Laura Schoenfeld: I think that’s a really important point because a lot of people who are on these whole foods or Paleo diets will use things like sea salt, for example, or pink salt, like the Himalayan pink salt, and oftentimes they’re not getting iodized salt. Depending on what their diet is, that can either be fine or that can actually be a pretty big problem. There are a couple of different ways that I would potentially deal with iodine in someone’s diet. The sea vegetables, seaweed kind of thing is an option. The one downside about seaweed is that the iodine content of seaweed can vary pretty widely. Certain seaweed forms are a lot higher in iodine than others, things like kelp being much higher than some of the other ones, so just making sure that they know what the dose of seaweed should be if they’re going to be using seaweed as a supplement essentially.
The other thing that I’ll do sometimes if I think someone is not getting iodine in their diet is I’ll actually have them supplement with a small amount. We’re talking about 150 to 225 micrograms a day, which is pretty low. It’s basically just to cover the bases and make sure that they’re getting what they need. Especially if someone has any sort of thyroid issue or elevated TSH, I want to make sure they’re getting regular small amounts of iodine. One of the problems with iodine, especially with some of the supplements out there, is that it’s really easy to get pretty high doses of iodine, and some people will be taking things like 12-plus milligrams a day, and I don’t think there’s much evidence for that being necessary for the average person. If they’re going to be taking a ton of it, that could actually be causing more harm than good.
Laura is just asking me to repeat the dosage. Generally the basic dosage that would be enough to get someone their needs is going to be around 150 to 225 micrograms, maybe a little higher than that. I really wouldn’t go above a milligram a day unless you have some pretty significant reason for that. I know there are some people who recommend high-dose iodine supplementation for things like breast cancer and some hormonal issues, but I don’t really see that being appropriate for most people.
Now, as far as Hashimoto’s is concerned, there’s a lot of good information out there about iodine and selenium and how those two together can help with Hashimoto’s as long as there’s no excess of one or the other. I think with Hashimoto’s, as long as somebody is getting a decent amount of selenium and eating a pretty wide variety of foods, I might give them, like, around 100 or 150 micrograms of iodine just because they do need a little bit of iodine, and as long as they’re getting selenium to help them use that iodine, it shouldn’t cause a problem. Now, I’m not saying it won’t ever cause a problem, and I don’t want people to think that all people with Hashimoto’s should be taking iodine, but the fact is that we do need small amounts of iodine. We can’t just completely starve someone of iodine, even if they have Hashimoto’s.
I would recommend checking out Paul Jaminet’s writings on this topic. I want to see if I can find a link to that. He has a pretty extensive article on this exact topic. It’s a two-part article, and it talks about how high iodine supplementation can aggravate autoimmune thyroid disease, but you don’t want to just totally eliminate it from someone’s diet. It needs to be just a small amount, and make sure that the selenium status is good, as well. I can send that link in the chat box, and I’ll also put it in the Facebook group. Just check out the chat box for that link, and I’m also going to put it in Facebook so people can see it. I would say mostly focusing on just getting the bare necessity of iodine for a Hashimoto’s client and then also doing selenium and then potentially going higher than that, but that’s really going to be your own discretion if you want to go higher.