Justin mentions he is surprised that I recommend supplementing with iodine because Apex does not recommend that.
Chris: I’m aware of that and I have a ton of respect for Doty’s devotees. I credit him in many ways for initially getting me excited about Functional Medicine. I learned a ton of Functional Medicine from him. This is one area where we don’t agree. I think when you look at the studies on iodine being a contributor to Hashimoto’s, salt that was iodized, for example, on a given place, that’s true, but it’s only true in the context of countries that also have inadequate selenium intake. When you look at the countries where selenium intake is adequate, you don’t see the same effect with adding more iodine.
Iodine deficiency, if you look at the recent statistics, it’s actually a more common problem now than is commonly believed, especially amongst people who are doing Paleo or doing a “healthy diet” because the main sources of iodine in the diet are certain species of fish like cod; fish head, like fish head soup, which Americans don’t eat; sea vegetables, which most Americans don’t eat; and nori, which is the only sea vegetable that some Americans eat in the form of sushi, happens to be the lowest in iodine content of all the sea vegetables.
Kelp is the highest, and then dairy products, but only dairy products that are stored in tanks, and it’s not because the iodine is in the dairy itself; the cleanser that is used for those tanks is iodine based, and so some of that iodine will get into the milk. But if you happen to buy your milk from a farmer, for example, like we do, it’s not stored in these tanks, then you won’t get any iodine from that milk. And then, of course iodized salt, which meant most people who were on a healthy diet have forgone in favor of sea salt. If you’re eating Paleo, you’re not doing any dairy at all, you’re using sea salt, you’re not eating much cod, and you’re not having fish head soup, there’s a possibility that you’re iodine deficient.
And so, if you also have Hashimoto’s, you can be both iodine deficient and have Hashimoto’s. In those cases, we wouldn’t go in with a big huge dose of iodine like some people recommend, but meeting the daily requirement for iodine is an essential nutrient is still important. So, it might be 150 mcg or 100 mcg as a supplement, and the vast majority of people with Hashimoto’s and even with Hashimoto’s, in my experience, are able to tolerate that without any issues. Only a handful of people that I can remember react to that low of a dose survived on even with Hashimoto’s and if they don’t have Hashimoto’s, then absolutely make sure that they’re getting enough iodine through their diet and if they’re not, you can use kelp tablets or kelp flakes or something like that to make sure they’re getting enough.