“Iodine is the agent which arouses (kindles) and keeps going the flame of life. With the aid of our thyroid, in which the iodine is manifesting, it can either damp this flame or kindle it to a dissolute fire.” -Scholz
Among the essential nutrients we see things like magnesium, calcium, vitamin A and C, but lesser mentioned is iodine, the metabolizer!
Iodine is called the metabolizer by Dr. Bernard Jensen, because it’s literally at the forefront of your metabolic processes. Metabolism generally includes any process in the body designed to break something down or create something out of smaller pieces. In other words, it’s the ability of your body to transform food and harmful substances into something useable.
Iodine transforms and refines your body! It can help improve intelligence, growth, digestion, energy, and the immune system. Thus, many diseases respond to increased dietary iodine. Without iodine, growth in the brain and body is stunted, learning is more difficult, and the digestive and immune systems are sluggish.
Your whole body requires iodine as a trace element, not just your thyroid! Every cell in the body contains some. The prostate and breast tissues soak up almost as much iodine as the thyroid. Deficiency of breast iodine has been implicated as a cause of fibrocystic breast disease, cancer, nodules and cysts, enlargement, pain, and scarring – and for the prostate, enlargement, cancer, and male fertility problems. According to Dr. George Flechas, iodine is utilized by every hormone receptor in the body, and deficiency leads to hormonal disfunction that can be seen in all hormone systems. What does this mean? Iodine deficiency can affect pretty much any organ or tissue, healthy or diseased.
Most people don’t get enough iodine. Besides low dietary intake, radiation (in the atmosphere, from cell phones and computers, etc), exercise, sweating, mental work, lack of sleep, disease, pregnancy, and infections lessen the amount in our bodies! It’s been speculated that the average inland person’s consumption of dietary iodine is only sufficient to prevent goiter and clinical cretinism, but not enough to serve the nearly 37 trillion other cells in the body. This is partly why queens and kings of the past would visit the ocean when they had growth and healing problems and symptoms of adult cretinism.
Iodine disinfects the blood to aid immunity! To quote Dr. Mark Sircus, “Every 17 minutes, every drop of blood in our body flushes through our thyroid, and if our thyroid has an adequate supply of iodine, blood-borne bacteria and viruses are killed off as the blood passes through the thyroid.”
So how much iodine do you get in your food? We require very small amounts of this element to keep from getting obvious signs of disease, so surely there’s enough in our iodized table salt and fish, right?
Wrong!
Iodized salt lets off iodine the longer it’s stored. If your salt was freshly iodized, you might expect to get enough iodine to prevent some problems – not enough to feed the breast and prostate or other cells, of course, but to keep your thyroid happy enough. But just like many other food items, salt is warehoused and stored for prolonged periods of time, and the amount of iodine in your iodized salt will be nearly indetectable by the time you use it.
Seafood is a decent source of iodine, but few people eat fish every day. 
KELP and SEAWEED are by far the best sources we have today, with other plants being deficient due to weathering and wash-off. Some inland plants have almost zero iodine, and even tropical plants are usually poor sources.
Everyone – vegetarians, meat-eaters, surfers, vitamin-takers, everyone – should be consuming seaweed or seafood regularly, even if only once per week. To be healthy, you need higher levels of iodine and the trace elements that come with seafood. We can’t be so afraid of mercury levels and pollution; without iodine and trace elements, we can’t handle even tiny amounts of toxic metals and chemicals!
I hope this has been an eye-opener for some of you. Multivitamins increase our metabolic rate, and thus increase the amount of iodine we need. Taking a multivitamin won’t usually supply you with a suitable amount. Iodine comes in many forms, and the stuff contained in food from living ocean creatures is what our body expects. Kelp and seaweed supplements like this one are the best, and they’re cheap! At 10-$20 per month – for your health and happiness – there’s really no excuse.
So do yourself this favor: get some seaweed, eat some fish, or buy a seaweed supplement (like kelp). If you don’t, you’re unnecessarily limiting your health and growth. More so than ever in history, we need dietary iodine. Be mindful and boost iodine, the great metabolizer and tender for the flame of life!
References:
-Iodine: Bring Back the Universal Nutrient Medicine (International Medical Veritas Association; health-science-spirit.com)
-Iodine (Dr. Mark Sircus)
-The Role of Iodine in Human Growth and Development (Zimmermann M.B.; Semin. Cell Dev. Biol.; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
-Intelligence Quotient and Iodine Intake: a Cross-Sectional Study in Children (Santiago-Fernandez P., Torres-Barahona R., Muela-Martinez J.A., Rojo-Martinez G., Garcia-Fuentes E., Garriga M.J., Leon A.G., and Soriguer F.; J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab.; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
-Uptake and Antitumoral Effects of Iodine and 6-iodolactone in Differentiated and Undifferentiated Human Prostate Cancer Cell Lines (Aranda N., Sosa S., Delgado G., Aceves C., and Anguiano B.; Prostate; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
-Iodine and Mammary Cancer (Eskin B.A.; Adv. Exp. Med. Biol.; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
