Are you a lover of food? I mean, all things food. Or is moderation your middle name? Either way, you probably haven’t picked up that cereal box to discover that you are eating a chemical concoction of virtually unrecognizable nonfood products that are destroying your body from the inside out in the name of science. The same science that told the gullible that masks would protect them from a virus (that’s a soap box, cry it from the mountaintops tangent for another day).

If you are a 1980s kid or before, you clearly remember a few things. About everyone drank Kool-Aid; all the neighborhood kids were outside playing; someone was always getting hurt. As every one of those scrapes and bruises was cleaned, many might recall finishing it off with a bit of iodine, which included gritting your teeth and blowing on it to dry quickly and feel better.

Fast forward to today, and hardly a person has iodine even stored in their house. During the pandemic, some stores stopped carrying it all together (it was too controversial). Are these older remedies really outdated, or is there something to these wise old tales? To start, I am not your doctor, nor am I giving you medical advice. Please seek out your own doctor’s knowledge, as in today’s age, even telling someone to take Tylenol could have you thrown in jail (or being a doctor and prescribing ivermectin, for that matter… but I digress as that’s yet another tangent for another day).

It turns out that iodine is excellent for your immune support. If you go to the mall, sit on a bench, and just watch people; it becomes evident how unhealthy our culture really is. There is hardly a person that walks by that isn’t overweight, walking with a limp, suffering from a skin rash/condition, or some other obvious health anomalies (or perhaps no longer an anomaly). So where has all the iodine gone, and could it make a difference?

A more powerful antioxidant than vitamin C or phosphatidylcholine, iodine is a metabolic mineral for mitochondrial function and stimulates the metabolism. Essentially, this keeps your body in a more youthful state.

This substance is also vital to the thyroid, an endocrine gland that can affect heart rate, blood pressure, blood calcium levels, body temperature, and nerve function (to name a few). And to make matters more apparent, your doctor probably is not testing your iodine levels, nor even thinks about it. You are lucky if they test more than just T4 and TSH, virtually showing nothing, and (FYI) T4 cannot be produced without iodine.

Are there signs of iodine deficiency? Let’s start here, are you exhausted… I mean, truly exhausted?

Trending, and not in a good way, is a chronic illness that impacts up to 2.5 million Americans, according to the CDC; chronic fatigue syndrome. Intracellular iodine produces energy, while extracellular is an antioxidant, antiallergenic, and induces apoptosis (healthy cell die-off or programmed cell die-off). Even more interesting is a study from Zhang in 2003 where it was apoptosis that was the driver behind lung cancer reversal. Iodine deficiency is linked with multiple cancers if looking at country cancer rates and dietary consumption of iodine-rich foods.

In 1998, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that 72% of the world population in 129 countries suffers from this deficiency. Look at the population, especially the younger folks. Does there seem to be an increase in depression? Toxins and parasites are leading causes of illness, as claimed by many functional medicine or naturopathic doctors. If these two things have a positive charge while a true anionic iodine has a negative charge, then iodine sufficiency should create a parasite-resistant environment and remove things like heavy metals from the body.

Why is this important? There is a gut (aka your enteric nervous system) brain connection recognized even in allopathic medicine. Here lies the field of neurogastroenterology and the saying, “You are what you eat.” In the small intestines, parasites are happy to aggregate in acidic conditions, eating the serotonin that is produced in the gut; the hormone needed to feel happy. The small intestine should be alkaline, but between pharmaceutical drugs, processed foods, alcohol, and microwaves for the majority of the population, it is not. With iodine, an environment becomes resistant to the parasitic takeover, helping to hold on to more of the serotonin being created.

So, where is the deficiency coming from? An educated guess would be the genetically modified food that has been contaminated with toxins such as glyphosate, a synthetic acid, or others like diquat dibromide. If it contains any variation of elements like fluorine, chlorine, or bromine, it will lead to the displacement of iodine.

This is not a call to action to go out and buy iodine and start supplementing. This is geared towards an awareness that perhaps there is a simple solution to your growing health concerns. Not all iodine is created equal. Seek out a medical professional who is truly aware of the different forms available to help slowly increase your levels if your levels are not up to par.

First, look at your food and ask yourself, “is this bite of food going to help me or hurt me?” Or read the label on your cereal box and think of the adage, “you are what you eat.” If you are content with being a “sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, yellow 5, red 40, vegetable oil, maltodextrin” blend, go for it. Or, you could be an apple.