← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
520. You're INSANE If You're Not Taking This ONE Element To Lower Inflammation, Help Metabolism, Prevent Cancer and Improve Immunity
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Dr. Amy
Welcome to the Thyroid Fixer podcast, where we dive deep into the world of thyroid and hormones, especially for you ladies navigating perimenopause and menopause, and really for anyone struggling with hypothyroidism. I'm your host, Dr. Amy, thyroid and hormone specialist and CEO of a global telemedicine practice where we prescribe the right thyroid treatment and bioidentical hormones to all 50 states and most of Canada, helping you become that badass human that you're meant to be. So if you're battling weight gain and loss, you can't lose weight no matter what you do. Your energy levels are plummeting and your libido left town. Then you're in the right place and you have found your tribe. Remember, I want you to embrace every inch of that badass woman that you truly are. So if you're ready to dive in and fix things, let's get started. We are continuing with our discussion of iodine, why absolutely everyone should take it. And now we're going to talk about the different forms of iodine to look for and which one you actually want to use. But before we do that, I want to recap. We have to go over the insanity that is out there right now of people, influencers telling individuals to avoid iodine. And it's just crazy. And in my opinion, it's going to do more harm. Like this is information that is going to do harm, harm if people listen to it. Every single person at every age, outside of a newborn that literally just popped out of the womb because hopefully mom was taking enough iodine, so the newborn is good to go, should be taking iodine. Children, pets, all of us should be taking iodine. Why? I reviewed this in part one, but let's go over it again. Every single cell in your body needs iodine. Every single cell in your body needs iodine. If every single cell in your body needs something, why in the actual hell would we avoid. Literally makes no sense. And that is a pretty basic statement, right? This isn't. This isn't rocket science. This isn't deep medical terminology. Every cell. We all know what cells are. I mean, if you had seventh grade biology, you know what a cell is. Every single cell in your body, from the tippy top of your head to your hair to your brain, your skin to your eyeballs, to your thyroid, to your salivary glands to your heart, to your breast, to your organs to your ovaries, ladies, your uterus, men, your prostate. Every cell in your body needs iodine. Pretty basic premise, right? Now next up is how much iodine does every do certain organ systems need? Well, the thyroid requires 6 milligrams of iodine a day. The breasts require 5 milligrams of iodine a day dot that's just two. That's just two that we're talking about right now. Why would we avoid iodine? It makes no sense. Now on the detox end of things, we have the fact, and we went over this in part one, that iodine competes at that cell level against fluoride bromide chloride. So go back to what would this be like 5th grade science class, the periodic table. And when you look at the halides, chloride, bromide, fluoride, iodine or iodide is right there. So they're pretty much the same in structure. Meaning that when we are exposed to those very, very toxic halogens, and we are all exposed every single day, when we are exposed to those toxic halogens, they're going to compete at the cell level. Now those toxic halogens will attach to the iodine receptor site at the cell level unless we have enough iodine. Iodine is the only thing that's going to push those toxic halides off of the cell. So if we don't have enough iodine, here's another just a, just a no brainer statement, right? If we do not have enough iodine, you are going to be toxic with those toxic halides, period. End of story. That's it. It's that freaking simple. Why would we avoid iodine if iodine is the only thing that is going to detox us from those toxic halides? And we have to go one step, maybe two steps further. And just as a reminder, moms who are pregnant, babies need iodine. So I want to look at this study because this will apply to everyone as well. Cognitive performance, brain function. Do you have brain fog right now? Maybe you need some iodine. So again, we know from part one that iodine is vital, vital for the thyroid gland. If we do not have enough iodine, we will develop a goiter and we will develop hypothyroidism again, period, end of story. But iodine is also essential for brain development during a specific, a specific window. And this influences brain formation, neuronal migration, synaptogenesis, meaning the brain is forming, things are connecting. And I often tell the story over and over again about my stepson, non verbal autistic global developmental delay. So when he was in utero, their concern was that his cerebral cortex was not forming properly. Now, of course, and listen, I love the medical community for fixing Things, yes, for helping women to have a baby when they are struggling. But when a woman has two miscarriages and a genetic malformation in number three, maybe we want to go a little bit deeper in number four for that fourth pregnancy. And we want to do something really simple. Tell the woman to make sure she's taking iodine and thoroughly check her thyroid. Now we know that lack of iodine is a huge, huge contributor to low iq, to brain development, developmental delays, autism, add, adhd, reduced mental ability due to iodine deficiency occurs in almost 3 million people. Ensuring the consumption of the minimum recommended daily allowance of iodine remains challenging. We can't even get people to take the minimum amount because the soil is depleted, our food is depleted, you have to supplement with it. The effects of iodine deficiency disorders range from high mortality of fetuses and children. So this is the death of a fetus or a miscarriage and the death of children after they are born all the way to inhibited mental development. That's huge. That is. That is so big. Why are we not paying attention to this? Especially with the increased incidence of autism. Why are we not paying attention? Yes, I truly believe that the increased rate of autism is due to our toxic environment, to what is in our food, to what we are exposed to, to what is allowed in this country that's not allowed in other countries, to the spraying of glyphosate, to the pesticides, to the genetic malformation of food. We have basically franken food out there. But what about iodine? What about this exposure to fluoride that's in our water and in our toothpaste. Shame on you. If you're still using fluoride toothpaste to bromide that's on our clothes, every piece of clothing that you put on. And God forbid you get something dry cleaned, carpeting, rugs, if you live by a golf course, if you eat anything packaged that is bakery or bread, like you are being exposed to bromide. We are exposed every single day. Chlorine is everywhere. It's in our water system. Oh, are your kiddos swimming at all? Do you have a chlorinated pool? Are they in a public pool? Do you go in a hot tub? That's bromide, by the way. You're just soaking in bromide in a hot tub. You're soaking in chlorine. If you go to a pool, the only thing that's going to save us and protect us and give us that body armor against these toxic halides is iodine. Iodine. So moving on with this study, very, very interesting. At least 1.2 million children each year are born with cretins and are mentally retarded, physically stunted, deaf, mute, or paralyzed due to the outcome of iodine deficiency. Oh, man, that's like a punch in the face, isn't it? Those stats are insane. So we could have 1.2 million children living a happy life, not physically stunted, not deaf, not mute, not paralyzed, not mentally. If we just made sure that mom had enough iodine or that the kiddos have enough iodine as they're developing and growing their brains. Unbelievable. In addition, an estimated yearly total of at least 60,000 miscarriages, stillbirths and neonatal deaths stem from severe iodine deficiency in early pregnancy. The impact of iodine on the brain is huge. It's huge. Now we can get some iodine from food because there are iodine rich foods out there, but they just don't have the right structure. And we also risk getting heavy metals. So something like kelp that comes from Japan mostly. And we know that our oceans are loaded down now with even pharmaceutical drugs, let alone heavy metals. So when we, when we consume or try to consume those iodine rich foods, chances are we're getting heavy metal toxicity along with it. Cranberries, those are fantastic for iodine. But again, the fields, the cranberry fields are flooded. We don't know with what kind of water. We don't know if the water has chemicals. We don't know if it's bringing in pesticides from other fields. We don't know if the cranberries are sprayed with pesticides. Potatoes are a rich source of iodine. And again, what's the soil that the potatoes were grown in? Were they sprayed or not? And these are the issues. Are we basically, are we basically combating bad with bad? If we're taking, if we're relying on our food sources for our iodine intake, are we intaking the iodine and then some extra garbage that we then have to detoxify out? That's what I prefer to just take it. Now, let's go to one other study that I wanted to review with you. When it comes to iodine as an antioxidant, a differentiator and an immunomodulator. Now what does that mean and how can that help? So we already talked about all the organs that are reliant upon iodine. Molecular iodine exerts multiple, multiple actions on organs that capture it. That's even outside of its effect as part of the thyroid hormones. So this chemical form of iodine is internalized by a facilitated diffusion system that is evolutionary conserved and its effects appear to be mediated by a variety of mechanisms and pathways. I'm reading from a study. That's why the big words bear with me. As an oxidized component, it directly neutralizes free radicals, including the expression of type 2 antioxidant enzymes, and it inactivates pro inflammatory pathways. It inactivates pro inflammatory pathways means it's decreasing inflammation. And the really interesting thing that iodine can do, the interesting impact of iodine on cancer is that it actually produces cancer cell death or apoptosis. So when we see cancer cells in the body, whether we do a preemptive screen and you have. You're picking up in blood work some systemic cancer cells, or if you have found, actually, if you, if you have been told that you have cancer cells in your body. Iodine. Iodine. Iodine. Uterine cancer that I'm dealing with right now. Iodine, yes. I've increased my intake. The ovaries need iodine, the thyroid needs iodine. Anti cancer, the breasts. Many, many, many stories from Dr. David Brownstein on breast cancer and iodine using higher doses, which, by the way, are not toxic. And we're going to get into that in a moment as iodine relates to Hashimoto's, because that's where you've all gotten scared and stayed away from iodine. But when it comes to breast cancer, women are rubbing it on their breasts. They're taking it internally. It helps with fibrocystic breasts, which we know that fibrocystic breasts lead to a higher propensity for breast cancer. Fibroids, endometrial fibroids, uterine fibroids, higher risk of cancer. Now, I did not have fibroids. I just had atypical cells. So if you have atypical cells anywhere, for God's sake, increase your iodine. I'm actually kind of wishing that I would have 3x'd my iodine back when I found out that it was just atypical cells. I promise to tell you more about the hormone fixer. So here it is. This is a supplement to raise your GSD hormone. So those of you who have a total Testosterone less than 50, this is for you if you're struggling with weight, if you're aging. Because if you're aging, your growth hormone is declining. If you need more growth hormone, if you want to just feel better and anti age, we all need testosterone, we need growth hormone. As we age, both of those decline. And in order to have motivation in order to build sexy lean muscle, in order to have a libido, a focus, a concentration, energy to get through your day, the desire to even want to go and work out. You need testosterone to anti age, you need growth hormone. I address both of those in my hormone fixer. So I'm going to invite you to try this out. You could notice we have had reports of women noticing a difference within the first two weeks of use. More energy, better stamina, a little bit of weight loss, better strength at the gym, soreness from those hard workouts gone. So we've had great, great reviews, great reports. I invite you to try it out. Go to my store@drammyhorneman.com click on shop and you will see it right there. And we will put the link in the show notes as well. Iodine has been tied to stem cell maintenance. We need our stem cells to keep us young, to prevent disease, to fight cancer, to fight inflammation, to help things like things with joint pain. Stem cells are amazing for that. They're amazing for our skin, for our hair, for our nails. And that's why we see iodine intake helping with many symptoms of hypothyroidism well before you actually get your thyroid optimized. Because it it is that powerful at activating stem cells and helping with stem cell maintenance. Chemo resistance. Have you been diagnosed with cancer? Are you taking chemotherapy? For God's sake, take iodine. Get that crap out of your body. Keep your detox pathways open. At the very least, make sure that that chemo is targeted and is working. Iodine is also an immune modulator that depending on the cellular contacts can function as, as an inhibitor or an activator of immune responses. Let's talk about all the people that poo poo. Iodine for Hashimoto's. Hashimoto's is an autoimmune condition. It is where your immune system is so confused that it thinks that the thyroid is a bad guy and it likes to go out and attack the thyroid. Now with that we have to support our immune system. So yes, we can use things like black cumin seed oil to decrease inflammation and decrease the antibodies going gluten, gluten free, using low dose naltrexone. All of those things will help with our immune system and will help lower those antibodies, preferably all the way down to zero. But iodine is an immune modulator. It's antiviral, antifungal, antibacterial, and it modulates the immune system by either inhibiting that overactive autoimmunity that is going out and attacking your thyroid. So we can inhibit that. Calm down those soldiers, tell them to get back in their barracks, stop attacking the thyroid gland. Or it can activate the immune system. If you're traveling, if you're starting to come down with a cold, that's absolutely. When I increase my intake of iodine because of its antiviral effect, it boosts your immune system. Amazing, amazing element, iodine. So when we're looking at the different types of iodine, there's Lugols and then there's nascent iodine. So there's potassium iodide, iodine, and then there is nascent iodine. Now, the form that is in most pill forms of iodine, like iodorol. Iodorol is iodine and potassium iodide. And the problem with the pill forms is that you are locked in to a dose. So iodor all comes in 12.5 milligram tablets. So you're kind of locked into that dose. Whereas when you are using something like a liquid iodine, which is my preference, you can titrate up more slowly. I've been going down this rabbit hole for a few years, which is why it's taken me so long to bring iodine to the market and put it as part of my fixer line, because I wanted to get the absolute best form. Lugol's is kind of an OG. It's the original iodine used back in the 1800s, which, again, another reason why iodine should not be poo pooed. Did you know that World War II soldiers actually carried iodine with them? It's like, hey, you're sick. Take some iodine. Ooh, you got a wound. Let's pour some iodine on it. Iodine really is good for everything. But Lugol's is the OG. It was developed in the 19th century, used for various medical purposes, including thyroid support and as an antiseptic. Like I said, let's. Let's pour some on that wound. Remember when you were young and you got a boo boo and your mom rubbed some iodine on it, and then you had a big, nice little orange spot on your skin that is essentially Lugol's iodine. Inside the body, though, it actually has to convert, so it has to convert over to the absorbable form of iodine, which may not be an efficient process in some individuals. Just like we talk about T4 to T3 conversion of the thyroid hormones, the inactive, the active form is like running 10 tough mudders. It's very, very hard for the body to do that. Conversion of iodine in the body can also be a little bit difficult. And then Lugols will typically provide a higher dose of iodine per drop, which in some people, not tolerated. And the issue with those higher doses and the intolerance of Lugol's iodine is something called the wolf shake off effect, which is a temporary reduction in thyroid hormone synthesis due to excess iodine intake. And this is where it gets a bad rapid. The wolf shake off effect is very, very, very rare. And it usually occurs in people that are on T4 only that decided to jump right in and let's just go all the way up to 50 milligrams of iodine per day, or some practitioners that actually recommend that high of a dose to their patients. So some people will get that and some people will go into a thyroid storm and become hyperthyroid. And this is a whole other issue because then it's what do we do with your medication? Do we lower your medication? And it's not fun being hyperthyroid. But I'm also going to give you some tips of how to start taking iodine the right way so that none of this occurs. When I go down the rabbit hole of studying nascent iodine. It's a little bit better. It's a lot a bit better. Fewer side effects due to its lower dosing per drop and has a higher bioavailability. So it's very, very well tolerated. And we really don't see this excess effect or these excess side effects with nascent iodine. So incredibly, incredibly safe. And this is absolutely what I would give to kiddos and pets because of its high bioavailability and the lower dosing. So you can start really nice and slow and work your way up. Nascent iodine is molecularly charged. It's a monoatomic iodine and it's in the monoatomic state, which means it's easily absorbed, easily assimilated, does not have to convert over. And that molecular charge in this electromagnetic charge to the monoatomic single atom form of iodine also helps it be more effective in the body. We are walking energy. So when we give charges to our body, those monoatomic charges to our body, it actually helps the body work better. So this monoatomic nature of nascent iodine actually allows it to be absorbed efficiently by the small intestine without the need for conversion, as is required with the iodide forms. So this direct absorption supports the thyroid gland in synthesizing thyroid hormones like T3 and T4, helps to regulate your metabolism, energy production, and even helps with hormonal balance. Because remember, uterus, ovaries, men, your prostate, by the way, requires iodine. Every cell, every single cell in the body. So we can't just talk about the thyroid, although iodine is vital for the thyroid. We have to think about every cell, every function, Hormone balance, ladies, iodine. So nascent iodine. Yes. It's going to help detoxify the body and displace those harmful halogens that interfere with thyroid function. Yes. Nascent iodine is going to play a role in supporting the immune system. And nascent iodine, due to its bioavailability, ensures adequate iodine levels, which are just essential for your entire immune system. And it does not break down. It is shelf stable for years and years and years. Some iodine supplements may degrade over time. Nascent iodine is very, very stable, so it maintains its potency even if it's on your shelf for a year or two. Now, how do you take iodine? This is a huge question. I get all the time. You always want to start low and slow and work your way up. Now, there is something called a salt loading protocol. So even if you're just a little bit nervous from all of the propaganda out there to avoid iodine, just do this. You want to start your first week with doing one drop of iodine in water with sea salt or any kind Redmond's real salt, mineral based salt. And you want to use about a half of a teaspoon of salt in that water. Drink that down and then follow that with glasses of water after that until you start to urinate. Do that every single day and you can even increase your salt intake. And this isn't gonna hurt if you have high blood pressure. My goodness, you need a little bit of salt. So you're going to do this every single day with that one drop of iodine. And then the following week, you can continue that salt loading protocol if you wish, because this is actually going to help flush your body of those toxins. Or you can leave the salt out and then just start very slowly increasing your dose. You can go to two drops and then the three drops the next day, and then to four drops the next day, and then to five drops the next day. And you can slowly work your way up, increasing your dose slowly over time. What you will notice if you go that one drop too high, you'll notice that you are a little bit hyper. It feels like you drank a little bit too much coffee. If you feel that, add the salt back in do another salt loading protocol. You could stay at the dose that you hit, but drop it down by one or two drops. So if you got to, let's say 30 drops, and that's where you started feeling a little bit hyper, drop it back down to 28 drops and do that salt loading protocol that week. Increase your vitamin C sometimes upwards of 5 grams, grams, 5 grams per day of vitamin C. That will also counter that hyper effect of the iodine. Now, when you start taking iodine, you might detox a little bit, and that is okay. You might see some things coming out just in your body. You might get a little headache, more fatigued. You might even notice some skin issues we talked about in part one. Bromide can actually detoxify from the breast and come out as yellow fluid. So you might get a rash, you might get some, some skin lesions, some breakouts, very, very rare. But I just want to prepare you that if you are highly toxic and haven't touched iodine and you're still brushed your teeth with fluoride, and you live by a golf course and you wear clothes and you don't have a whole house water filtration system, chances are your body's pretty loaded down with those halogens. You might get a little bit detoxy, but this is something you have to go through. You don't want to walk around with the toxins because that's going to wreak more havoc in your body than a week or so of feeling a little poopy from detoxing. You'll be okay. And with that salt winning protocol, you might get a little bit of diarrhea too. Again, that is okay. You can back off a little bit on the salt if it's hindering your daily life. You got to do it because you got to get that iodine in. Now, as you slowly increase your iodine, I take mine up to 12.5mg, maybe up to 25, sometimes all the way up to 50mg if I am getting sick or treating something significant like cancer. But the nice thing about nascent iodine is you can actually keep it a little bit on the lower end. I get huge beneficial effects from 12.5 milligrams. My average dose of my nascent iodine and iodine fixer is around 25 milligrams per day. I'm very, very iodine tolerant. I never, I never got any side effects from taking iodine, except for years, years ago, I went too high in Lugol's iodine. This is before I Started this deep dive study, went too high in Lugol's iodine. And yes, I do believe I got into that. Into that hypothyroid state. It's almost like I started gaining weight from it. That's why I like the nascent. I have gone super high in the nascent iodine with no side effects whatsoever. Whether it's being better utilized by my body, it's not sitting around, I don't know, but it just is. We know it's more bioavailable. So with the Nasanide or, you know, and. Or my body has just changed through the years and I can tolerate it better. But with the nascent iodine, yes, I will take it up to easily 25 milligrams a day and sometimes up to 50, depending on what I am dealing with. Now. You can break up your iodine dose throughout the day. Some studies show it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Again, if I am battling a viral infection, I'll take it twice a day just to break it up. But you can absolutely take it all at once. Like I said, with a little bit of water, you just want to slam it down like you're doing a shot. If you don't like the taste of it, put a little bit of apple cider vinegar in with it too, because, believe it or not, it makes it sweet. It kind of counteracts that bitterness of the iodine and makes it more sweet. So that's one way to tolerate iodine. Some people have put it in their coffee and they say that it just completely disappears in their coffee. So you could try that as well. Any way that you can to take iodine, make sure it is nascent in a liquid form. If you want to grab it off my website, we have iodine fixer there. Just came out, happy to announce. And the bottle is huge. It's going to last you forever, especially as you just start off and you're tie trading up slowly. Oh, my goodness. I don't even know how many months you'll get out of that. You get a lot of months out of it. You start slow, you work your way up. If you want to put a little drop in your dog's water, a little drop in his food, that's what I do for Riley. Same with your kiddos. You can put it on a piece of meat, you can put a drop in their food, they need iodine, too. This is a toxic world we're living in. We need to detox our kids and make sure their brains are functioning we need to make sure our brains are functioning. And I will say this, I believe I said it in part one as well. The one thing that I notice from my patients that start iodine or that I hear from my patients that start iodine is an immediate brain fog, lifting energy, increasing effect. So again, even before, let's say we're working on getting their thyroid and hormones balanced and that can take three months easily for hormones to reach their peak and for us to be turning those dials on their thyroid. You add in iodine, you get a quick, quick win, a very quick win in the majority of people. Because again, it's, it's, it's vital for every cell in your body for your brain to function, for your energy, for your mitochondria to produce ATP. And if you are loaded down with those toxins, you're not going to feel good. You start to detoxify, you start to displace those toxic halides from the cell level with iodine. And yes, every single cell can function better. How are you supposed to have energy? How are you supposed to poop every day? How is your heart supposed to beat properly if every cell in your body is loaded down with a toxin attached to it? It's not going to happen. We're back to common sense here. It's not going to happen. Just by adding in iodine, you can make a huge impact in your world, in your health, in how you feel. You'll see me post this on Social as well. But if you drink tea, I'm just going to throw this in one more little curveball for you. If you drink tea, you are loaded down with heavy metals, you are loaded down with toxic halides. What, tea? Yeah, because most tea is sourced from China and it's coming over with heavy metals in it. So you think you're drinking tea and it's better than coffee. Doing a high quality coffee, like life booze, coffee would be better. You're drinking tea that's loaded down with heavy metals. Get your iodine in. Yeah, I would say stop drinking the tea as well, but get in the iodine you need to detoxify. If I was on a desert island and you told me that I could only take one, one supplement, that's it. You get to take one thing with you. What would it be? It would be my iodine fixer used to be vitamin D. But again, studying common sense, scientific evidence and the fact that every single cell in your body needs it and it's anti cancer, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, it enhances the immune system, suppresses inflammation. Gee, what am I going to take on a daily basis? Think it's going to be iodine? 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