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Home › Health › Nutrients › Minerals › Iodine

Iodine

  • Dosage: 3 to 6 mg per day
  • A trace mineral
  • Concentrated amounts in humans are found in the thyroid gland. The rest is found in the fluid surrounding body cells, in the muscles, and blood. The body contains about 20-30 mg of iodine.

  • Forms:
    • potassium iodide (used for skin problems and as an expectorant)
    • Lugol’s (the “original” iodine solution used as broad-spectrum microbicide)
    • colloidol
    • tincture
    • iodoral (tablet)
    • silver iodide (used for cloud seeding to bring rain, but not ecologically sound)
  • Helpers: glutathione, selenium

  • Inhibitors:
    • perchlorates (found in drinking water, airbags, medicines used to treat thyroid conditions, and more)
    • thiocyanates (used in insecticides, herbicides, antibiotics, thyroid and chemotherapy drugs)
    • goitrogens (naturally-occuring substances found in some foods [raw cabbage, turnips, rutabagas, cauliflower, cassava, soy beans, peanuts] can inhibit synthesis and secretion of thyroid hormones – cooking and fermentation deactivates these compounds)
  • Drugs that deplete: antithyroid medications
  • Food sources: seafood, kelp and other seaweeds, plants grown near or in the sea, iodized salt, onions, mushrooms, lettuce, spinach, green peppers, pineapple, cantaloupe, strawberries




  • Benefits:
    • a constituent of the thyroid hormones which regulate physical and mental growth
    • helps with muscle and nervous system function
    • necessary for circulatory activity
    • helps with the metabolism of all nutrients
    • helps prevent the absorption of radioactive material
    • possesses anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties
    • necessary for normal thyroid function, cell respiration, energy, general metabolism, normal growth and development, protein synthesis, nerve and bone formation, good condition of skin, hair, and teeth, normal speech and mental state, cholesterol synthesis, carb absorption, conversion of carotene to vitamin A and RNA to proteins
    • may help prevent miscarriages
  • Deficiency symptoms:
    • an enlarged thyroid (goiter)
    • spontaneous abortions
    • weight gain
    • fatigue
    • cretinism in developing fetus
    • myxedema (enlarged tongue, slow speech, anemia, puffiness of hands and face, mental apathy, skin and hair problems)
    • listlessness
    • sluggish behaviour
    • fatigue
    • increased risk of certain cancers (e.g., breast, ovary, uterus)
    • fibrotic breasts

    Pam Duff, RN, CSNC
    October 2009

    See References.




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