When urinary iodine levels go down after beginning Iodine

Iodine Deficiency Symporter Atrophy

In our Iodine Investigation Project, we have collected a lot of data on Breast Cancer patients taking iodine. Occasionally, the loading test after 3 months reports the Iodine level dropped from the first test. A 75% saturation might drop to a 50% saturation. Then the third test will go up.

At the Iodine Conference, one of the doctors mentioned this happened to his own loading tests and some of his patients. What this seems to mean is that the symporters which absorb iodine aren't working. So the iodine just washes right past the absorbers and shows up in the urine, showing a false lab value. Think of water flowing over a dry sponge, not absorbing until it gets more water. The symporters atrophy until they get nourished.

Once iodine and antioxidants start repairing the symporters by the second loading test, the lab values will show how much iodine is being absorbed--and that will be a more accurate reading of iodine saturation.

So the next loading test will be even higher as iodine absorption increases.

Sometimes practitioners will not even test patients' iodine levels for three months. Others feel they have to "cover" themselves so they order an initial test.