Let’s Dig Into Iodine and Hashimoto’s
Iodine - a chemical element with symbol I and atomic number 53…
To iodine or not to iodine with Hashimoto’s - why is this so complicated?
Iodine is an essential factor of the thyroid hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3).
According to the Office of Dietary Supplements (you can check them out here), adults need about 150 mcg per day of iodine from the diet, pregnant women need more, kids need a little less, and 70 of those mcg are needed for producing thyroid hormones.
Okay, let’s get real for a minute - I know much of America eats poorly and either doesn’t have access to highly dense and nutritious food, or just doesn’t want to eat these foods. It may not be hard to fall into iodine deficiency with these circumstances.
In approximately 3600 BC, the ancient Chinese were the first to document the ingestion of seaweed and sea sponge to shrink goiters. Iodine wouldn’t be discovered until the early part of the 19th century, but these early empirical observations paved the way for iodized salt which was implemented in the US starting in the 1920’s because America was dealing with an iodine deficiency.
Problem is that now between our food, supplementation and growing population of autoimmune thyroid patients, many of us are getting too much iodine. I know this flies in the face of the iodine craze that’s taking place. Here’s the problem: The decrease in thyroid hormones caused by Hashimoto’s is not caused by an iodine deficiency; it’s caused by the destruction of the thyroid gland. Over consumption of iodine in the form of supplementation is causing inflammation inside the gland.
For some reason this is just hard to take in. I’m not making this up. You can check this out for yourself here, and here, and here, and here. And there’s a lot more where these came from. In fact, here are now numerous studies that show long-term increase of iodine use in populations leads to a greater progression of autoimmune thyroiditis.
Sometimes people will start taking iodine and declare, “Hey, I took this iodine. My TSH went back down and I feel great. I’ll keep taking it, it must work.” What’s actually happening is that the thyroid gland is being destroyed by the destruction of the autoimmune process. When the tissue breaks down, there’s going to be thyroid hormones in circulation from the breakdown of the tissue itself. This will by default provide some people with more thyroid hormone and they’ll feel better, thinking that it’s the iodine that’s helping them.
In contrast, that same breakdown of thyroid tissue will provide some people with too much thyroid hormone in their system and they’ll feel worse. Iodine is really just bad news for autoimmune thyroid patients and most people with hypothyroidism are really just undiagnosed autoimmune thyroid patients.
Let’s look at some top iodine rich foods which are:
1.Seaweed/Dried kelp - 1 whole sheet dried: 19-2,984 micrograms (amounts vary widely)
2.Iodized salt - 45 mcg from approximately 1/4 tsp.
3. Cod - 3 ounces - 99 mcg
4. Egg - 1 large - 24 mcg
5. Yogurt (organic, grass-fed, and preferably raw) - 1 cup - 75 mcg
6. Certain fruits like prunes (5 contain 13 mcg) and cranberries (1 ounces contains 100 mcg).
Wild seafood, grass-fed meats, organic fruits and vegetables will all contain some iodine, but this also depends on good quality soil. I understand that we are what we eat, but also what we absorb and depending on where you live and what you have access to, a certain amount of supplementation may be appropriate for you. With that being said, beware of iodine ingestion with autoimmune thyroid disease; you could be doing so much more harm than good.