Do you think the RDA level of iodine is a sufficient daily dose? Think again. The RDA levels were designed to prevent an outward manifestation of the disease, they represent minimal levels and are far from the optimal levels really needed to help you thrive.
Iodine levels are highly dependent on your diet and health status, therefore each individual is different. How do you know if you are deficient or not? Here’s an easy test you should take on yourself and everyone in your family because iodine deficiency is rampant in this country.
Take a tincture of iodine that you can easily find in pharmacies and place a couple of drops on the inside of your arm (or any other convenient part of your skin). Make sure your skin is clean and free of lotions, creams, and other things that can inhibit absorption. Now you have a small orange spot of iodine. Now what? Expect. Write down how long you put it on and see how long it takes to fully absorb (no more orange on your skin). If you wash or swim it, you will obviously need to repeat the process.
If the patch took less than 12 hours to absorb, you really have a deficiency.
If it took 12-18 hours, perhaps the situation could be remedied with more shellfish in your diet.
If it took more than 18 hours, that’s fine.
How to correct a deficiency? You can continue to paint the iodine tincture on your skin, or you can take oral supplements. Iodine taken orally must be bound to proteins. That is the mineral form the human body knows what to do with. Otherwise, the iodine will look for any protein to bind to, causing irritation and not being very helpful to the thyroid.
Different people require different dosages, so an individual approach to determining that dosage is always best. However, cultures that eat algae regularly consume about 12 mg of iodine daily, while the RDA recommends only 150 mcg for the average adult.
We tend to think of iodine only in relation to the thyroid gland, but iodine is necessary and beneficial for other tissues as well. In populations that eat algae, breast cancer is almost nonexistent because iodine induces programmed cell death (that’s a good thing). It also acts as an antioxidant in a similar way to vitamin C. It removes toxic chemicals and strengthens cellular immunity (the intelligent arm of the immune system). It also protects the digestive system from harmful bacteria. Breast tissue, salivary glands, and the lining of the stomach are some of the tissues with a particular affinity for iodine.
In today’s society, washed in bromides and fluorides that displace iodine due to molecular weight, it is especially important to ensure adequate saturation with this essential mineral.
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