That's an interesting theory I hadn't heard before. I've read about iodine in seaweed and seafood, part of common diet in Japan; and how iodine influences thyroid hormones.
Just started searching on the role and effect of iodine in the body - indeed, it seems to be fundamental in fetal development and cell regeneration (its suppression, apoptosis); the endocrine system, metabolism, repiratory, immunity.. I never knew how important iodine is, thank you for pointing this out, I'll study more.
A possibly relevant snippet:
> Based on the reported values in seaweed, some have claimed levels of 12 mg (12,000 mcg) in Japanese diets, leading Abraham and Brownstein to propose that
> “only mainland Japanese consume adequate amounts of iodine and that 99 percent of the world population are deficient in inorganic, non-radioactive iodine; that is, they have not reached whole body sufficiency for that essential element.”
There is also a widespread claim that too much Iodine will negatively affect your thyroid. All of those claims seem to be rooted in a single experiment that others have reviewed and say it does not support the claim. My own experience and that of the Japanese suggest otherwise too.
There was one cool study that showed the connection between kelp and reduced incidence of breast cancer. It was based on Japanese women whose cancer rates shoot up when the move to the US. The funny part for me was at the end, where they suggest that people don't start eating a lot of kelp because of the high iodine content which has these negative effects. They then proposed further study to see what was in the kelp that prevented cancer. I was just... I dunno. SMH.
>> indeed, it seems to be fundamental in fetal development and cell regeneration (its suppression, apoptosis); the endocrine system, metabolism, repiratory, immunity.. I never knew how important iodine is, thank you for pointing this out, I'll study more.
Indeed, once you see how much it affects there is danger of sounding like some moron beating the same drum. Every time someone has any of those issues: "did you look into iodine?"
Another pet theory of mine is that the thyroid hormones are not signaling molecules, but rather the bodies storage place for iodine atoms. They are indeed named T1, T2, T3, and T4 based on the number of iodine atoms in the molecule.
Just started searching on the role and effect of iodine in the body - indeed, it seems to be fundamental in fetal development and cell regeneration (its suppression, apoptosis); the endocrine system, metabolism, repiratory, immunity.. I never knew how important iodine is, thank you for pointing this out, I'll study more.
A possibly relevant snippet:
> Based on the reported values in seaweed, some have claimed levels of 12 mg (12,000 mcg) in Japanese diets, leading Abraham and Brownstein to propose that
> “only mainland Japanese consume adequate amounts of iodine and that 99 percent of the world population are deficient in inorganic, non-radioactive iodine; that is, they have not reached whole body sufficiency for that essential element.”