It is estimated that 90 percent of our population is iodine deficient, and odds are most of us wouldn’t think twice about it. What you don’t know is that this deficiency can directly result in some terrible health problems—from cancer to heart failure to a host of other dreaded diseases. And what’s even worse is that while this deficiency makes most of us highly susceptible to each of these problems, few medical professional ever bother to see if iodine deficiency is the underlying cause of these problems.  What should be a red flag for diagnosing a disease may simply go undetected—and untreated.  Now, bestselling health author, Dr. Mark Sircus, has written Healing With Iodine, a clear guide to understanding and recognizing this missing link to better health.

Healing With Iodine is divided into three parts. Part 1 explains what iodine is, how it works in our body to maintain maximum health, and why most of us don’t get enough iodine in our diet. Part 2 looks at the many current uses iodine plays in today’s treatments. It also offers guidelines for finding the right iodine, and how it should be used. Part 3 looks at some of our most common health problems, including thyroid disorders, heart disease, and cancer as well as cognitive issues. It also explains how each is related to iodine deficiency, and what can be done to avoid these issues.

Dr. Sircus points out that there is a growing movement in the health community to use iodine as a treatment offer, however for too many of us continue to be unaware of just how crucial iodine can to supporting our daily metabolism. Here is, in fact, a red flag that offers the type of information that we should all be aware of. And for many, it may be just the thing that helps us avoid or overcome some of these common disorders.

Mark Sircus, Ac., OMD, DM (P), was trained in acupuncture and Asian medicine at the Institute of Traditional Medicine in Santa Fe and the School of Traditional Medicine of New England in Boston. He also served at the Central Public Hospital of Pochutla, Mexico. He is part of the Scientific Advisory and Research Development team of the Da Vinci College of Holistic Medicine. Dr. Sircus’ articles have appeared in numerous journals and magazines throughout the world. In addition, he is the best-selling author of several books, including Sodium Bicarbonate, Healing With Iodine, and Anti-Inflammatory Oxygen Therapy.

Contents

Introduction

Part One. The Basics of Iodine

1. Iodine—Crucial Medicine for the 21st Century

2. Iodine, Metabolism, and Oxygen

3. Iodine Deficiency

4. Iodine Is an Anti-Infectious Super Medicine

Part Two. Guide to Using Iodine

5. Iodine and Chelation— Heavy Metals and Halogen Poisons

6. Iodine Product Recommendations

7. Iodine Dosages and Application

8. How Safe Is Radioactive Iodine-29 and Iodine-131?

Part Three. Conditions and Treatments

9. Iodine and the Thyroid Gland

10. Iodine and Selenium for Heart Health

11. Iodine Treats and Prevents Cancer

12. Iodine for Breast Cancer and Skin Cancer

13. Pediatric Iodine 

Conclusion

References

About the Author

Index

Introduction

A recent article in the New York Times asked the question, “How important is iodized salt to the American or European diet?” The answer to the question was convoluted at best—deceiving at worst. “Most Americans who eat a varied diet get enough iodine even if they don’t use iodized salt.” Not true. Even if you add the iodized salt, it still would not be true.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, U.S. iodine levels have fallen nearly 50 percent over the last 40 years. Moreover, studies of women of childbearing age show that nearly 60 percent of U.S. women are deficient in iodine with over 10 percent severely deficient. In reality, the need for iodine has actually increased due to our constant exposure to halides—which are found in such common toxins as fluoride and bromide—that have increased in our environment. And according to the U.N.’s World Health Organization, iodine deficiency affects 72 percent of the world’s population.

The New York Times acknowledged “…some pregnant women are at risk of low iodine levels, which potentially endanger their babies.” The use of the word “some” in that line is an understatement when you consider that 60 percent of women who are at an age for pregnancy are deficient in iodine.

Dr. David Brownstein and his partners have checked iodine levels on over 6,000 patients in the Detroit area, and the vast majority—over 97 percent—are iodine deficient. Brownstein says, “Iodine deficiency may be responsible for the epidemic increase in cancer of the breast (one in seven U.S. women currently have breast cancer), prostate, ovary, uterus, thyroid, and pancreas. Every one of the cancers listed is increasing at epidemic rates. There are a whole host of illnesses that are increasing at epidemic rates that may reflect falling iodine levels including ADHD, thyroid disorders including hypothyroidism and autoimmune thyroid problems, and cystic breasts.”

In the analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, data of moderate to severe iodine deficiency is present now in a significant proportion of the U.S. population, with a clear increasing trend over the past 20 years, caused by reduced iodized table salt usage. Along with magnesium and selenium, iodine is one of the most deficient minerals in our bodies. Iodine is essential for the synthesis of thyroid hormone, but selenium-dependent enzymes (iodothyronine deiodinases) are also required for the conversion of thyroxine (T4) to the biologically active thyroid hormone, triiodothyronine (T3). Selenium is the primary mineral responsible for converting T4 to T3—essential thyroid hormones—in the liver.

Iodine is a vital micronutrient required at all stages of life with fetal life and early childhood being the most critical phases of requirement. Iodine is metabolized in the human body through a series of stages involving the hypothalamus, pituitary, thyroid gland, and blood.

Iodine can be used in many different ways depending on the clinical situation. It can be administered orally, applied transdermally (on the skin), vaporized in a nebulizer for application into the lungs, and used in douches.

Though officially recognized as the cure for goiter, the modern medical establishment has turned its back on using iodine to treat other diseases, even though iodine is the oldest allopathic medicine proven through 200 years of clinical use. Iodine does not cause problems in people, it cures disease through the fulfillment of nutritional law. Iodine is essential for human development and health. Iodine is detected in every organ and tissue in the body and is absolutely necessary for a healthy thyroid, as well as healthy ovaries, breasts, and prostate. Besides the increased risk for breast cancer in iodine deficient women, there is convincing evidence that iodine deficiency increases the risk of thyroid cancer.

Nothing replaces iodine. However, poisonous fluoride, bromide, and other halogen imitators step in as toxic substitutes, all of which mess up thyroid physiology. Moreover, nothing protects against radioactive isotopes of iodine more than natural iodine. The main causes of suppressed thyroid functions are Candida, mercury, fluoride, and a deficiency of iodine. Until 1970, doctors prescribed fluoride as thyroid-suppressing medication for patients with an over-active thyroid even though fluoride is a thyroid poison.

You cannot be a parent today and not have iodine in the house. All parents need to understand the importance of iodine and how to use it to protect their kids from the dangerous world of antibiotics and antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. Iodine gives parents protection against their doctors because of the diminished need for dangerous antibiotics and vaccines.

However, there is more to the story about why iodine has taken a backseat to drugs. The use of iodine goes back centuries, longer than anything else used by practitioners of modern medicine. Pharmaceutical medicine pushed its way into pharmacies and pushed out effective natural medicines like iodine and medical marijuana, two of the most popular medicines 100 years ago.

Medical textbooks contain several vital pieces of misinformation about the essential element iodine, which may have caused more human misery and death than both world wars combined.

–Dr. Guy E. Abraham, MD

According to Dr. Guy E. Abraham, founder of the Iodine Project, “The essential element iodine has been kept in the Dark Ages over the last 60 years after World War II. We need to remedy the gross neglect of this essential element by the medical profession, poorly represented in medical textbooks and vilified in endocrine publications.” Dr. Abraham insisted rediscovering iodine as the universal medicine is crucial. Iodine held this esteemed position for over 100 years before World War II, and now we are finally coming to see we cannot live without it. Iodine is essential for survival in the 21st century.

Dr. Michael Zimmerman, in his article in The Journal of Nutrition, follows the history of iodine’s use in modern science:

In 1811, Courtois noted a violet vapor arising from burning seaweed ash, and Gay-Lussac subsequently identified the vapor as iodine, a new element. The Swiss physician Coindet, in 1813, hypothesized the traditional treatment of goiter with seaweed was effective because of its iodine content and successfully treated goitrous patients with iodine. Two decades later, the French chemist Boussingault, working in the Andes Mountains, was the first to advocate prophylaxis with iodine-rich salt to prevent goiter. The French chemist Chatin was the first to publish, in 1851, the hypothesis that iodine deficiency was the cause of goiter. In 1883, Semon suggested myxedema was due to thyroid insufficiency and the link between goiter, myxedema, and iodine was established when, in 1896, Baumann and Roos discovered iodine in the thyroid. In the first 2 decades of the 20th century, pioneering studies by Swiss and American physicians demonstrated the efficacy of iodine prophylaxis in the prevention of goiter and cretinism. Switzerland’s iodized salt program has been operating uninterrupted since 1922. Today, control of the iodine deficiency disorders is an integral part of most national nutrition strategies.

—Michael B. Zimmermann, Oxford Academic, Google Scholar

Some might say that the takeover by pharmaceutical medicine is a business driven science. Consider this: While the medical establishment treats patients with vaccines, psychiatric medicines, statin drugs, and antibiotics, these drugs have created a series of antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria that people are increasingly dying from. Hundreds of millions are slated to die from these infections over the next few decades, so it’s better not to be caught flat-footed without iodine in the house.

Iodine is a protocol medicine, meaning it should be studied and used in the context of other similar basic medicines, that when combined with a number of other natural compounds give patients and doctors more medical power to fight disease. When we visit fine emergency rooms or intensive care wards, we discover the secrets they would hide from us. Secrets like magnesium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and selenium, all used to save lives in a heartbeat. And in the same way, iodine is a bedrock medicine, meaning we cannot be healthy without it.

This book is designed to present a clear understanding of the healing properties of iodine. In Part 1 you will be introduced to the basics of iodine as a crucial medicine; its many roles in healing and preventing disease, and how iodine deficiency has been linked to major illnesses. It takes a look at iodine as a nutritional drug, a therapeutic agent, and the healing properties it contains. The section provides reasons to think of iodine as an anti-infectious super medicine, as a replacement for vaccines and antibiotics, and why it should be considered as a treatment for cancer.

Part 2 of the book sets the foundation for understanding and a guide for the proper use of iodine, and how iodine works to combat toxins (heavy metals and halogen poisons) in our body. It provides iodine product recommendations, iodine preparations, and applications, such as transdermal use, oral use, and iodine douches, as well as iodine dosages. This section also examines the dangers and risks of being exposed to radioactive iodine (I-129 and I-131) and the treatments and prevention of poisoning from radioactive iodine. You will see that iodine is one of the best antidotes for radiation poisoning.

In Part 3 you will take a closer look at certain conditions and related iodine treatments. It provides an understanding of the medicinal and biologic effects of iodine. It examines the causes of and iodine treatments and preventions for diseases related to the thyroid, cancers (breast cancer and skin cancer), and heart disease. You will also learn why pediatric iodine is a wiser choice that antibiotics and vaccines for childhood infections and viruses. This section also lays out the research that shows how iodine deficiency is related to fetal brain development and the importance of iodine sufficiency during pregnancy.

By the time you finish reading Healing With Iodine, you will be equipped with the knowledge of how and why iodine is a critical nutritional medicine and a nutrient the body needs in preventing and treating health problems. It is nutritional, but it is also one of the most effective medicines in the world. You will have a better understanding of why the medical community needs to focus on the importance of iodine sufficiency. The use of iodine provides the medical world with the most dramatic single thing you can do as a precaution and to restoring your well-being.