Thursday, July 21, 2011

Symptoms & Causes of Iodine Deficiency

Symptoms of iodine deficiency are often similar to those with Hashi's, Grave's, Fibromyalgia, CFS & other auto-immune disorders. This is because iodine deficiency plays a large part in those conditions & symptoms too. As Dr. Brownstein mentions in his book, 'Iodine, why you need it, why you can't live without it', 95% of the 4000 patients he tested, were deficient in this essential mineral, iodine. Chances are high if you're not eating brown kelp or supplementing with Lugol's or potassium-iodide, you're deficient. Since most of the soils & hence foods don't contain iodine, you'll be hard pressed to find some in your diet. I've heard it said, there is no iodine deficiency in the US & Canada because we iodize our salt. When the iodization of salt was started in 1924 in the US & 1929 Canada to prevent the continued trend of thyroidism from occurring in the population, our air & world was not so populated with toxins like; Fluoride, Chlorine & Bromine, which leaches it from the body & competes for storage with iodine. Physicians of that day were regularly prescribing Lugol's Solution for depression, infection, arthritis, cysts, menopause & more. The overall depletion of iodine experienced in the population was endemic in nature, occurring mostly in the Great Lakes region, where the area was named, 'The Goitre Belt'. Currently, we still see lots of endemic goitre & hypothyroidism in the Goitre Belt today and with added occurrence, since physicians today don't prescribe Lugol's or potassium-iodide anymore. This iodine deficiency is compounded even further with the additions of Fluoride, Chlorine & Bromine into our foods, air, drinking water, swimming pools, fast-food, soda pop, fire-retardant & more....

A short list of common symptoms of iodine deficiency include:

Cold hands and feet

Low basal temp.(taken first thing in the morning)

Low immunity (catching colds & flu's)

Dry skin & hair

Brittle hair & nails

Inability to sweat (hypohydrosis)

Proneness to weight gain

Hypothyroidism

Hyperthyroidism

Hashimoto's Disease

Graves Disease

CFS

Fibromyalgia

Alzheimer's

ADD/ADHD

Any Auto-Immune condition

Any Cancer, especially breast, ovarian, brain, thyroid, skin, prostate & leukemia

Heart Disease (arteriosclerosis)

Poor memory

Trouble concentrating

Headaches

Cystic conditions of the skin, breasts, ovaries

Prostate enlargement & cancer

Edema

Muscle cramps

Constipation