Saturday, March 26, 2011

Radiation Poisoning is avoided with Seaweeds & Iodine

Seaweeds have been used for generations in the preparation of Japanese cuisine, a regular part of their traditional daily diet. The health benefits that obtained by eating ocean vegetables are reflected in the overall health & wellness of the Japanese & Korean populations. Most notably, they have the lowest rates of cancer, especially reproductive cancers like breast, ovarian & prostate cancer in the world. This is due in large part to the role that sea vegetables play to nourish & detoxify the body. The power of these ocean vegetables, have been recognized for centuries, especially in ancient medicines & remedies. After the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki & Hiroshima in 1945, the response from the Japanese medical community for those left alive was to eat seaweed to avoid radiation poisoning. Dr. Tatsuichiro Akizuki was director of the Department of Internal Medicine at St. Francis Hospital in Nagasaki during the bombing. Dr. Akisuki demanded a strict macrobiotic diet of brown rice, miso soup, wakame & other seaweeds, Hokkaido pumpkin and sea salt. He prohibited the consumption of sugar & sweets and as a result saved everyone in the hospital, while many other survivors in the city died from radiation sickness.
Dr. Akisuki recalls,“I gave the cooks and staff strict orders that they should make unpolished whole-grain rice balls, adding some salt to them, prepare strong miso soup for each meal, and never use sugar. When they didn’t follow my orders, I scolded them without mercy, ‘Never take sugar. Sugar will destroy your blood!’... “This dietary method made it possible for me to remain alive and go on working vigorously as a doctor. The radioactivity may not have been a fatal dose, but thanks to this method, Brother Iwanaga, Reverend Noguchi, Chief Nurse Miss Murai, other staff members and in-patients, as well as myself, all kept on living on the lethal ashes of the bombed ruins. It was thanks to this food that all of us could work for people day after day, overcoming fatigue or symptoms of atomic disease and survive the disaster free from severe symptoms of radioactivity.”
As Dr. Brownstein notes, 'The CDC recommends using iodine to prevent injury from radioactive iodine fallout. Dosages for adults and women who are breastfeeding should take 130mg of potassium iodide. For children who are between 3 and 18 years of age, they should take 65mg of potassium iodide. Children who are adult size should take the adult dose. Infants and children between 1 month and 3 years of age should take 32mg of potassium iodide. Newborns from birth to one month of age should be given 16mg of potassium iodide.'
Now please understand that these dosages are used in case of emergency of radioactive fallout or contamination, not everyday dosages. Dr. Abraham & Brownstein agree that between 13mg to 50mg are needed daily to prevent approximately 96% of radioactive iodine from binding to the thyroid gland. That is the approximate dosage of iodine ingested daily by the Japanese. This is over 100x the average daily dose ingested by North Americans due to the modern processed 'fast-food' diet, modern farming depleting minerals from the soils & competing halogens that are so affluent in our modern lives, like fluorine, chlorine & bromine.
As Dr. Brownstein points out, it's not just the thyroid gland at risk for exposure to radioactive iodine, it's every cell & every organ in the body. He states, 'For overall immune health & optimal cell functionality, iodine is stored in the brain, breasts, ovaries, uterus, prostate, our skin, muscles & fat'. Since exposure to radiation is cumulative, our bodies continue to accept & detoxify from exposure to all types of radiation, especially when given the tools like seaweeds to do this naturally. For if the body is sufficient in iodine, the health risks of radioactive iodine & radiation exposure are largely avoidable.