or five tablets. Go to Standard Process to find a distributor near you, or check with your chiropractor. Many of them have these products for sale.