Iodine: a discussion, and perhaps a civilized debate page 23

[JamesS]

Oh, the drama! The evil doctors! The innocent Victim! The despair! The CURE! The joy!

heeeeee's baaaaaaack!

But seriously, I never once said on this thread or the other that FBD did not respond well to iodine. I have never had FBD. I wouldn't know. I am happy for anyone who finds health. I just think that Grizz takes a positive thing, one that could help a lot of people and, by over-hyping it and making sweeping statements that are totally unfounded factually (e.g. the cancer "cure" stuff) makes the whole idea look like lunacy.

Seriously, does anyone really believe that any doctor would say in so many words, "Learn to live with your breasts or cut them off"?
Could it be that Grizz and/or his neighbor are engaging in a bit of hyperbole for dramatic effect?

Seriously, does anyone really believe that any doctor would say in so many words, "Learn to live with your breasts or cut them off"?
Could it be that Grizz and/or his neighbor are engaging in a bit of hyperbole for dramatic effect?

Why is this so far fetched for you? Doctors are telling women to have their HEALTHY breasts cut off (prophylactic mastectomies) just because they have a history of breast cancer in the family. Why would any doctor do such a stupid thing especially when there is absolutely no proof of hereditary breast cancers? If you want to learn where these genetic mutations that cause breast cancer come from then research the various viruses shown to cause these mutations including human papilloma viruses (HPVs). Does cutting off the breasts get rid of the cancer causing viruses? Hint: The answer is NO!!!

And it is not just women. Men are also being talked in to prophylactic prostectomies to prevent possible future prostate cancer, which has also been linked to various viruses including HPV.

Maybe more research and less sarcasm is in order!

[JamesS]

As far as worry about "irradiating breasts"
"An average of 70 millirems—roughly the dose you'd receive from your normal, everyday environment over a period of two and a half months. Most of our lifetime exposure to radiation comes from radon produced by decaying uranium in soil and rocks. Enough of this gas gets trapped in your house to deliver about 200 millirems per year. Food, which incorporates uranium from the soil, adds to this total, as do air travel, smoking, and radioactive atoms inside your body. But that's no reason to worry: Studies have shown no increased risk of cancer among people experiencing as many as 1,000 millirems per year of background radiation. (As a general rule, though, you're better off with less exposure.)"
How dangerous is the radiation from a mammogram? - Slate Magazine

Basically, we are always being exposed to radiation... nothing to be done about it. A mammogram isn't really going to hurt anything.

There is big differences when it comes to the types and levels of radiation. Yes, we are exposed to all sorts of natural radiation on a daily basis. This does not make it safe to stand next to a nuclear power reactor core.

[Quarry]

JamesS, what are you doing? Is the normal font someone else's post (who?) and the bold your response to the same?

Are you not quoting because it is from the other thread?

It would help if you could edit briefly to identify the forum member to whom each post responds. Identity counts! (well, for me anyway, some members' posts I glaze over, for others I pay attention)

He is responding to Paleobird's attempts to dominate the discussion. I agree with his sentiments about her attitude. James, feel free to respond to her matriachial self important injections into other threads!!

[Omni]

Since this thread is way off track anyway.
JamesS
You seem to have done a lot of looking into alternative cancer cures,
What do you think of Burzynski and antineoplastins, his site link below:
Burzynski Clinic | Advanced Alternative Cancer Treatment | Houston, Texas
I looked into all this stuff a while back including Hosley, some nurse with "Herbs" and Gerson therapy amongst others, obviously data is lacking so they may all be quacks or all or some of them may actually be onto something.
I centred on the Burzynski one after watching a Doco(?) on U-Tube, his battles with the FDA seem to be well documented, there is footage of senate hearings with real patients and documented diagnosis being healed and there seems to be some evidence of conspiracy to steal his patents, so just just wondering if you or anyone else has more to add on that one?
Link to movie below.
Dr Burzynski movie (Full Version) .flv With Extra Burzynski Links - YouTube

[JamesS]

This is the full study as published in the Journal of Cancer : Effectiveness of population-based service screening with mammography for women ages 40 to 49 years - Hellquist - 2010 - Cancer - Wiley Online Library

It clearly shows that mammograms do save lives when you look at the long term. Studies showing pessimistic results were too short to see the benefits.

No, it does not. In fact, it appears to be just the opposite. Why? A big problem with such studies is that it is based on statistics, which are very easily manipulated such as in this case. If you actually read the study it states:

"During the study period, there were 803 breast cancer deaths in the study group (7.3 million person-years) and 1238 breast cancer deaths in the control group (8.8 million person-years). The average follow-up was 16 years"

So they make it sound like the "study group" who had the mammograms had a lower death rate than the "control group" that did not get mammograms. Wow, sounds impressive if you only read that part instead of the whole study design. If we read the rest of the study though we find something very interesting. There was a total of 7,261,415 women in the study group yet 8,843,852 women in the control group. There was only 435 more deaths in the control group, which is minimal to begin with. But the control group also had a total of 1,582,437 more women in their group. Therefore, on a per capita basis the study actually proves that mammograms had a negative effect on survival rate.

The study does not say much about allopathic medicine's treatments either being that so many diagnosed women still died from their cancer.

[Omni]

Quote below from the breast cancer study, if I am reading it right there was a higher death rate in the control group before the study period, so this already suggests a confounding factor. In addition to that it would be interesting to actually know how many diagnosis and treatments there were in both the control and study group to determine if the screening was actually effective or not. I also wonder about the definition of deaths and how many may have been classified as another cause some time after treatment and if it was related possibly.

By using the definition of refined mortality, there were 607 breast cancer deaths during 4.8 million person-years in the study group and 846 breast cancer deaths during 6.3 million person-years in the control group during the reference period (from 1970 to 1985; ie, before the start of service screening), resulting in an RR of 0.94 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.85-1.05). For the study period (from 1986 to 2005), there were 803 breast cancer deaths during 7.3 million person-years in the study group (Table 2) and 1238 breast cancer deaths during 8.8 million person-years in the control group (Table 3), resulting in an estimated crude RR of 0.79 (95% CI, 0.72-0.86), (Table 4). The crude cumulative breast cancer mortality per 100,000 person-years is illustrated in Figure 2. The curves start to diverge after 3 years and continue to diverge throughout follow-up.

[JamesS]

Iodine is a controversial topic everywhere...I just didn't expect to have to do battle HERE on a site that pretty much promotes taking charge of your own health after realizing that CW is usually wrong. When I first found this thread, I was already using Iodine in high doses and had never heard of Brownstein or Grizz. My hubby found info for me about 6-7 years ago called "The Iodine Saturation Protocol" by Dr Bruce West and hoped it would help my thyroid since no other local doctor would help me based on their useless TSH test. I had every classic symptom of hypothyroidism yet no one would help me. Unfortunately, the iodine hubby ordered only contained Iodine but no Iodide which is what mostly supports the thyroid. So I feel that my breasts and other female parts have still been protected by the iodine I did take but it had little to no effect on my thyroid or the bromides in it. If it had "caused hypothyroidism" by raising my TSH levels, even a doctor would have recoginized something was wrong and treated my thyroid. But my TSH was always at a "normal level" according to the doctors narrow thinking. I needed iodide too and found out about it on this forum along with Selenium etc. I am thankful!

I agree it is controversial, but why? Could it be there are people recommending doses that are a thousand times or more over what is considered a safe limit? Or could it be that the iodine peddlers keep telling people who have signs of iodine poisoning that they are only suffering from the mythical bromine detox? And worse yet telling them to take even more iodine to push the bromine out when this happens? Or when they suffer from iodine poisoning they recommend "salt flushes" which actually push the toxic excess levels of iodine out so people can poison themselves again with excess iodine?

I personally have problems with all of the above as well as their ignoring the fact that excess iodine can cause or aggravate Hashimoto's thyroidosis.

I also have a problem with the iodine peddlers claiming that high dose iodine cures pretty much everything under the sun including all forms of hypothyroidism. There are actually a number of things that can cause hypothyroidism and not all can be treated with iodine since not all forms of hypothyroidism result from an iodine deficiency.

They also claim that high dose iodine has been used to treat hyperthyroidism. Although this is true they are overlooking the mechanism. When doing excessive levels of iodine the thyroid actually shuts down to protect itself from the poisonous levels of iodine. I am taking care of someone right now that developed iodine poisoning from his medication. This initially threw him in to hyperthyroidism and the thyroid started shutting down. We took him to a new cardiologist who confirmed the drug was the problem and cut his dosage in half. This caused his thyroid to go in to a severe state of hypothyroidism. He is now off the drug completely and taking an herbal formula to support his thyroid and is quickly recovering.

People need to realize that yes iodine is essential to the body, but they also have to use some common sense and realize that iodine is also poisonous in high amounts. Look at these examples:

After using a treatment, please share your results

Great example of excess iodine side effects

And more on the bogus brominism claims:

Iodism debunked? Not even close!!!

Toxic Bromine In Our Food Supply?

More misinformation from the iodine forum.

And on iodine safety issues:

MedCapsules Forum - Iodine Safety/Issues

[oxide]

Yeesh. I stopped reading after the third post.

This is all I want to know:

I like nori and kombu kelp. Is one serving every other day or so (1 mg/day total I and I-) going to help me, harm me, or make no difference?

[Paleobird]

Yeesh. I stopped reading after the third post.

This is all I want to know:

I like nori and kombu kelp. Is one serving every other day or so (1 mg/day total I and I-) going to help me, harm me, or make no difference?

Yeesh indeed. Somebody stayed up all night just to post multiple walls of text on this thread. Some of which are very sensible and well researched and some of which are kinda puzzling.

I think your "dose" of sea veggies sound very much the norm for that hypothetical healthy Japanese person we keep discussing.

Whole foods are good. Munch on.

[Paleobird]

Most likely he is including the magnesium because magnesium increases adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that fuels the cells and helps them to function properly.

Yes but that is a general health reason to take selenium. The question was specifically irt taking it with iodine.

I don't trust anything coming from Mercola. His claims have been discredited to many times.

One thing that Mercola is overlooking though is that the iodine sources the Japanese consume such as seaweeds and ocean fish are also loaded with other halogens that help prevent iodine poisoning. Apparently Mercola is not aware that the ocean contains a lot of chloride, as well as bromine and fluoride that are picked up by seaweeds and ocean animals.

Mercola is apparently unaware of the fact that the low rate of cancer in Japan has been linked to their higher consumption of soy that contain protective phytoestrogens that also happen to counter the adverse effects of excess iodine. Mercola though sits on the board of the Weston Price Foundation who is supported by the beef and dairy industries. So Mercola is paid to bash soy, which is the biggest competitor of the beef and dairy industries.

Seaweeds are also rich in immune stimulating polysaccharides that further reduce the risk of cancer.

Iodine does have estrogen blocking effects just like phytoestrogens, but there is no evidence that estrogen causes cancer to begin with. Estrogen appears to only be a growth factor for already existing cancers.

I agree that Mercola's claims often need to be taken with large doses of salt (haha). But I do agree with him that soy needs bashing. Mark, who gets no money from the meat industry bashes as well.

Yes, seaweeds contain arsenic. So do a lot of common foods such as brown rice and apples. Seaweeds though also contain algins that bind heavy metals helping the body to excrete them.

Good point.

I'm curious about the supplements as well. Following are the "required" supplements:
1/2 tsp unrefined salt
Selenium 200 mcg
Magnesium 400 mg
Vitamin C 2000 mg +
ATP Co-Factors (100 mg Riboflavin, 500 mg Niacin)

The only time I have seen salt recommended is when people are also recommending toxic levels of iodine. Refined salt is sodium chloride, and the excess of chloride helps to displace the excess, toxic levels of iodine. Sea salt will also provide small amounts of bromine and fluoride that will also displace iodine. It is interesting to watch the iodine peddlers tell people to take toxic levels of iodine. Then when the people complain of symptoms of iodism (iodine poisoning) they blame the symptoms on a "bromine detox" then tell people to do a "salt flush". First of all the "bromine detox" thing is a myth:

The "bromine detox" myth

Secondly, the "salt flushes" simply push out the excess iodine poisoning the body. But they tell people to turn right around and take more toxic levels of iodine. They got a great scam going.

Very true.