What ailments can iodine help the immune system fight?
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The incidence of fibrocystic breast disease in American women was 3 percent in the 1920s. Today, 90 percent of women have this disorder, manifested by epithelial hyperplasia, apocrine gland metaplasia, fluid-filled cysts, and fibrosis. Six million American women with fibrocystic disease have moderate to severe breast pain and tenderness that lasts more than 6 days during the menstrual cycle.
In animal studies, female rats fed an iodine-free diet develop fibrocystic changes in their breasts, and Iodine in its elemental form (I2) cures it.
Russian researchers first showed, in 1966, that Iodine effectively relieves signs and symptoms of fibrocystic breast disease. Vishniakova and Murav’eva treated 167 women suffering from fibrocystic disease with 50 mg KI during the intermenstrual period and obtained a beneficial healing effect in 71 percent (it is reference http://www.donaldmiller.com/Iodine%20Talk.doc).
Then Ghent and coworkers, in a study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=8221402&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_docsum) published in the Canadian Journal of Surgery in 1993, likewise found that Iodine relieves signs and symptoms of fibrocystic breast disease in 70 percent of their patients. This report is a composite of three clinical studies, two case series done in Canada in 696 women treated with various types of iodine, and one in Seattle. The Seattle study, done at the Virginia Mason Clinic, is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 56 women designed to compare 3–5 mg of elemental iodine (I2) to a placebo (an aqueous mixture of brown vegetable dye with quinine). Investigators followed the women for six months and tracked subjective and objective changes in their fibrocystic disease.
A statistical analysis (http://www.donaldmiller.com/Iodine_For_Fibrocystic_Disease_MX04.pdf) of the Seattle study (enlarged to include 92 women) was done, which shows that iodine has a highly statistically significant beneficial effect on fibrocystic disease (P < 0.001). Iodine reduced breast tenderness, nodularity, fibrosis, turgidity, and number of macroscysts, the five parameters in a total breast examination score that a physician blinded to what treatment the woman was taking, iodine or placebo, measured. This 36 page report,
http://www.donaldmiller.com/Iodine_For_Fibrocystic_Disease_MX04.pdf
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Most people who do not regularly eat seafood (either fish or kelp) or use iodized salt have some degree of Iodine deficiency; this can also occur as a result of a low-salt diet. These individuals may become hypothyroid and hypometabolic, because Iodine is an essential ingredient in thyroid hormone. At the same time they may become more sensitive to yeast infections, due to inactivity of the myeloperoxidase enzyme, which uses Iodine in cell mediated immune function. The iodine is used by this enzyme to product iodine-free radicals which are part of the cellular anti-yeast “free radical artillery”. (3) Previous to the use of nystatin as an antifungal drug, iodine therapy was successfully used to treat yeast infections; however, one must be very careful with the dosage. People who are sensitive to various foods and chemicals are frequently intolerant to iodine and should only use it in very low dosages.
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Iodine was used for a wide variety of ailments after its discovery in 1811 up until the mid-1900s, when thyroidologists warned that "excess" amounts of Iodine might adversely affect thyroid function. It is effective in gram amounts for treating various dermatologic conditions, chronic lung disease, fungal infestations, tertiary syphilis, and even arteriosclerosis. The Nobel laureate Dr. Albert Szent Györgi (1893–1986), the physician who discovered vitamin C, writes: "When I was a medical student, Iodine in the form of KI was the universal medicine. Nobody knew what it did, but it did something and did something good. We students used to sum up the situation in this little rhyme:
If ye don’t know where, what, and why
Prescribe ye then K and I"
The standard dose of potassium Iodide given was 1 gram, which contains 770 mg of iodine.
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From "Orthoiodosupplementation in a primary care practice", June 2005, by Jorge D. Flechas.
" We have since done a study of 12 diabetics, and in six cases we were able to wean all of these patients off of medications for their diabetes and were able to maintain a hemoglobin AIC of less than 5.8 with the average random blood Sugar of less than 100. To date, these patients continue to have excellent control of their Type 2 diabetes. The range of daily Iodine intake was from 50-100 mg/day. All diabetic patients were able to lower the total amount of medications necessary to control their diabetes. Two of the 12 patients were controlled with the use of Iodine plus one medication. Two patients have control of diabetes with Iodine plus two medications. One patient had control of her diabetes with three medications plus 50 mg iodine. The one insulin dependent diabetic was able to reduce the intake of Lantus insulin from 98 units to 44 units per day within a period of a few weeks.
In the Type 1 diabetics that we have been following, we have noted that if C-peptide is measurable, this would suggest that the individual is making their own insulin. I have been able to help this group of patients to get off insulin or to greatly reduce the amount they need for good glucose control with Iodoral[R] at 4 tablets/day (50 mg). If C-peptide is absent, then we feel there is no insulin being produced, and we have not been able to help this particular group of patients to get off their insulin. We have been able to help these patients lower the total amount of insulin needed to control their glucose."
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