Here’s the problem:

Iodine is tough to come by naturally in our food supply. The two good sources of iodine – seafood and sea vegetables (such as seaweed) have been adulterated by mercury poisoning and industrial wastes poured into the sea. Plus, with the advent of Fukushima, we now have to contend with radioactive iodine flowing into the ocean’s waters and atmosphere as well.

Food grown on large commercial farms suffers from chemical over-fertilization. Gone are the times when farmers would use fish as fertilizer – restoring the trace amounts of iodine back to the soil. Also, the soils are not allowed to recoup their natural vigor by laying fallow for several seasons, but are rather “fortified” year after year by man-made fertilizers.

Yes, the plants grow – but the fertilizers used have only a limited amount of nutrients, and iodine is usually not among them. This nutritional shortfall is passed on to the crops, and ultimately us when we consume them.

Next come three other culprits in this iodine connection – fluorine, chlorine and bromine.

• Fluoridated water is neither benign nor beneficial. To begin with, the fluoride found in our drinking water is anything but natural. It is actually hydrofluosilicic acid, a by-product of heavy industry, especially the fertilizer and aluminum industries. What are other uses for this substance? Try…Pesticide, Herbicides, Rat Poison, and Sarin Nerve Gas for just a few.
•                                                                                                                                                                                           Scrapped off factory chimneys and smelters, it is rightfully considered a poison and treated as a dangerous bio-hazard when handling. However, this EXACT same substance is then mixed into our drinking water, and by some yet unknown alchemical reaction (sarcasm) what was minutes before a deadly industrial waste suddenly becomes a so-called “healthy” adjunct to our basic water supply.

• In many cases, hypothyroidism is a case of iodine malnutrition. You are simply not getting enough iodine in your diet. As we noted, the amount of iodine in iodized salt is barely enough to prevent goiter, but insufficient to restore proper function to the thyroid gland.
• Treating Hypothyroidism – Non-Prescription Solutions
• Bromine is the third bad-guy in this story. Used in baked goods, breads, pastas, upholstery, plastics, medications, fire-retardants and soft drinks, bromine is an endocrine disrupter – and similar to fluoride in that it competes for the same receptors that are used to capture iodine, displacing iodine from your body.
• You should note that while water filters are readily available to eliminate chlorine from both your drinking and shower water, they are just about useless for filtering out fluoride. (The fluorine molecule is exceedingly small and much harder to trap.)
• Think of it, every time you take a shower from the standard municipal water supply (especially here in the USA), the skin absorbs both chlorine and fluoride – which slowly poisons the thyroid gland.
• Chlorine is another iodine-disrupting halide. Yes, chlorine does kill many pathogens in our drinking water. However, it does have its dark side. Skin exposure to chlorine from swimming in a chlorinated pool, bathing or drinking city water leeches iodine from the thyroid gland.
• One of the problems with fluoride is that it slowly but surely displaces iodine in our thyroid. Another huge problem is the dosage. The more water one drinks, the more fluoride one consumes. Added to this is that fluoride is found in most toothpastes, and each day becomes a gamble as to just how much fluoride is actually entering the body. In fact there is enough fluoride in a tube of fluoridated toothpaste to actually kill a child!

The first line of defense in treating hypothyroidism should then be the least invasive – namely supplementing with iodine. Just by increasing iodine levels, primary hypothyroidism can be alleviated and normal thyroid function restored in almost half of all cases. But please be advised most iodine supplements and multi-vitamins have far too little iodine in them to be effective. In fact, the standard 400 IU in most preparations is 80 – 100 TIMES LESS than what is truly needed.  How do we supplement iodine for patients with hypothyroidism is Part III tomorrow.  Hope you come back!