While searching through steem for some good reads I stumbled upon a post written by @truthproductions. It was titled “Iodine: An Essential Nutrient and Holistic Option for Detoxing Heavy Metals and Halogens”. It was a relatively short article that was making a lot of claims about Iodine without really using any scientific sources that back those claims up. I will go through each claim and see what science has to say about it (including proper in-text citation).
First claim:
Iodine is an essential nutrient. The body does not make iodine, so you have to consume it.
Well, yes, iodine cannot be made by the body. If you take a look at a periodic table of elements – like this one – you will find an “I” in row 5, of the second column from the right. This means that iodine is one of the elements and if our body could make them, well, that would be a scientific wonder.
The modern food supply is no longer a reliable source of iodine, and 95% of Americans are deficient in it.
I was trying really hard to find information suggesting such a high level of iodine deficiency in Americans today. However, the only information I could find stated that there is no iodine deficiency in America (1). However, the same source states that roughly 40% of the world´s population is at risk for iodine deficiency. Another source states that due to salt iodization, deficiency in America and the developed world is rare (2). Yet another source states that Americans generally get enough iodine through iodized salt (3). I did find some scientific reviews that stated iodine deficiencies is still a concern in developed, European countries (4). In conclusion, yes, our body cannot make iodine. However, Americans get enough iodine through iodized salt and other nutritional sources. Iodine deficiency is still a concern in certain regions of the world.
There are iodine receptors in every cell of the body. Iodine stimulates the production of hormones, the body’s chemical messengers.
The first part is wrong. Not every cell in the body has iodine receptors. The receptors in the cell are for thyroid hormones (more specifically T3), which behave like steroid hormones and are nuclear transcription factors (5). The second part is a little bit more tricky to judge.
Word for word, this is probably more wrong than right. Iodine is needed to produce certain steroid hormones, the thyroid hormones T3 and T4, whose function I already mentioned (6). It is more an ingredient than stimulus. Yes, hormones are chemical messengers in our body. However, not the only ones. As a matter of fact, the all so demonized radicals are also chemical messengers (for example NO) (7). So that statement is somewhat misleading.
Because we live in an increasingly toxic world, iodine supplementation is crucial. Pharmaceuticals, food, water, and air contain high levels of heavy metals like mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic, and the halogens chlorine, fluorine, and bromine.
A scientific review confirms that concentration of endocrine disrupters and heavy metals increase in the developed world (8). I would also add soil to the list of things that contain heavy metals, as well as ourselves. Some metals are actually very important for us (like you would not be able to live without iron or calcium) (8). Well, if you are worried about halogens, you really should worry about iodine also, since it is a halogen, too! A definition of "high levels of heavy metals" would be nice.
All of these elements compete for the iodine receptor sites in the body.
As I already said, there are no iodine receptors. It is more accurate to say that heavy metals are interfering with the synthesis of thyroid hormone, which can cause disruptions in hormone homeostasis (9). Bromine and chlorine can actually compete with iodine for uptake into the thyroid (by competing to be taken up by a transporter) (10). A scientific article states that enocrine disrupters like bisphenol A (chemically similar to estrogen and steroid hormones in general) can bind the thyroid hormone receptors (11). The same article suggests that halogenated derivatives of bisphenol A have even higher binding affinities for thyroid receptors. Why are people taking iodine pills when exposed to radiation? Is that to prevent heavy metals to compete for iodine receptors? No. Taking potassium iodide pills as a prevention against radioactivity aims to saturate the thyroid gland with non-radioactive iodine, so that it does not absorb radioactive iodine when exposed to it (12)
Hormonal dysfunctions manifest as metabolic disorders and diseases such as:
- Diabetes
- Cancer
- Hyper- and hypothyroidism
- Goiter
- Cystic conditions
Yes, hormonal dysfunctions CAN manifest as these disorders. That is common knowledge I would say. However, this list is very vague and repetitive. For example, goiter is a symptom of hypothyroidism (3).
With enough iodine in the system, hormone production and enzyme activity runs more efficiently and metabolism is optimized.
Apart from very vague language this is mostly correct. The key here is enough iodine, not too little, but also not too much. The vague language actually implies some dangerous conclusions: iodine is responsible for all enzymes and the more iodine the better. First of all, iodine is not the main regulator for all enzymes. Second of all, iodine can be harmful. Too much iodine can actually cause hypothyroidism, as well as hyperthyroidism and other diseases among which are Hashimoto disease, Graves disease, certain thyroid cancers and thyrotoxicosis (2).
iodine supplementation immediately begins the excretion of halogens and heavy metals.
I could not find any scientific source dealing with iodine and its role on heavy metal excretion. In such a case it is better to not make any statements because it is probably more fiction than fact.
Conclusion
Iodine: An Essential Nutrient and Holistic Option for Detoxing Heavy Metals and Halogens is not scientific at all - luckily they do not claim to be. However, almost every statement made in this post seems to be half-truisms or just false information.I have to say that I like the fact that this group is trying to help people. However, this article is not valuable information. Additionally, they have re-posted this post from another account.
As always,
Cheers @lesshorrible!
Upvote for every debunking of pseudoscience.
It's incredible how those people often can't even write the title properly:
for Detoxing Heavy Metals and Halogens.
Halogens: F, Cl, Br, I (just to mention once more, for bot-like users who go to comments dirrectly)
How it detoxifies from itself?
Is that an annihilating self-destroying antimatter Iodine, or the black-ops element pretending to be halogen but actually it's an alkaline or whatever.
Haha, yeah, I think you have a great upvoting strategy! However, I gotta say that Iodine can be used to treat halide poisoning (according to someone in steemstem chat)
Thanks for the comment. Cheers!
Hm... That is interesting...
Regular Google, halide poisoning: 137,000
But "halide poisoning" iodine on Scholar: 5 hits?
Strange disproportion between "Detoxicate your body Now" and recognition of this threat
I tried to find some articles about halide poisoning and could not find any yesterday but some today. It seems like halide poisoning is an industrial and not really a health problem. Did you find a review article on this??
I will now take the statement back that iodine can be used to treat halide poisoning. Thanks for correcting me. Cheers!
I found in something in books.google that loop diurhetics could be used.
I'm not sure if the iodine in some form could act as a diuretic.
This is why I like steemSTEM community as it provides us some daily challenges (write a nice post, read posts, find some comments...)
Long Live the SteemIt! :D
Yes very true!! There is sadly a lot of rubbish now, though. Like posts entirely based on wikipedia. But steemstem is awesome. Thanks mate! Cheers!
You're not even going to read the articles yourself and apply your own logic and reasoning?
So you have MORE people confirming the information we present? Sources you trust?
Thank you for pointing out the trouble that people selling these remedies are bringing to us. We have to counter their bad information with correct and accurate information. Iodine comes in many forms and each has its own unique set of properties when it comes to the human body and the endocrine system. Lesshorrible is correct in pointing out that iodine deficiency is relatively unheard of in the US, but you see the dishonest tactics used to try to sell their point out to gullible customers. Don't fall for their scams. Rely on evidence to make your decisions about your health. Speak with your physician.
We don't sell anything, and to suggest that we are trying to use people for personal gain is slander and libel.
It might be more accurate to say OTHER Halogens, but honestly it seemed obvious that anyone would understand it is referring to other halogens.
Hm, let's check... "Chlorine gas poisoning", Enter
Fluoride poisoning, Enter
Bromine poisoning treatment, Enter:
Please, be precise what do you mean by "detoxication" and "halogens". Do you mean halogens as elements or some salts of halogens or halides or what?
If you write "Detoxing Halogens" it's equal to label "protecting you from animals".
What animals? Bugs, dogs, bears, sharks, elephants...? Do you count unicellular animals as animals? Will it stop them, repel them, kill them?
You need to be more precise if you want people to understand what you want to say.
You're saying you can't understand information unless it is presented to you in a very particular and limited format? Further, that you are unwilling or unable to research this topic for yourself?
Children are more intelligent than that.
I'm asking a very simple question: what do you mean when you say "detoxification" and "halogen"?
If you inhale Cl gas for example *(it's halogen)
with the moisture in your lungs, it makes an acid, HCl,
that's why it's "toxic", a proven chemical weapon used in WWI.
And there is no way to "do detox" because it's dissolving your lung tissue.
So again, please explain to us what do you mean when you say "halogen" and when you say "detoxification"?
Are you asking because you want to learn more about iodine and expand your awareness, or because you want to attack and dominate?
I'm doing science for a living for 8 years. I've done several "first time ever" things and domination on SteemIt post is not particularly interesting for me. I only kindly asked you to tell us what do you mean when you say "detoxicating halogens".
Because when I hear halogen, I'm thinking about F, Cl, Br, I and At.
And when I type treatment after poisoning caused by those - I don't get Iodine as the solution.
I would always be extremely sceptical about everything someone says/writes, who has "truth" in his name - you can almost be sure, he will write about literally everything except the truth (whatever this may be).
Thanks for deconstructing it.
Are you going to do research to come to your own conclusions, or base your perception of the truth on what someone else tells you?
I think you didn't just debunked myths from @truthproductions ' article but exposed the original content by @gardenofeden too. Seems like somebody's a plagiarist. Not so truthful huh...
I think they are the same organisation. However posting the same things should get you @cheetah upvote and @steemcleaners´attention. Cheers
I am getting steemcleaners on this
Yes you definitely should :) Apparently you'll get rewarded doing so too. Though I think they're a little slow due to the recent backlogs, you should totally report it here. And once again, congrats for being curied- I like your detailed analysis.
This amazing post was nominated to, and upvoted by @curie. Support what we do by voting Curie as a witness
Haha, we will see. I just dont want them to abuse steem and spread false info. Thank you for your engagement! Cheers!
Again, it is not abuse to post content we own the rights to, nor is it false info. You are neglecting to do thorough research.
We disclose that we are a branch of the Garden of Eden - that is fully transparent.
It is not abuse to repost content if we own the rights to it. This is well over a year old and is important and valuable.
Live Truth Productions is a multimedia publishing house & more from the Garden of Eden sustainable ecovillage!
We disclose that in every single one of our articles.
Did you even look at the article?
Yeah, you are still getting rewards twice for the same article. That is the point. Cheers
The article is over a year old and not even visible on the Steemit blog anymore. There is nothing abusive about reposting content, given that we offer disclosure and extra information in reposting it.
Suggesting abuse disregards not only our dedicated support for this platform, but also where our resources go. Your point is to try to damage us.
Man! Such a great article.
I'm @deholt brother and I can't understand everything as you guys do, but this is such a great thing for science.
Cheers!
Haha lol, your entire fam on steemit?? :D Cool thing. Thank you for the feedback! I sadly cannot completely understand your Spanish posts. Mucho gusto espanol pero hablo solo un poquito.....
Cheers!
Quite interesting article. I would like to say that Iodine other trace elements is needed in the body in tolerable quantity (PPM). Deficiency may result in goitre. One of the best ways to consume iodine is by using iodized salt. Here in Nigeria, since 2005 efforts have been ongoing through awareness to encourage the use of Iodized salt and discourage the use of non iodized salts
Thank you for sharing your experience. Cheers!
This is what we learned at school, too. And that is why the salt won in our country (Austria) gets iodized, too, for health care.
Being A SteemStem Member
Will read it later. First of all, my vote. :)
Haha thank you! Always appreciated, especially from someone who was there from day one! Cheers!
Back again. Now I spent quite a while reading here. You really did a good job. There's so much fake and lies around and patients look fo remedies and pay high sums for useless or even harmful stuff. Like in this case, obviously.
Iodine gave me a very special but vey uncomfortale experience a long time ago, in a hospital. Since tha that day I know that I have a iodine allergy ... :) Cheers!
That is very unfortunate! I dont have any allergies but a few friends do and I know that it can get pretty nasty. Glad you are fine though!
I mean, iodine still is important but it is not the one thing that will make you healthy forever. And again, too much is possible and just as harmful as too little. Thank you @martinamartini, always value your input. Cheers!
Maybe your essays help me to explore what happened then. It‘s the only allergy I have (as far as I know) and the situation arouse with a medical control investigation and they gave me liqid iodine iv and I suppose it was overdosed. But who will ever know. I think it was about two hours later... All at a sudden I got cramps in my whole body and was so busy with my pains that I could not ask for help. Another patient called a nurse and they gave me some antidot. I would never allow doctors to give me another infusion like in this case (health control) any more. I think iodine tablets might not be that strong and harmful. But life has shown me that it is better to stay far from medecins... Cheers!
That sounds painful. Let me actually get you a link to a google scholar search for "iodine allergy". If you have some free time you can browse through some of the articles and maybe you find some answers here. I do think medicine can be helpful, however, many doctors tend to prescribe drugs when they are not necessary, or do not commit as much time to a patient as they should. But that is a systemic error that will probably need a lot of time to be fixed... Hope you are well. Cheers!
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&as_sdt=0%2C1&q=iodine+allergy&btnG=
Oh, thank youj so much. That incident, it is long forgotten. What remained is my sceptical attitude versus doctors... It was not my only strange experience with the so-called conventional medicine. You're in my Steemify register so I won't miss your next articles.
I love Infowars and they sell iodine and it is wonderful for millions of people who buy them and I am becoming stronger and stronger.
Iodine is needed by our body. It’s not a magical cure to every disease. I was not agreeing with this article and its purpose. Do what you want to, just don’t harm others. Cheers!
Iodine has been reduced in our foods and in our bodies for the past few decades. It is a big problem.
Well, Himalayan uber-salt is still NaCl, not NaI. Cheers