Transcription
I had the pleasure of bringing back Dr. David Brownstein. We have an interview where we talk about salt and we have a separate interview talking about iodine and the importance of iodine. In our first interview, we talked about the fears around iodine, why we fear iodine, how much to take, and a lot of the nuances. And then in this conversation, we get down to breast taxes in a sense and we talk about the how much we should be taking, what cells or what organs or what systems we're taking these for, why we need it, how we can test for it, and what is a sufficient amount of iodine if we store it, and then if we could even get off supplementing iodine, and if iodine salt is enough. This interview is so good and I highly recommend watching and listening to the whole podcast episode because if you have any questions about iodine, thyroid hormone, Hashimoto's, hyper-hypothyroid, this interview is for you.
Hey guys, my name is Judy Cho and I'm board certified in holistic nutrition and I have a private practice where we focus on root cause healing and that often starts with the carnivore cures all meat elimination diet. Today I have the pleasure of bringing back Dr. David Brownstein. We interviewed a couple years ago and we talked about salt, we talked about iodine. Again, I will put all of that in the show notes, but in this interview, I talked about all the questions that were not asked the first time and all the specifics. So when we talk about 25 mg of iodine or 50 mg, what kind of iodine, what type of iodine. We talk about certain brands, how to test, how much to take, if we store, and there's a lot of other good bits of information. He also shares a lot about his personal story, how if we are fearing that if we take iodine we may get Hashimoto's, how he shares some of his client stories and personal stories of how that may not necessarily be true. I also now have implemented iodine in our practice for several years now and so I'm able to also share some of my stories and I share that in this interview. It's a powerful interview. I hope that this interview gives you a really powerful tool that is cheap, economical, and something you can do every single day that can actually move the needle in your health to wellness.
All right, guys, let's get it right into the interview.
Hi Dr. Brownstein, I'm so glad to have you back on. Our last interview, I think it was a couple years ago, but people absolutely loved you. Um, they loved just your humor and stuff, so I'm really excited to have you back on and answer some of the questions that people have asked over the years about iodine. Um, and so before we get started, if you could just introduce yourself.
Thanks for having me, Judy. Um, I'm David Brownstein. I'm a family practitioner in Michigan, outside of Detroit, and if you can't see, I'll just hold it up here. I'm wearing my national championship sweatshirt to make sure everybody knows Michigan is the national champions for this year and defending national champions. And um, that made me very happy a few weeks ago and and anyways, uh, we had a nice interview. I didn't realize it was 2 years ago. I'm happy to be here again.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let me get started. Um, obviously iodine is one of the most misunderstood nutrients. So I think our recommendations in the US is about 150 micrograms for iodine, but I think the amount that they consume in Japan is way more than that. Is there a dose of iodine that is at a certain point can be harmful and in excess?
So where did you get the title of the most misunderstood nutrient?
I I must have it must have been when I was researching you. I don't know. I've written an article titled that name.
Okay, maybe that's where it's from. I'm like, I don't know where I got that from. iodine book, which is that book. I have that book. the title was going to be the most misunderstood nutrient. And then then I changed it right at the last second and I don't know why I did that. I kind of like the most misunderstood nutrient, but anyways, so the RDA, you're right, the RDA for iodine is 150 micrograms. The RDA was set probably close to 100 years ago, you know, give or take a little bit. And the story about that goes that as as the US was being settled and population was moving from the East Coast of the US where the original counties were in the original states to the Western United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s, population started growing in in my area, the Great Lakes and then beyond. And what what was being reported to the higher-ups of the US government was that there was a goiter epidemic in the Great Lakes area. And people living around the Great Lakes, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the four-letter state to our south, which I don't really feel like mentioning that we've beaten three times in a row now in football, not capital O, but lower case O, Ohio, lives in a goiter belt. And the soil of these areas are one of the most deficient soils of iodine in the world. And so what was happening was as the human population was expanding in the Great Lakes area and further west, you know, the the the health department, whatever health department authorities they had or whoever was monitoring this stuff was reporting huge goiter rates. And goiter is a swollen thyroid. The thyroid sits in the lower part of the neck. It weighs weighs about 1.5 oz and produces a about a teaspoon of thyroid hormone for a whole year. And you know, if a goiter is big enough, you'll see it sticking out of the neck like a softball, you know, there. And you know, some of the old paintings, you know, when when I visited Rome, you know, when I went through the the Vatican, you know, you see goiters sticking out of the, you know, especially a lot of the women's necks. It was much more common in women than men. Although in that area with the lowest low iodine levels of the soil, it was common in everybody. So it wasn't just people that were suffering from goiter, animals were suffering thyroid problems because there was not enough iodine in the soil. And so the farm animals that were being raised to feed the population were not growing to the right size, they weren't procreating correctly um, because of low iodine in the soil. So that's where the real urgency came from was there there was a big worry at the highest levels of the US government that we weren't going to be able to farmers weren't going to be able to manufacture enough food to feed the growing population. And so the there was a doctor out of Case Western Reserve, which is just outside of Cleveland, who had written a paper about iodine when he was in medical school. And I don't know the name is I should have looked this up before we did this interview. The name has escaped me. And he was he was tasked from the US government to figure out what iodine level in animal feed would take care of the problems that the animals were having with their thyroid gland and to see if it would correct the procreating and the growth problem. And so he put varying amounts of iodine in animal feed. This was in the 1920s. And he found the lowest amount of iodine when he when he figured out the the weight per per animal and then, you know, change that over to humans, about 150 micrograms, you know, per day, took care of the problem. And the animals were now procreating correctly, you know, able to have offspring and growing to the right size. And he reported his findings and the the the government, you know, went into action. It was one of the really first public health things that we've done in our country. And they mandated that iodine be put into salt because it's an easy thing to do. And they put in enough iodine in salt to hopefully get Americans about 150 micrograms per day of iodine or close to it. And you know, it was a it was a big experiment. The first state that went through it was Ohio and Michigan followed suit. There was another study right after Ohio where the same results were found in Michigan. And um, they put it into Michigan's salt and the goiter epidemic was was quickly resolved. And from the data in Michigan and Ohio that the US government mandated iodine salt for the rest of the country. And the visible goiter epidemic really was resolved with that. It was really a it was that was truly a public health miracle that, you know, there was enough iodine in salt really to for that time to prevent swelling of the thyroid and goiter.
You know, when you think about iodine and the thyroid, iodine's main job in the glandular tissue, I'm looking for a pen. Of course I can't find it. Iodine's main job in the glandular tissue is to maintain the normal architecture of the glands. So if we call this the normal architecture of the glands, it's normal. The glands include ovaries, uterus, breast, prostate, and pancreas. And the first thing that happens in iodine deficiency in these glands is is you get cysts in these glands. And if it goes on longer, the cysts become harder nodules. Or if it goes on longer, they become hyperplastic if you take a biopsy of them. And if it and at the end of that pathway, at the end of that continuum is cancer of the glandular tissue. And um, animal, test tube, and human studies have shown iodine is able to halt this progression wherever it catches it and sometimes be able to reverse it. You know, if if you think about the problems we're having today in our country, you know, the fastest growing cancer in the United States thyroid cancer. You know, we're seeing one in seven women in the US adult women in the US diagnosed with breast cancer. One in three men in the United States are estimated to have prostate cancer. We have pancreatic cancer growing at epidemic rates. You know, when I was young and in my training, you saw pancreatic cancer in people. It was in alcoholics, drug abusers, and older people. You never saw it in young people. Now we have pancreatic cancer in people in their 40s and 50s and, you know, prostate cancer, I saw it in my training days. It was all older guys. Now you have prostate cancer of men in their 40s. Breast cancer, it was older women. Now I've had I've been to funerals of some of my patients in their 20s dying of breast cancer, diagnosed at 18, 19 years old. We got a mess with our glandular tissues and I and I and I've been writing about this and talking about this and I think that the, you know, iodine deficiency is the big problem with it. I I didn't start off with this. I mean, I didn't know about iodine the first 10 years of my holistic practice and, you know, learned about it after that and I can give you that story if you want to hear it, but, you know, if I've I've always said that if the government comes to my practice and says they don't like it, which they have done, but if they tell me further you can only do one thing and then you go back to doing straight conventional medicine, you get one what do you want to do? I would say just give me iodine. And I think it's the biggest bang for the buck. It's a cheap nutrient. The whole country's not getting enough iodine in and our iodine levels have fallen 50% over the last 50 years across the United States. And we are more iodine deficient now in our population than our predecessors were than our parents generation, our grandparents generation, our great-grandparents generation. And, you know, we're suffering from it with this this epidemic of glandular problems. So although we don't see the goiter as being an as much of an issue, doesn't mean that we're not iodine deficient.
Yes? That's a great observation. And I, you know, I was going to touch on that when I was into that and so there's enough iodine in salt and enough salt out there that it it really has taken care of the goiter problem and you don't see I have some patients where it's, you know, sticking out of their neck here, but they're in the minority. So that was really public health miracle, but it's not, you know, the highest concentration of iodine in the thyroid, but you need iodine in the breasts, the ovaries, the uterus, pancreas, the prostate, the skin, the muscles, the fat, you know, thyroid has, you know, what is the number? Like 1 or 2% I might be off on that cuz it's in my book, but a small percentage of the body's total iodine load. The highest iodine loads in the muscles and fat tissue. And but the thyroid has the highest concentration of iodine cuz it's so important. You can't make thyroid hormone without it. But all the glandular tissue can't make you can't make hormones without iodine any of them. Ovarian hormones, testicular hormones, adrenal hormones, none of them can be made without adequate amounts of iodine. The answer to your question is yeah, there's enough iodine in salt to prevent goiter, but it it's not enough iodine to give optimal minimum even minimal, but not enough to give optimal levels for the rest of the body's needs.
Right, but I think the fear out there is more so that So there's a couple things. So people will say, okay, fine. I'll hear this. I'll take iodine. Some people will react with even one drop of the Lugol's 2% or 5% iodine and then they're saying, oh and so then their thyroid doctor says, yeah, you're not supposed to take a lot of iodine. And so then then there's this fear of well, how much is too much and am I overtaking iodine where now I'm going to become hyperthyroid or have thyroid issues for that. So maybe if we can just talk a little bit about those things.
So I call this medical I didn't call it. My my mentor in iodine Guy Abraham coined it, so I'm just using it, but you know, there's this there's a disease that's taken part in, you know, most doctors holistic and conventional doctors, it's medical iodophobia. And you know, they they don't know the research. They they don't know the science. They don't know the physiology and biochemistry behind it. And you know, one of one of the complaints with iodine is well, it causes autoimmune thyroid disease and Hashimoto's and Graves disease. The treatment in in from three or four generations of clinicians and beyond, you know, the early up until maybe when it when iodine salt was brought in the research and the interest in iodine kind of just evaporated. Now it was in the it was in late 1920s and shortly after that time is when pharma started to make its push for drug therapies. Penicillin was brought out and, you know, the march of, you know, pharma control things and iodine being a natural substance could be patented. So the interest in it just kind of faded and it was just gone. So part of the demonization of iodine is people don't know about it. In med school I I was I don't know if I was taught about iodine or if I was taught about it, it was probably a one one or two sentence thing that that iodine salt was a great public health miracle and iodine deficiency was a thing of the past. Well, it's a thing of the past if you don't check for it, but look at the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Iodine levels have fallen 50% over the last 50 years or so and most of Americans are deficient in iodine according to the NHANES study. So, you know, if iodine was responsible for causing this autoimmune thyroid epidemic, which is occurring, you know, we have we we have Hashimoto's and Graves disease occurring at epidemic rates right now. Now this is occurring at epidemic rates at the same time iodine levels have fallen 50%. That's a negative correlation. Now that just proves iodine is the cause of that. Now might be something else, but it's not iodine. And in my practice we treat Hashimoto's and Graves disease with iodine. Hashimoto's usually goes away. Graves disease gets under control. Iodine was the treatment of choice by my predecessors a couple generations ago for Graves disease and Hashimoto's. It's all over the literature from the old early 1900s to the maybe the mid-1900s literature. And I found it very successful. I have two I have two girls two young girl two young daughters. Well, they're they're now physicians working in my office, which makes me very happy. And when they were, you know, I don't remember the exact age maybe 10 and 11 or 11 and 12 years old we're having dinner and and my wife just says to me, hey, do you think they got a thyroid problem? And I remember I had I had a forkful of food or something ready to go in and I'm like hold the fork and I'm like, you know, I just like I hit my head like, you know, like whoa, you know, how does she pick it up and I do this for a living and I don't see it. You know, it's like the shoemaker's kids without shoes. Right. So the kids were complaining of being tired and I mean they were doing soccer and, you know, things, but they always they always had headaches. They were always tired and, you know, I just kind of chalked it up to growing young kids and stuff. So I I drew their blood work. They both got Hashimoto's disease. And which is an autoimmune condition of the thyroid gland where you're producing antibodies against the thyroid gland. Now if you if you talk to the medical iodophobics, which are it's rampant in conventional medicine. It's a bunch the whole bunch of holistic doctors feel the same way. For whatever reason a bunch of naturopathic doctors have this this altered wrong view. You know, they'll say iodine causes autoimmune thyroid disease or worsens it. Well, my kids weren't taking iodine at the time, yet they have raging autoimmune thyroid disease with antibodies in the hundreds. And their thyroid levels were all screwy. So when I lecture I've got, you know, got lab slips showing the results of my daughter daughters over the years as I put them on iodine and as I up the dose of iodine. It wasn't just iodine. Iodine should be used as part of a holistic treatment regimen where you clean up the diet, you know, drink water, exercise, eat good, you know, get the junky food out of your diet and correct other nutrient imbalances, but it was iodine with them. That was really the only thing that I changed. And you saw these these these antibody levels just go down in a linear correlation with both of them. Now my girls are 29 and 28 years old. Haley I don't think she has signs of Hashimoto's. I think it's, you know, zero. And Jesse's just got very very low levels of titers. I mean theoretically really she could be classified as Hashimoto's because she's got low levels of titers, but they were they were I don't remember 500 to 900 range, you know, she's like 25 now or something like that. You know, so they they really don't have Hashimoto's or symptoms of Hashimoto's anymore and to disprove a theory, you know, you only need an of one. You know, a hypothesis has to hold true for everything. Right. So if iodine caused Hashimoto's disease and I put these two girls on iodine and their Hashimoto's goes away, well, iodine doesn't cause Hashimoto's disease. It's something else. Now will iodine flare Hashimoto's and or Graves disease? Once in a blue moon I see it with my patients and it's not very often and I think it's because, you know, if iodine's deficient in the body, the body needs these iodine receptors, which are in all the glandular tissue, you know, you need iodine to make thyroid hormone. T4 and T3 have four atoms and three atoms of iodine attached to thyroglobulin to circulate to our bloodstream to stimulate our thyroid receptors. Well, if iodine's not there, something's going to bind to those receptors and what happens to bind to them is bromine. So in the halides in the periodic table and I hope I'm not getting into too much of the weeds here.
That's fine. The halides are group 17 and these are chemicals arranged on sort of similar properties and similar size and shape and things. So the halides include iodine, chloride, bromide and and fluoride. So there's four halides four there's a there's a fifth, but there's four major halides and two of them are essential and two of them are non-essential and toxic items. The essential ones are iodine and chloride. We can't live without either of them. We have tons of chloride in the form of salt in our body, sodium chloride. We should have, you know, 2 g of iodine in our body, which nobody does unless they're taking it now. And so what's happened is bromide has taken over that. Bromide is very close size and shape to iodine and we're inundated with bromide. Bromide's in food sources and in sodas. vegetable oils. It's in consumer goods. It's in It's a fire retardant in the computer I'm talking to you on and it's in our iPhones. It's in carpet, curtains and mattresses and, you know, when I was doing original work with Dr. Abraham and we were checking people people's halide levels, we found huge amounts of bromide. The sicker they were, the more bromide they had. The more bromide they had, the less iodine they had. If they had I wrote about a study in my book where I I checked breast cancer patients versus non-breast cancer patients. It was twofold higher bromide and and twofold lower iodine in the breast cancer patients compared to what women without breast cancer. So, this bromide is taking the place of iodine and it's been shown in animal studies that you can brominate thyroid hormone. So, T4 would mean four atoms of bromide. T3 could mean three atoms of bromide instead of iodine. Now, we don't really know cuz they haven't done the studies, what what's the effect of brominated thyroid hormone instead of iodinated thyroid hormone. I would guess since whoever designed us didn't design us to have brominated thyroid hormone, that's probably not a good thing. And we know bromide's a toxic substance for the body. So, when you give someone iodine, it has to it's going to displace or what's called competitive inhibition of bromide and fluoride. I'm not talking much about fluoride cuz fluoride's hard to measure and it's a smaller, much more electronegative substance than bromide and it's more toxic to the body. So, the body when you when you take in fluoride, fluoride shouldn't be in our water supply. It shouldn't, you know, we should be avoiding fluoride. Very toxic substance. Or in our toothpaste. Look, what what they should have what they should have done the the damn studies with fluoride was just put it in toothpaste and nothing else and see does it really, you know, whatever. cavities, yeah. But anyways, anyways, and it doesn't help with cavities cuz countries that have pulled fluoride out have the same cavity rate as countries that still have fluoride in. Anyways, another story, another podcast for you. So, it was bromide was the thing that Dr. Abraham and I saw in our studies that was competing with iodine, not so much fluoride that we could measure. So, when you give someone iodine, it's full of bromide, they have to go through competitive inhibition where bromide will be released in huge amounts and they get sick from that. Right. That's the problem. So, so what I what I see with patients who don't tolerate iodine as you described it, you know, they start taking it and they don't feel good, is I have them stop, I have them up their salt intake and take an extra teaspoon or two of unrefined salt a day for about 2 weeks and then try the iodine again. And I can tell you over 95% of them can now take iodine. There's still a patient here or there who can't take iodine and for whatever reason and I I have them I have a couple of them. But, you know, I've 30 years of doing this, I don't have many of them and it's it's way less than 1%. It's, you know, way less than 0.1%. I've been with my two partners for 25, I don't know, 25 of the 30 years, something like that. And if iodine was causing all these problems, either we'd be out of business or we'd be in jail because we got all of you know, we have a huge practice and people on iodine. Can everybody take iodine? No. Can everyone take vitamin C? No. Can everyone take magnesium? No. The it's done the right way and with the with the idea that yeah, you can get competitive inhibition, you can get bromide toxicity and bromide, you know, a Herxheimer or detox reaction from bromide. If you if you understand that and if you do it right, you don't have to suffer from medical iodophobia and can get the benefits of iodine.
Okay, so let me let me piggyback to what you said. So, ever since having you on 2 years ago in our supplement protocols, we always recommend iodine because I'd say we don't focus on thyroid, but uh we get so many people that have either hypothyroid or Hashimoto's and once in a while we get tricklings of Graves, but every single person we recommend iodine, we have an iodine protocol. We had one specific person, the father was working with us, then had the daughter come in because she got diagnosed with Hashimoto's at the age of 16. We tried to clean her diet, but she didn't want to get rid of all of that, but the only thing she changed and consistently was adding Iodoral. She didn't want to do the drops, so she took like the 50 mg and her antibodies dropped tremendously. Her fatigue dropped, so I can, you know, a testament to you. yeah. And we have people in our practice that their antibodies go down with just taking iodine. The question is, is there a point where iodine can be too much like we're taking too much and then secondly, when I think your podcast episode came out, some people were saying everyone needs to take selenium with iodine, but we don't hold that to be true necessarily. It's also in a lot of the meats and the eggs that we consume, but do you normally recommend the other supplements and then do you see at a certain point it's too much iodine?
Well, okay, so let's let's take the latter question, too much iodine. You can get too much water. You can get You can get too much anything. Yes, you can get too much anything. And look, some people are more sensitive than others. What did I just do with that lady? Well, I was telling, you know, I was telling her, you know, here my usual it's a it's a it's a lady I went to elementary, middles and high school with who sees me as a patient and I don't really consider her a lady. I consider her a girl cuz I just think we were still kids, but so, you know, she's super sensitive to everything and I just saw her and I said, "Hey, my usual dose of this is is two twice a day. You start with one a day. Just see how it goes." And keep in mind my usual dose is two twice a day and you adjust this at your at your dosing schedule. So, there's no way on God's earth she's going to be able to take two twice a day what I gave her cuz she's just super sensitive to things and so, I recognize that and so, when we're talking about, you know, 25 mg like most of my patients are on 25 mg per day. I don't I don't have a practice where I'm just doing iodine where I don't see patients, I don't talk to them, I don't do a physical exam, I don't do lab work. I'm like, "Hey, nice to meet you. Go take 25 mg of iodine. See you in 6 months." And that's that's not how I do things and so, everyone's individualized. Although, I can tell you the vast majority are on 25 mg if they have glandular disease, thyroid, ovaries, uterus, breast, prostate, pancreas. I'm missing one of those glands, but um if they have glandular disease, I'll use more. And if they have cancer, you know, sometimes more. And not everyone can tolerate that and you just individualize it. What was that first part of your question?
Supplements. Uh so, like selenium.
So, so selenium. So, I do, you know, when I see when we see patients, you know, we we all kind of we all have our own There's six prac well, six and a half practitioners. My younger daughter's finishing a residency and will be there full-time soon. But, when we see our patients, we do a full hormonal and nutritional workup. So, we're looking at selenium levels and magnesium levels and B6, B1, B2, B3, all the levels and we're so we're we're trying to the deficiencies sort of together. So, iodine's rarely used as a single nutrient that's all we're going to do, you know, I don't know if I've ever done it that way. I mean, sometimes if there's if they're already on stuff and then like at the beginning when I started doing iodine probably 20 over 20 years ago, people already on stuff and all of a sudden I learned about iodine cuz I couldn't I tried it the first 10 years of my practice, it didn't work. And when I when I put it in after that, it started working and people really that was the one the one thing I did different for them at that time cuz they were already on a whole program and, you know, now I was testing and and prescribing iodine really as a sole agent. My first 10 years of my practice, I I learned about thyroid hormone. I think we talked about it before, you know, in the previous interview. My dad had bad heart disease and I my dad was really sick my whole life growing up with heart attack at 40, another heart attack at 42 and bypass surgeries and angioplasties and 12 medications when I get done with my residency and for diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. And my dad, you know, he wasn't a great patient. He smoked, he was overweight, never exercised a day in his life, could eat like the best of them. And I decided watching him grow up like that, I was not going to be like that. I was not going to I'm going to take care and not be like that at this age at the age I'm at. I finished residency. I'm a conventional doctor. I tell people I never prescribe vitamin I never took vitamins growing up. I grew up in a conventional household. We got sick, we went to the doctor, we took what they took what they gave us. We never questioned anything medically. I would love eating McDonald's back in the day, you know, I would I would eat fast food and, you know, I never really paid attention to my diet and I had bad asthma. I was on puffers and going to the ER every few months for steroid shots and yeah, I I was sure asthma was going to kill me at a young age. You know, I really severe asthma. And so, you know, I finished my residency and my turning point came about 6 months into practicing when I'm in a busy family practice office and we, you know, in the in this area and actually I'm working for my partner now, um who was my boss back then, Dr. Ing. And it was strict conventional medicine just like we were taught and we were seeing, I don't know, a lot of people a day, you know, just like we were taught so I was spending 5 minutes with them, you know, not asking about their diet, not concerned with what they're eating, you know, just trying to prescribe the drug to treat the diagnosis that I made at that time cuz that's how that's how I was taught. But, I was doing this for about 6 months and I just realized I start I was three nights in a row I didn't sleep well and first time I didn't sleep much at all. And I wake up to go to work and, you know, I got this anxiety that's sort of taken hold of me and Allison and I are getting dressed together and she's getting ready to go to work and I said to her, "I don't want to be a doctor anymore." Now, we met we were 18. We met at the national champion University of Michigan, the defending national champions right now in football. And um we met at orientation the first day and, so we've been together since that moment and all I talked about to her was I want to be a doctor. There was no there was no plan B. And I wanted to be a family doctor. And when I went through med school, I just that's what I went to med school for. Nothing ever changed my mind. And so, I am practicing what I wanted to do since I was a kid and definitely since I met Allison at 18. So, here I am the end of my residency, I'm 29 and we had $100,000 in student loans and she looks at me and she goes, "What's wrong?" And I'm like, "This sucks." All I'm doing is prescribing drugs, spending 5 minutes with people. I I I I I mean I'm not helping I said I'm not helping them unless they have an infection, I'm not helping them. Right. Um and then I'm having these more drugs to treat the side effects from the first drugs. And I said I can't do this for 30 years. And she said, "What are you going to do?" And I said I don't know. And she goes, "Why don't you do another residency?" And I'm like, "No, no. One of those was enough." And so I was floundering. And that day at the office, like tired, I'm anxious, I see this patient and he his wife worked with Allison. They drove downtown Detroit together for their job. And we were friendly with him and he kept bugging me to meet this chiropractor. And I didn't want to meet a chiropractor. I never referred to chiropractors. I said they were dangerous. I never met a chiropractor in my life. I never went to one. I didn't know what the philosophy was. Sure. I we were taught they were dangerous and, you know, no one should see them. So, I had shoved him off over this, but in this anxiety and he wanted me to meet the chiropractor not because he was adjusting him, because he was doing nutrition on him. And he said that really helped him for his problems. So, you know, I I took his name and I remember lunchtime that day I left him a message, "Hey, you know, let's get together for dinner." And he calls me up that night and we schedule dinner for the following Tuesday. Tuesday rolls around. I get home from work. I said to Allison, "I'm going to cancel dinner. I really don't want to meet this guy." And she said, "That's rude. You need to go. You already scheduled this. It's too late." And as I'm walking out the door, she said, "Be nice." So, I went. His name was Dr. Robert Radke. He starts talking about functional biochemistry and nutrients and how they're how they're required for all these biochemical pathways to work right. Now, I had two courses of biochemistry. I I had one at the University of Michigan, defending national champions, and I had one in med school. And I got A's in both. I was good at biochemistry. I was good at chemistry. I got A's because I could memorize things and spit it back out, but I didn't really understand it. I didn't understand functional biochemistry and how it how it how it impacted somebody like you as a patient of mine. And, um I learned it and then I zipped it away or forgot about it or something. So, he's in this meeting he's talking about why thiamine is needed for this reaction or why B6 is needed for this reaction or, you know, magnesium or something. I you know, I can't remember exactly what we talked about, but I I was just like astounded. First off, he's smart. He's a nice guy. He knows more functional biochemistry than I did. And I thought that's really interesting. I wasn't taught this in med school. And he brought me a book at that meeting dealing with nutrition by Jonathan Wright, who was an allopathic physician. So, I took the book home. I read the book till late at night and I went to bed after 2:00 a.m. Now, remember I hadn't slept well during that time period. Now I'm kind of jacked up and excited. I before I go to work, I call my dad that morning and I said, "Hey, can you This is before cell phones, so I couldn't call him from the car, but I said, "Hey, can you come in the office this morning? I want to draw some blood tests on you." So, based on what I talked about with Dr. Radke, based on what I read in that book, I drew two things out of him. I drew his I drew a full thyroid panel instead of just a TSH level like I was taught in med school. And I drew his testosterone levels. And my dad's testosterone levels below detectable limits when it came back. And his thyroid levels were in the reference range, but in the lower part of the reference range. So, I put him on thyroid natural thyroid hormone, natural testosterone. And within 7 days, his 24 20 plus year history of angina, continual chest pain. Anytime he did anything he get chest pain, pop a nitro pill. It it went away. Calls me up after a week and he says, "Hey, I didn't have angina today." And I'm like, "That's good." And then the next day he calls me up, "I didn't have it today either." And he never had it after that. He started to look better. He was pale and pasty. He started to pink up. He could do things. He could grab a broom or whatever, push a vacuum cleaner without having, you know, pop a nitro pill. And before that, we were all waiting for the phone call he had died. You know, he was so sick. And 30 days later I get I recheck blood work on him and his cholesterol, which was stuck in the 300s for two decades or three decades or something, on medication, fall falls below 200 without changing any of his bad habits. And his his numbers all looked better. His his whole chemistry improved. And more importantly, he looked better and acted better. You know, people were asking, "What are you doing?" He started to be able to lose weight for the first time. And, you know, once I saw the changes in my dad, I knew that's what I wanted to do in medicine. So, from that moment on, I started checking people's hormone levels. Really, everyone gets a full hormonal and nutritional evaluation who comes to see our practice. And hormonal evaluation is just it's what's done. That's what I did with my dad. That's what everybody gets. And so, I was diagnosing a lot of hypothyroid problems. So, putting a lot of people on thyroid hormone. So, for the first 10 years of my practice, I got about 3/4 of my practice on thyroid hormone. And they were feeling better. They were all they were reporting to me, you know, things are better. But it was bothering me. Why do so many people need thyroid hormone? You know, I mean we were I don't think we were designed just because we're getting older we need thyroid hormone to feel good, otherwise you feel like, you know, feel fatigued and feel crappy. So, I would try the various cofactors that are important for making thyroid hormone. Selenium, magnesium, vitamin C, iodine. Particularly iodine. You know, if you look at thyroid, iodine is needed to make all the thyroid hormones and it's just, you know, it's just highest concentrations in the thyroid. And I would try low, medium, high doses of iodine. Nobody got worse, but they were not better. They didn't never gave them they felt better on thyroid hormone. So, I got frustrated with it and I would use it and not use it. And then I read an article around year 10 by Dr. Abraham who wrote it to one of my journals and said he developed an iodine loading test cuz before that there was no real good testing for iodine. So, I called him up. He became, you know, he he became interested in me because of where I was located in the goiter belt of the United States with the lowest iodine levels in the soil. And we became friends. He he became a mentor in iodine. We started testing people. I I would fly out to California six times a year, spend time in his lab and it was not I liked being around him, but I didn't like being in that lab. I I was not a lab. Lab work was not my forte, but I would do it. And, you know, the the main thing I learned way many many things from Dr. Abraham, but the real main thing I learned from him, I was using the wrong kind of iodine. I was using iodide, the IDE. And the reduced form of iodine in those first 10 years and it didn't work. Most didn't feel better. It was only when I began using a combination of iodine and iodide such as in Lugol's solution that people started their energy popped up, their brain fog went away, their thyroid got better where they needed less thyroid hormone. So, I went from having 3/4 of my practice on thyroid hormone and no iodine to having less than a quarter of my patients on thyroid hormone now. And the dosing was about two grains or 120 milligrams back in the day, maybe a little more than that. 230 milligrams now is about an average dose. So, my dosing went down fourfold and the amount of people taking iodine went down, you know, what whatever those numbers are, 50% or less. And um that's why I would say if the government made me choose one, I would choose iodine. It's it's really been the biggest bang for the buck.
Was there ever an issue with excess? Um I'm assuming no because we use Hakala Labs now and, you know, their testing is 50 milligrams and I we have not had a single client that had issues taking that much and just With normal kidney function, there should be no issues.
Yeah, okay. So, if you don't have normal kidney function, we don't really know because the studies haven't been done. But, you know, with mild to moderate renal failure, I've not had a problem using these same doses of iodine. If it's severe kidney failure, I dose the iodine lower just as I would anything that's cleared through the kidneys. But about 98% of orally taken iodine is cleared through the kidneys. And therefore, these doses that we're talking about, 50 milligrams, 100 milligrams, 200 milligrams should not really cause toxicity problems. Now, you can have bromide problems. You can have Herxheimer reaction problems from it or maybe allergic reactions to it if you're allergic to something in it. But as far as toxicity problems go, that shouldn't really be the case for the vast majority of people.
Yeah, and we've seen the same thing. So, I don't know if it was through your interview, but I ended up um starting to work with Hakala Labs to do testing. And so, everyone obviously doing that test has taken some level of iodine because they're wanting to see if they're sufficient. And we have maybe one test of like the many that we've done that was sufficient in iodine. Everyone else has been deficient. And and then when they choose to do the bromide test and the uh fluoride or chloride, the bromide is often fluoride is also a little elevated, but bromide is almost always elevated. So, then they even need to take more um iodine even from that. But it's just interesting that these people are like, "Oh, I'm probably sufficient. I'm just going to test." And then almost everyone is deficient even though they're testing.
So, I would I would say to your listeners, if a woman has fibrocystic breast disease, which over the there was an autopsy study which showed 88% of US women have fibrocystic breast disease, whether they know it or not. But if if a woman has fibrocystic breast disease, she's iodine deficient, period. That's the cause of it and that's the treatment for it. If she has ovarian cyst disease, she's got iodine deficiency. If a person, you know, male or female, has autoimmune thyroid disease, they're iodine deficient. If they're pancreatic cysts, ovarian uterine breast breast prostate cysts or prostate growth, they're generally iodine deficient. You know, so it's a glandular tissue. Remember, it's it's maintaining the normal architecture and then cysts, nodules, hyperplasia, cancers, that's a continuum that iodine deficiency will cause.
Does the iodine deficiency affect a certain glandular gland first? Like would it be that or does it vary per individual?
Well, I, you know, I think that there's got to be competition in the glands for iodine especially when things are scarce. And the same mechanism, the sodium iodine symporter, which is a little taxi cab that moves iodine from the bloodstream into the into the gland, which has been shown in the thyroid and the breast tissue and the ovarian tissue. It's probably in the rest of tissues, although
I don't think there are studies saying that, but I I'm sure it's the same mechanism. And I think the I think the glands will compete for iodine, especially when when resources are scarce. And I can't tell you why this woman's going to have cystic breast disease and not cystic ovary disease. And maybe, maybe she'll have a goiter. Maybe the goiter will be the problem, and maybe the breast won't be the problem. You know, I don't I don't know. I don't I don't have enough wisdom for that one.
Um, but I I think it's the same mechanism that's causing, you know, these problems. But what's really common is they'll have fibrocystic breast disease, they'll have thyroid disease, and they'll have ovarian disease all together. And if it goes on longer, they'll start to get pancreatic disease, and you know, and men will get prostate disease. So, you know, but having multiple glandular diseases is unfortunately the common thing right now in our toxic world we live in. Depleted toxic world we live in.
A lot of times we think that cancer is driven from genetics. And nowadays, we see that it's not, and there's a lot more people getting breast cancer, as you said, at a young age. We see that too, all the time. Do you think that a lot of the cancers that are occurring then is because of the lack of iodine?
Well, it's not. Look, we're not suffering a cancer epidemic because of genetics. Genetics don't change that quickly. We we don't have one in seven women with breast cancer because of genetic problems, and we don't have one in three people with thyroid cancer because of genetic problems. We've got an environmental problem. Something that's affecting all of us, right? And so, do I think iodine deficiency is part of that? Yeah, I do think iodine deficiency. But I think it's the sole cause of that? Probably not.
Okay. I think it I think I would look at it like a big pie, and there's different slices of the pie causing this problem. I would say iodine is a pretty large slice of the pie, but it's not the only slice that's there. Okay. And that's why you need to tackle as many slices as you can by doing my view is doing a whole nutritional and hormonal evaluation in everybody and seeing, you know, where they are and what they need. And I just think it's a better better mouse trap to deal with that.
No, I I we I fully agree. I mean, we focus on diet, nutrition, lifestyle as well. So, I totally understand. One other thing we've also seen, and I think um Hakala Labs had mentioned this, but uh some people that when they first get on iodine, their TSH jumps up, and that scares people. Can you sort of explain why that may happen?
And I grabbed my I I grabbed my iodine book 'cause I it was a paper I wrote. I thought I titled the chapter that, but the chapter is iodine and the thyroid gland. I talk about this. Okay. Okay. I I wrote I wrote a paper and I have a lecture I call it "In Defense of the TSH Test." And, you know, many holistic doctors will say the TSH is irrelevant. You don't need to check it. Just check T3 and T4 levels and adjust thyroid hormone levels based on that. I don't think that's true. Okay.
So, one of the criticisms of prescribing iodine from the medical iodophobics who don't have a good understanding of biochemistry and physiology and history of iodine is, and they're not checking iodine levels in their patients, is that, well, it causes iodine-induced hypothyroidism, IIH. Mhm. In the literature, it I think it's a nonsense diagnosis. It's not something I've seen in my practice. The TSH will go up on people who are severely iodine deficient when you give them iodine. And there's a reason for that.
So, sodium-iodine symporter, which I mentioned to you earlier, is that a little taxi cab that takes iodine from the bloodstream and puts it into the thyroid gland or the breasts or the ovaries or the testes or the pancreas, uterus, prostate. And we have a pretty cool design of our body. Whoever designed it, you know, did a pretty good job of it where I do not think we're going to make these taxi cabs, these sodium-iodine symporters, to just sit them there in idle, waiting for iodine to come in so it can move it into the thyroid gland when you're severely iodine deficient and there's no iodine to do that.
So, what I what happens, the TSH goes up for a purpose. It stimulates the production of sodium-iodine symporter so you can move that iodine into the glandular tissue. In someone who's severely deficient, you need a lot more taxi cabs to move that more iodine in there. It's not in there right now. And so, TSH goes up. It'll go up for about three to six months in the vast majority of people. It can go up to six. It can go up to 12. It can go up to 20. However, their T3 and T4 is euthyroid or normal thyroid. They're not exhibiting signs of hypothyroid. They're not hyperthyroid. And they're telling you, "I feel better." Yet their TSH goes up. That's a normal and expected response. It's not iodine-induced hypothyroidism.
So, in the literature, there's a bunch of articles that say we induce hypothyroidism by giving iodine in this group of people, and they'll give you these numbers, and they don't really report the T3 and T4 levels, so you don't know what they are in a lot of the studies. They're just reporting TSH levels. But in my my practice, I can tell you these people patients, as a rule, not everybody, but as a rule, they feel better. And once in a blue moon, this is about a patient every 12 to 18 months, I give them iodine, they feel better, their numbers get screwy. Their TSH goes up to 100. Their T4 will fall down to either low normal range or below normal range. So, T3 will usually be in the normal range. Right. You know, normal maybe to the upper part of the normal range. So, they get all screwy levels, and you get this TSH of 80 or 90 that some other doctor is going to look at and throw, you know, pull his or her hair out and say, "You just made him hypothyroid." Except you talk to the patient, they feel fine. You check the reflexes, they're not hypo or hyperreflexic. They're not gaining weight. They don't they're not puffy in the face. They don't have any signs of hypo or hyperthyroidism. And they feel pretty good. Yet their numbers are all screwy.
Now, I have a few people with this situation, and these people I I don't know what to do with them because their numbers are so screwy, even though they don't complain and they kind of like it. And I usually will tell them, "I think we need to go off iodine or we'll pulse it or do low doses." But I'm telling you, that is a patient every 12 to 18 months or less. And you know, I just don't see that many of them. But you know, that that's one of the things that iodine can do, but that's it's not 99.99% of them.
Yeah, I mean, we recommend Lugol's iodine to most of the people, especially because, like you said, it's such a cheap, simple support. And we do see TSH go up sometimes, but like you said, the T3, T4 is normal, and they they do feel better. So, we as long as we give that sort of disclaimer of like, "Hey, this is going to happen to your TSH. Don't freak out." Because I think a lot of people put so much weight on their lab test instead of thinking about their symptoms.
I would tell patients, you know, "I'm not treating a lab test here. I'm a human being." Yes. And the lab tests are helpful, and they're guides, but they you know, you're more important to me. I have a I have a I have about 10 or 12 people. I know who every one of them are. They have thyroid hormone resistance. Okay. Like like insulin resistance. These are Insulin resistance is common in diabetics where their insulin receptors aren't sensitive to insulin. Their body produces more insulin, and and eventually when they become diabetic, we give them insulin. When they become, you know, sometimes still help them control their blood sugar. Well, thyroid hormone resistance, which has been in the literature since the late 1960s, is a similar phenomenon where the thyroid receptors just become resistant to thyroid hormone for whatever reason. These people need a little bit more thyroid hormone than the average person. And what happens is when you give them that, their TSH will go down to zero sometimes, or most of the time. And their T3 and T4 will be elevated, indicating they're hyper hyperthyroid or overactive thyroid. You iatrogenically hyperthyroid, where you prescribe something that has done this to them.
Now, people who are hyperthyroid generally clinically, they don't like it. Right. Their heart rate is fast. They're sweating. They're losing weight. Their brain is their brain fog, their fatigue. They they People don't like hyperthyroid. However, these patients are fine. They feel better when they take the thyroid hormone. They exhibit no hyperreflexia. Their weight stable. Their heart rate is stable. Their blood pressure stable. None of the signs of hyperthyroidism. And when I try and lower the thyroid, they're calling me on the phone saying, "I don't feel good. I want to go back on that higher dose." And, you know, at first I was fighting with them a little bit. "We can't do that." And then I needed to lower it again 'cause I would check the levels. They're still and their levels are high, and they would say, "I'm not doing that. I don't feel good. I my brain fog's back, you know, I'm tired and all that stuff." So, you know, I I document the chart, this is iodine thyroid hormone resistance, and I treat them. You know, it's if I just looked at the lab test, I would say, you know, "No thyroid hormone for you." Or, you know, like the soup Nazi. And, you know, they'd be a mess. They'd be on antidepressants and, you know, whatever else to control their anxiety 'cause they don't feel good. And they're perfectly fine.
I've taken care of two of them, a married couple. And it's been over 20 years. They are fine. I What I tell them is, "I prefer I prefer to let me check your thyroid because another doctor is going to look at these levels and pull his or her hair out." Right. Really get upset over it. And they try and tell people, "I'm following your book," which I do. I follow their thyroid levels twice a year, and it's I see the same thing. I document that the clinical exam is euthyroid or normal thyroid, you know, clinical exam part. And it's treating the patient and not treating a lab test.
No, I love that. And then in terms of, so, if you had someone come in and they're hypothyroid, do you try to put them on just iodine at first, or do you also try to put them on some type of thyroid hormone with the iodine?
Well, the first 10 years of my practice, what I did was I put them on thyroid hormone. Right. Right. And, you know, see them back, do an exam, adjust their dose, and that's what I would do. And the average dose was two grains a day. Once I learned about iodine, what I found was I went from three quarters of my patients, as I said before, on thyroid hormone to less than a quarter of them now on thyroid hormone. My dosing went from 120 mg or maybe a little more to 30 mg on average. So, what I do now is I will try iodine plus hormonal nutritional balancing first for a short period of time, you know, really two weeks or something. If they're not better, then I'll I'll move to adding thyroid hormone. And so, I don't do it together anymore. I try the nutritional side first. Um and many times I find I don't have to use the thyroid hormone.
When you say hormonal side, do you also add in just like natural or bioidentical hormones?
Absolutely. DHEA, pregnenolone, progesterone. Men and women do really well with progesterone, estrogen, testosterone. I I look at all that stuff. Um growth hormone. Okay. I do a whole hormonal evaluation on everybody. Every That's what I did with my dad. That's what I still do today. Okay.
And then in terms of the 25 mg, just because this was another question that was asked, what is 25 mg? Like if you were to buy uh Lugol's iodine at, I think it's the 2%. I don't I don't remember if it's 2 or 2.5%, but how many drops is that?
So, it's 2%. So, we use we use 5% iodine in our practice. Okay. It's hard to get 5% I think. It is it's hard to get. One drop of that is 6.25 mg. One drop of 5%? 5%. So, it'd be four drops of that. If it's 2%, I know it's not 2.5%, but um I just double it, so it'd be eight drops. It's close to 25 mg. And eight drops of 2% and four drops of 5% and you know, you just kind of do the math with it. Okay. Yeah, there's also a website that has it's I think it's called Drop an Eater, but I'll put that in the show notes. It It helps you to figure out the dosages. Our team, we will always start with like one drop and then just keep moving up until the person starts feeling better. Again, with the Hakala Labs and the urine test of 50 mg, they don't feel an excess, so I just I I hope that this conversation really helps people understanding that you're not going to most likely will not feel um an excess of iodine making you sick and hyper hypothyroid that is in conventional wisdom. And there's even functional doctors that say be careful with the iodine levels.
So, shout First off, shout out to Charles Hakala. He He was one of the original people. He used to meet with Dr. Abraham. He used to meet with Charles, and we were were good friends, and um does good work, and um you know, very happy with, you know, being a part of his life, and we've had a good good ride together with this. A lot of people will test iodine through blood. I almost never see it out of range. Because we don't test it, but we see it from other functional doctors, but just your thoughts.
So, the the the accepted measure of iodine testing is urinary. I mean, that's the accepted measure. I don't do many 24-hour loading tests anymore. I did a bunch when I 20 years ago, you know, I did hundreds and probably thousands back then. And what I found So, so I do spot urinary iodine. So, a spot test is you just pee in a cup. That's it. Doesn't matter what time of day, and they they measure how much iodine's in there. Most of the studies in the iodine literature are done with spot morning urine iodines. And what I found is that unless somebody is taking iodine, unless they read my book and they're taking iodine or, you know, they're taking iodine, they're always low. So, if if they're taking iodine, then the only test available at that point is that 24-hour urine test. And Got you. From my experience that I don't feel that I need to do that in everybody like I did at first. And once I got experience, I still do it, but it's it's it's much less now. And I still think it's a great test. It's a functional test, and it's a it's a useful test.
But then, do you ever test iodine through blood?
No. Why? Because there's no there there's no great reference ranges. There's no great literature on that, and that's just, you know, iodine is Well, I never see it low. So, I almost never see iodine low in the blood work. No, I I I don't know what the reference ranges are. So, we never I didn't do that testing with Dr. Abraham. The literature does not doesn't just doesn't report that testing.
The The other cool thing we did with Dr. Abraham, and Charles was part of that, Charles Hakala, we did that saliva serum ratio. So, your salivary glands concentrate iodine too, and it comes out in your saliva. So, we did um there are some articles on saliva serum. That was the only time we measured the serum iodine. And we found really cool I wrote about that in my book. We found really cool results that again, breast cancer patients two-fold low lower iodine, and then when they started taking it, levels go up and it shifts, and it was just it was just iodine's a really cool nutrient to follow. And the cool the really neat thing about iodine is 98% cleared from the urine, so you can measure the amount in here and 24 hours of pee coming out of you, and you know how much comes out, you know how much came in, you just subtract the numbers, you know how much your body's holding on to. And generally, the more iodine the body's holding on to, the more deficient it is till you When when iodine gets saturated all through the body, and you take 50 mg in as a load, you're going to pee out about 45 mg of that, and then 5 mg will sort of will sort of be utilized in the body to make thyroid hormone or or or testicular or ovarian hormones or adrenal hormones. And then, that's that's the pool that's used every day and and once you're saturated with iodine. But before that, you're going to you're going to soak up a lot of that iodine for the breasts and the ovaries and the uterus and the you know, the rest of it.
I know that we I know it's everything's individualized, but I'm going to ask your question to be more general. But if I were to just blanket statement say everyone would do well with maybe 25 mg of iodine, is it a forever thing? Is it, you know, do we need to just take a break a little bit, especially for detoxing bromide and fluoride? Do you have any recommendations with that?
So, that's a good good thoughtful question. So, we are not iodine camels. We don't We don't have a hump that's storing water. We don't have a hump that's storing salt, and we don't have a hump that's storing iodine. It is used. It's used metabolically, and it's used every minute, every second, and every day. So, if you stop taking iodine 'cause you want to take a break with it, within 24 to 48 hours, it's gone. You're back to whatever's in your food or whatever you're intaking at that time. So, you're also back to in our world in our food supply becoming deficient in iodine, and then bromide starting to reaccumulate, and fluoride starting to reaccumulate in the body. So, no, you it's like water, you know, you Fine, I'll take a break with water for tomorrow. Let's see what happens. You're not going to feel good with that. You know, we we don't have stores of it. We need We need it on a daily, every day, every minute, every hour basis. Okay, so your daughters take it every day, assuming. Yeah. Okay.
Um and then in terms of heavy metals, I think last time we talked you had mentioned that um it may displace heavy metals. It's not absolutely certain, but do you think it can displace any types of heavy metals like lead or mercury?
So, there's iodine iodine will competitively inhibit bromine and fluoride. Okay. Right. It's been shown. Those are the halides. Those are toxic halides. And there's a fluoride lawsuit going on right now in front of a federal judge. Let's hope he rules to pull fluoride out of our water supply. That would be a good thing. Yeah. But in the work this I did this study with Dr. Abraham that we we gave people 50 mg of iodine. We measured the bromide, fluoride, and iodine levels in a 24-hour urine, and we also measured toxic metal levels. Oh, okay. And what we found was a I called it and I wrote about that in my book. I called it a chaotropic effect that in in some people, iodine caused Chaotropic was not my word. That was used in the literature from like the early 1900s. I had to look it up actually. C H A O T O T R O P I C. So, chaotropic means it somehow causes this to leave the body through some unknown mechanism, you know, displaces it, and you can pick it up on urinary or serum and analysis. So, what we found was, you know, mercury and lead levels, and I think it might have been cadmium, too, in some people went through the roof coming out of them, and they really detoxed from that stuff. But in in most people, that didn't really happen and and the ones that we studied. But it was it was it was like 20% result that we found that can get that effect with iodine. But I would assume over time that the you know, if you're taking iodine, that it probably does loosen up this stuff hopefully to come out. And that's that's what I've seen with my patients. You know, I follow their their heavy metal urinary and hair testing over time, and I'll see the levels gradually decline. And I think part of that's from iodine use.
One thing that was interesting was um our water supply in Austin, Texas got um affected. And so, they said do not use your tap water at all. And one way they recommended cleaning your water was using iodine. So, if iodine also kills other things other than competing with bromide and fluoride?
Well, look, iodine was I iodine's one of the ways you can purify water, you know, when you're in the jungles or something like that. And they they sell kits to do that. And what was that movie that was she hiked like in the Sierra I'm not a big movie person, so I don't know. No, it was in California or Oregon or something. So, it was about her hiking trip for months at a time, and she was purifying her water with an iodine with iodine drops. And um so, that that's been known for years, and you can, you know, it's That's why it's one of the things that's good to have iodine at home in case we ever lose water supply, so you can grab a bucket from a lake and just purify it with a couple drops of iodine. Yeah, that's what we were doing for our water. And then we would put it on our Berkey, too. But I mean, that's what we had to do because we couldn't use We couldn't even use the water to shower. They said do not use it at all.
Think about it. They're they're putting iodine on our bodies before surgery. You know, there's no there's no bacteria, virus, parasite that's known to be resistant to iodine. And it doesn't seem to affect our own flora. So, you know, taking iodine doesn't screw up people's guts. You know, I don't see that. I'm sure you don't see that. Yeah, I don't see that at all. And I don't see that on stool testing either where their guts get all sterile and screwed up with that. It's If anything, it helps improve the gut flora, you know, gut balance. That's interesting. Yeah, I was also trying to just wonder why it was recommended as a support during the recent virus. So, I was just also curious about that.
That was my That was my style. I was No, I know. I know. 'Cause the last time we talked, you had mentioned you got in trouble for that. Yeah. Yeah, of course. I was treating people with COVID at a time when they told people stay home until you can't breathe and then go to the ER. God forbid some doctor is actually working, keeps his office open, sees patients face-to-face who are sick, evaluates them, gives them a therapy that makes them better, you know, and writes about it or or blogs about it. You know, what a travesty that is. Let's start a Let's start a whole investigation and get the federal government and the state government after him. Yeah, I remember. So, they made you shut down your blog, but did you get it back up afterward?
No, I have not resurrected it. Yeah. Well, you know, it was a lot of work to do that. So, I don't have that work and it gives me a little more time to do research and writing. And I think about it every once in a while about getting it back up. But, you know, I'm I'm okay with what's what's happening right now. And, you know, that Trust me, it caused me a lot of stress and was very a lot of a lot of lost sleep at that that time. I I could see it a little bit in our in our last talk. Um you had just slightly mentioned it and it just Yeah. Um I'm I'm sorry that happened to you, but at least you could share lots of this research now and the benefits of like all the work that you're doing because it is helping people. If you look at just the comments from our last podcast, and again, I'll link to it. Um there's people that just watched your podcast episode that say that you have helped their symptoms that all of these lingering symptoms they could never figure out that have improved by just adding iodine. It was a huge game changer.
I will tell your people, you know, look, iodine is great. But yet, iodine is part of a whole treatment regimen, you get even better results. Right. Right. And we focus on diet. So, that's like part of it in a more nutrient-dense diet. So, that always will support calm down the immune system, support the gut health. And then And then from there, they can look into other things. But absolutely. I I don't think iodine's going to fix if you're eating pizzas and bagels and hamburgers all day long. I I agree with that.
Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been amazing and you're always so fun to talk to. So, um you did not disappoint. But where can people find you? Can people work with you and your practice? If you could share a little bit about that.
Well, we're seeing new patients. You know, I have I have two two daughters seeing new patients. And I have a PA who, you know, I watch over and I, you know, review everything with her. And there's seven of us um seeing patients right now. And my website is drbrownstein www.drbrownstein.com. My office is centerforholisticmedicine.com. It's in West Bloomfield, Michigan. And our our office uh Go to the website and just email. You know, like everybody, we're having trouble hiring people, enough people to answer the phones. I don't want to give the phone number, but that's No. Yeah. No, I I trust me, I get it. Really trouble hiring people. So, better to go to the website or email. We do look at the emails that come through. So, either my website or or my office website, and that's a better way to communicate with us. Okay. Another way to communicate with us is easy is fax us a note if you've got something going on. 248-851-0421. We look at those. It's much easier for us to look at that than we just can't get enough people to answer the phones.
No, I get it. We love our, you know, I like practicing medicine. I like seeing patients. But But my all the doctors like seeing patients. You know, I I realized when I was in that first practice practicing And I, you know, after my dad, when I saw the changes in my dad, I'm like, "Hey, that's what I want I didn't finish that story. Like, "Hey, that's what I want to do in medicine." And I went to the partners. I talked to Allison first and I said, "I don't want to stay in this practice." I was going to be a partner. I was negotiating a buy-in for a partnership. She's pregnant with Haley that time. Very pregnant. And my wife, bless her heart, says, "Great. Where are you going to do this at?" I'm like, "I don't know." She goes, "I think it's great." Never put stress on me, never worried, you know, what are we going to do? And I went to the partners and I said, "I'm I got to leave." And they said, "Why? We we like you." And I'm like, "I'm going to go do holistic medicine." And they said, "Why don't you do it here?" And I said, "No, I need to do it somewhere else where the people answering the phones and the nurses and the file people and everybody were on the same page." And they said, "Well, what is holistic medicine?" And I said, "I don't know, but I'm going to try and figure it out." And 30 years later, I'm still figuring it out. I have a better idea, but I'm still working at it. And um I like the work. And um it's a good way to practice medicine.
No, I love it. Thank you. I I think we learn so much with our individualized care. And I see that as doctors become bigger names, they don't do the one-on-one care. But that's where you get the seeds of It's It's hard because you have a belief system, okay, I figured it out. Here's the master protocol of healing everything. But it's not until you work with people individually that you realize, actually, it doesn't always work. And so, if it doesn't always work, there's another answer out there. Yeah. I'd like to see the master protocol. I'm still working on it. I'm working on that one, too. But I I I like seeing patients. You know, I um Everyone said, you know, when my girls join my practice, are you going to retire? I'm like, "I'm going to retire. I want to work with them." I said, "I might put some patients in the room for them and change the paper and, you know, put the flags out for them and get them and I'm I might answer some phones for them, but I want to work with them." And um I'm having a good time with it. I'm having a better time now that they're there. That's amazing. That's awesome. I love it. I love it that, you know, the story of your dad, you not wanting to follow suit, and then now you're helping so many people, and your daughters are going to also do the work and continue what you do. It's amazing. Really something.
Yeah, thank you so much again for your time. Thanks, Jodi. It was fun. Okay, guys. I hope you enjoyed this interview. I always love talking with Dr. Brownstein because I think I laugh and smile the most because he is just a very funny person. I hope that this conversation gives you more assurance about iodine. Why our iodine recommendations for the average adult in America is so low compared to in Japan and other Asian countries. And how maybe we are wrong with that level of the 150 micrograms of iodine. It is also important to understand that iodine is not just used by our thyroid. It is used by all the glandulars. And it's also used by every cell in the body. So, if you are deficient, not only will it affect your thyroid, but it could affect all the different areas and even cause cancer. I did an interview a while ago with Lynn Farrow who has created a breast cancer foundation and it talks a lot about iodine deficiencies and how that's a big culprit of causing breast cancer. It may not be for everyone, but there is very little harm in taking iodine. We have taken so many different people through the Hakala lab testing and almost no one is sufficient. Meaning that even these people that are already supplementing are deficient and needs to take more after our testing. So, what does that mean for the average person not taking any iodine at all? Again, iodine is so plentiful if you were to supplement it. And if you take the Lugol's iodine, again, I will put it in the show notes. But it is pretty economical and it can make a huge difference in the risk of certain types of cancers, in thyroid function, and thyroid health. Now, some people may have a detox episode of bromide and fluoride. And so, I will put a link to our recommendations for an iodine protocol. It mirrors the work of Dr. David Brownstein with the salt loading protocol, with some of the uh support or some of the cofactors of supplements such as vitamin C, salt, uh selenium, and so on. One last thing I want to say before this podcast episode ends is if you have supplemented iodine and it has benefited you, I highly recommend leaving comments in this video, especially on YouTube. And the reason is that when people see other people's shares and stories, they feel extra encouragement to want to heal or try this iodine support. When Dr. Brownstein and I share about iodine, it's just really two people sharing the benefits of iodine. But if hundreds of comments share that there are benefits of iodine and how their life has changed and benefited from taking iodine, some people are able to be more encouraged to try iodine. Again, you have to start slow. In our practice, with some of the most sensitive, we start with maybe one drop or half a drop. And maybe we need to use some of those cofactors and we use saline water, which is basically that salt water. Again, I'll put everything in the show notes. But you want to make sure and go slow because for some people, they might have excess bromide or that you've been so deficient in iodine that your body might wake up and you might feel some adverse effects initially. Often times, we see that these are Herxheimer reactions and over time, they get better. All right, guys. Make sure to take some iodine, eat a lot of meat, take care of your bodies because it is the only place you have to live. I will talk to you later. Bye, guys.