The Importance of
Iodine: Articles warning of iodine
deficiency in pregnancy recently appeared in the medical journals Pediatrics, Lancet, and Thyroid.
The Thyroid article (Thyroid.
2013:23:523-528) reported that average thyroid levels dropped by 50 % between the decade of the 1970s and the 1990s. The article estimated that at least 15 percent of pregnant women in the United States are iodine deficient.

While moderate to severe iodine deficiency can lead to hypothyroidism in newborns and increase infant mortality, the Lancet article reported that mild iodine deficiency during pregnancy is associated with lower IQ scores and reading difficulty in children. The Pediatrics article pointed out the need for iodine supplementation during pregnancy and breast feeding. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) is 0.14 – 0.15 mg. daily. If you have heard me
speak you know that when applied to nutritional supplementation the letters RDA
actually stand for Really Dumb Advice.

What the articles say about iodine deficiency is true, but they are seeing only the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Guy Abraham was a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and
endocrinology at the UCLA School of Medicine who became interested in nutritional supplementation as a means to treat women’s health challenges such as PMS and fibrocystic breast disease. After discovering that a combination of magnesium and vitamin B6
improved premenstrual syndrome he became interested in the role of iodine in the body.

Dr. Abraham discovered that while iodine is generally viewed only as something needed to produce thyroid hormone, it has many other
roles. Iodine helps regulate moods,prevent cancer, reverse breast cysts, stabilize blood pressure and blood sugar,and prevent irregular heartbeats. Iodine deficiencies are largely responsible for both hypo (underactive) and hyper(overactive) thyroid conditions and the primary cause of Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease. He found that the optimum amount of iodine required to meet the body’s needs is approximately 100 times greater than the recommended daily allowance, but he
encountered a great deal of resistance from the rest of the medical community. In response he coined a new term,iodophobia.

"Medical Iodophobia is the unwarranted fear of using and recommending inorganic,non-radioactive iodine/iodide within the range
known from the collective experience of three generations of clinicians to be the safest and most effective amounts for treating symptoms and signs of iodine/iodide deficiency (12.5-50mg/day)."

If you would like to know more about iodine deficiency and how to correct it see my article Iodine:
Neglected and Misunderstood