We are kicking off our iodine series and starting with our first episode on the basics of iodine, what it does, how we use it in the body, how it impacts women’s health, and then we will get into how to assess your iodine status. Next week, in part two, I will get into how to utilize iodine for support on your healing journey.
As always, this podcast episode is for educational purposes only. If anything resonates with you, I hope it encourages you to talk with your provider before you make any changes.
I cover:
Links/Resouces:
Mineral testing episode
How To Learn About Your Thyroid On An HTMA episode
Book: Iodine Why You Need It Why You Can’t Live Without It by Dr. David Brownstein
Book: Overcoming Thyroid Disorders by Dr. David Brownstein
Studies:
Iodine & insulin:
Iodine & fertility:
Iodine and breasts:
Iodine and prostate:
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Amanda Montalvo [00:00:01]:
Welcome to the Are you menstrual? Podcast, where we dive deep into all things women’s health to support you on your healing journey. I’m Amanda Montalvo, functional and integrative dietitian, also known as the Hormone Healing rd. If you enjoyed this podcast and you want to keep learning, check out the podcast Patreon, where I share a bonus episode with additional downloadable resources each week. You can go to patreon.com/forge/hormone healing RD or check out the link in the show notes. All right, we have our iodine series. I am kicking it off with an iodine basics episode where I’m just going to be going through like, what is iodine? How do we use in the body? How does it impact women’s health? And then I’m going to get more into how you can assess your iodine status at the end. Next week I’m going to get into how can we utilize iodine for support on the healing journey. So that’s when I’m going to cover how do you know if iodine’s a good fit for you? How do you properly supplement with iodine? I’ll talk about specific cases like pregnancy and breastfeeding, menopause, things like that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:01:06]:
I’ll probably do some on prostate as well and kind of go through more of like long term. I’ve gotten a lot of questions when I asked my Patreon members, like, what do you guys want to know about iodine? One of the biggest things was like supplementation, long term, what that looks like, how do you know if you’re taking too much, all those kinds of things. What, how do your has your blood work shift over time and then medication? Like if you’re taking thyroid meds, what does that look like when utilizing iodine? So all that will be covered. Next week we’re going to kick it off and get into the kind of the basics around iodine. I know I’m going to get questions about resources. I have the two. I’m going to mention two books quickly and then I have a lot of research articles LinkedIn under the links and resources in the show notes. Sometimes I have so many links that we can’t fit it in my show notes and it’s only on my website on the blog post.
Amanda Montalvo [00:01:52]:
But if you go tohormone Healing rd.com Click on podcast. That is where I specifically have a blog post that goes with each one and all the studies and everything is in there. So they will definitely be in there if they’re not in the show notes. Probably just Meant I had too much shocker. And then the two books I want to quickly mention, I’ve learned so much about iodine from Dr. David Brownstein. He was really like the first person that I dug into it very deeply with. When I did my first hair test ever.
Amanda Montalvo [00:02:23]:
My mentor had recommended it for me. Cause I was having a really hard time with my thyroid health, with constant estrogen dominance. I had done everything else. I had done everything. All the testing, all the protocols. I’d feel better, I’d stop the protocol. Everything got worse again. And that’s when I found hair mineral testing.
Amanda Montalvo [00:02:41]:
And then on my first hair mineral test, I had very elevated calcium levels. And. And I didn’t. I didn’t have, like, hard water. You know, I. I took the test and everything correctly. So we got to rule out, like, hard water and stuff like that. And that’s when he was like, you know, have you ever thought about taking iodine? And I was like, no.
Amanda Montalvo [00:02:58]:
Why. Why would I take iodine? Like, I eat some. I eat some seafood. I love, like seaweed snacks, sushi, all that kind of stuff. I never even crossed my mind to take it, or that I wasn’t possibly getting enough or that I was deficient. And that’s when I. He’s like, read these books. So it was the two books that he had recommended were Iodine and why you need it and can’t live without it by Dr.
Amanda Montalvo [00:03:20]:
David Brownstein, and then Overcoming Thyroid Disorders by Dr. David Brownstein as well. Because I was just really struggling. I was like, I don’t understand. Like, I. I take thyroid meds. I don’t feel better. Sometimes I feel worse.
Amanda Montalvo [00:03:31]:
I don’t take them. I still feel, you know, it just. It was. It was like a very big struggle. And I was apprehensive, but I was like, I’m gonna research, learn more, think about it. And then I did end up taking it. And it was absolutely life changing. It wasn’t always easy.
Amanda Montalvo [00:03:45]:
I had. I definitely had like some flushing and reactions at first, but I eventually learned how to do it correctly. And that’s what I teach now. And I have a much more conservative approach. But yeah, so that’s really where, like, I got so interested in iodine. This was like 10 years ago. I mean, it was like a long time ago. And I did a podcast on this a while ago.
Amanda Montalvo [00:04:04]:
It was very popular, but people had a lot of questions. So finally doing a series for you guys. So there’s more educational resources in the blog post. As always, this is just for educational purposes, especially with iodine, I’m like, I know, I love it and I talk about it a lot, but please be careful. You need to take the CO factors with it. And if you have elevated antibodies from a thyroid autoimmune condition, you really likely should not take it. Or you need to talk with your provider first, make sure it’s a good fit for you. I typically don’t use it with Hashimoto’s.
Amanda Montalvo [00:04:36]:
If antibodies are elevated, there’s so much nuance there. It really depends on the person. I think hyperthyroidism is very different. We utilize it for all of our hyperthyroid clients. But again, you need to work with a provider. I would not recommend doing it on your own. I do talk about it in my master minerals course, and I have iodine protocols there. But the whole point is that you.
Amanda Montalvo [00:04:57]:
You should ideally do testing first, which I’m going to talk about today. But don’t run out and take iodine just because I’m talking about it in this episode. I do not recommend that. If you. Something resonates with you, I hope that it just encourages you to bring it up with your provider. Okay, so let’s talk about iodine. What is it? What does it do in our bodies? Why is it so important? Iodine is. It’s a mineral that’s specifically part of the halogen family, and that includes chlorine, fluorine, and bromine.
Amanda Montalvo [00:05:24]:
And so they all have a very similar chemical structure. I would say iodine’s by far the most supportive halogen, and it’s found in every cell of the body. Every gland we have concentrates iodine, and it’ll use it to create and metabolize different hormones. So iodine’s essential for thyroid hormone production. I think that’s what most people know it for. Like, if you have a deficiency, then you can end up with hypothyroidism. Not making enough thyroid hormone. Our thyroid gland contains the highest concentration of iodine in the body, and then it kind of gets dispersed out through our other glands.
Amanda Montalvo [00:05:56]:
We also have a lot in our ovaries, which I’ll talk about. So basically, we have iodine concentrating in our glands, especially our thyroid gland. We don’t just use it for thyroid hormone, though. It’s important for all of our hormone receptors. Many of them are dependent on iodine because it increases the sensitivity of the receptor and whatever hormone it was designed for. So, for example, iodine can act on the insulin receptors in the body and improve glucose metabolism. We need iodine to make progesterone and to metabolize estrogen. It, it goes, it’s very important for thyroid function and it, and that’s kind of like the central message.
Amanda Montalvo [00:06:32]:
And then we do have to go beyond that and understand why is it important for other sex hormones, especially for women’s health. It’s really important for prostate too, but it’s, it’s basically essential for maintaining the health of our glands, especially our thyroid, but also the ovaries, uterus, breast tissue and prostate. When we have an iodine deficiency present, that’s when we can get cystic fluid filled tissue. It basically it can form, it can lead to a nodule and then sometimes even cancer. So with women, especially breast cancer, specifically because iodine impacts how we metabolize estrogen deficiencies can put us at higher risk for breast cancer. So that’s a, that’s like a big one. And Dr. David Brownstein has talked about this a lot, especially with like the cystic fluid filled sax forming.
Amanda Montalvo [00:07:18]:
He has been able to show that it generally takes three to six months of iodine supplementation to either improve or reverse cyst nodules and disrupted glandular tissue. So it’s not just, that’s definitely thyroid gland, but also other glands as well. And it can take years in severe cases. But either way, I mean that’s, that’s amazing and it helps improve people’s symptoms, overall function in the body. I, I’ve definitely used it for different things as far as like thyroid nodules. You need to be careful though, work with a provider. Thyroid nodules. I, I use it, I love it in endometriosis clients a lot of the times.
Amanda Montalvo [00:07:54]:
Same thing with pcos and, and like, I just think if you’re taking hrt, it can be very helpful as well to just be protective and metabolizing that estrogen properly. So love it for all those. Also, I’ve used it a lot for prostate. So I’ve had quite a few husbands and dads of clients that had prostate enlargement and they’re like, I know that you don’t work with men, but what do I do for this? Like, do you have any advice of a specialist that I can find? And I had done a lot of research with this for a family member and had gone through a protocol with him and I, it worked really well. And because we couldn’t get his doctor to agree to anything and he didn’t want to have surgery and all that and then that, that was what really led to me diving deep into iodine and prostate health. And there are some really cool Studies on even like using a pretty like conservative dose of it for six months. I think it was 5 milligrams of iodine, which is a lot more than you can get from food. But it’s not the highest amount I’ve ever seen.
Amanda Montalvo [00:08:57]:
Recommended in supplement form, reduce the size, reduce the pro size of the prostate over six months time period and significantly reduce symptoms. So, you know, PSA went down, everything. So I’ve used, I’ve recommended to a lot of clients, husbands and dads, and they’ve been really successful. It’s not the only thing, right? You have to look at the whole person, their nutrition, their lifestyle habits, all that stuff. But it, it can be very helpful for that as well. So I have used it, utilize it quite a bit. It’s, it’s also important for sperm quality and egg quality. So it’s, you know, to me I’m like, the joke is, especially with my other nutritionists that work with me where the joke is like, iodine does everything right.
Amanda Montalvo [00:09:38]:
Iodine and thyroid impact everything. But it can be used for a lot of different things. I’ve seen improved blood sugar levels, help people get off thyroid meds or reduce their dose. And like my, I’m a huge, definitely that’s like the perfect case study for that since I don’t take thyroid meds anymore. So. Love iodine. It’s really important for health and hormones. It’s also very important for our immune system.
Amanda Montalvo [00:10:01]:
When we have a poor immune system response, we can directly tie this to a sluggish thyroid hypothyroid, even subclinical hypothyroid. So it’s not bad enough for you to have a diagnosis, but it’s like not optimal. And iodine deficiency, it’s gonna lead to low thyroid hormone output. That’s gonna impact how our immune system functions. And then iodine also has other like healing, like therapeutic properties of being antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal. So it affects our immune system in a few different ways. So that’s kind of the basics of why I’m obsessed with iodine and why I think everyone needs to talk about it more as far as how do we use it in the body, you know, if we are going to supplement with it or even we’re just getting it from our diet. Like how does iodine go from being iodine to thyroid hormones? Because that’s really like the biggest point.
Amanda Montalvo [00:10:52]:
So if you think about the two major thyroid hormones, T4 and T3, they are made of iodine molecules. So T4 has four iodine molecules, while T3 has three iodine molecules. So how does it get there? When we first ingest iodine, whether it is through, like, iodide in, like, supplement form or if it is from food, it’s gonna. We’re gonna. It’s gonna get it in the GI tract. It’s gonna be transported to our thyroid cells via this iodine transport molecule, also called nis. And when the brain senses that we need thyroid hormone, our hypothalamus then talks to our pituitary gland and gives a little nudge and says, hey, we need to make more thyroid hormones. So then TSH is produced that tells your thyroid to start doing its job.
Amanda Montalvo [00:11:36]:
And essentially, ideally, our thyroid can then make T4, and this is the inactive thyroid hormone. Think of it as like a car in neutral. It’s important. We need enough, but. And it’s essential, but we need to then turn it into T3, which is the active form, and that you can think of that as like, a car and drive. So TSH helps us make more of these iodine transport molecules. This is a really important takeaway because probably the biggest thing that I hear about iodine and utilizing iodine supplementation, especially working in, like, the women’s health and fertility space, is, but my TSH goes up when I take iodine. We want our TSH to go up when we take iodine, when basically, like, if we don’t have enough iodine, we don’t make enough of those NIS molecules to transport it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:12:28]:
The more iodine we have available, the more of those transport molecules we’re gonna make, and that’s what allows us to utilize iodine. This means that the more N molecules that we have, the higher TSH levels are gonna go up. So when you start taking iodine, TSH goes up to make more of those little transport molecules. They’re like boats that move iodine around, and then that’s what allows us to use the iodine. So if someone is taking iodine and their TSH doesn’t go up at all, then that would be more of a concern for. For me, the hard part is that, unfortunately, if their doctor sees their TSH go up, they tend to freak out, especially if they’re a fertility client. And this is when it’s just like, I have to be like, this is a part of the process. Usually their T4 and their T3 increase.
Amanda Montalvo [00:13:15]:
And so that’s the hard part is, like, often, especially with fertility, we have this kind of. In conventional and functional medicine, it’s like you have to have a TSH of less than 2.5If you want to get pregnant. I understand why that recommendation is there, but there has to be more nuance than that because if someone is struggling, I’ve had so many clients that have struggled to conceive. We utilize iodine, their TSH goes up, their doctors freak out, and then they get pregnant and they stay pregnant and they utilize iodine throughout pregnancy and their TSH typically remains a little elevated. But again, this is physiologically normal if you’re supplementing with iodine. But it’s also one of the reasons I’m like, work with a provider. Cuz then if you start taking it and then you have a doctor tell you not to take it, you come off and then you don’t reach whatever the health goal was, pregnancy, whatever it might be, that, that it’s just very, it’s very frustrating and hard. So working with a provider that is educated and experienced in utilizing iodine is helpful.
Amanda Montalvo [00:14:17]:
But it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s like, yes, like can having a healthy, we need healthy thyroid function. But there’s so much more context to that because if some, like if this client, for example, the one I’m thinking of, she, her TSH was higher than 2.5. It was like between 3 and 4 typically. But I’m like, your T4 is so low. Her hair test, all her minerals, like she had all the signs of iodine deficiency, which I’ll talk about. And we did an iodine urine test and her, it was, it was probably one of the lowest ones I’ve seen. It was like 47%. I’ll never forget that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:14:50]:
Her iodine clearance, which again, we’ll talk about at the end. And I was like, I really think that iodine’s gonna be a good idea for you. She had the history of endometriosis, so we know that it’s going to be important for her ovaries and her endometrium and estrogen metabolism. And then she, she was like, I mean she was willing to do whatever, she understood how it worked. But it was really hard when her OB was like, yeah, I just don’t think this is working. It’s doing like the opposite. And she kept on, which I’m so grateful for and trusted the process. And then she conceived and she had a really beautiful little boy.
Amanda Montalvo [00:15:25]:
Improving our thyroid health can be complex, right? It’s so much more than just knowing, am I making enough thyroid hormone? We really need to zoom out and look at the full Process and picture and understand, okay, how is the signaling from my brain going? Is my thyroid getting this signal to make more thyroid hormone? And then you have to think about, is there anything my thyroid might need that it’s not getting to produce that thyroid hormone? Maybe there’s a nutrient deficiency, maybe there’s too much inflammation or stress. Then we want to think about, can it convert it right? That’s the next big step. And that’s typically impacted by stress, inflammation and nutrient deficiencies as well. And then finally we have to realize, can it get inside the cells? And this is where minerals come in big time. So zooming out, understanding your full picture is so critical for thyroid health. This is why I created my free functional thyroid series. That is a six part video series. It’s a mini course.
Amanda Montalvo [00:16:20]:
I’m really proud of it. It gives you a ton of information and it’s going to help you figure out what is the cause of your thyroid issue. Where in the process is it breaking down for you? I even go through lab tests and teach you how to understand what your lab tests mean and what you might want to optimize based on your results. So make sure you check it out. You can go to the description of this podcast and get the link to join for free. So it’s one and I Iodine helped me conceive my first daughter. It’s not going to fix everyone’s fertility issues. I’m not saying that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:16:52]:
But it is important and we’re unfortunately scared away from it because it’s not understood. Or we see a lab increase. We instead of thinking what’s going on physiologically, we freak out and think, iodine’s making you hypothyroid. Even though they’re like, but I feel better mentally, I have so much more energy. I my memory has improved, my mental clarity is better. And they’re like, nope, you’re worse. Because unfortunately, like, we’re typically reduced to lab values in like a conventional and even functional medicine setting. So that is how we utilize iodine.
Amanda Montalvo [00:17:24]:
That’s how the body takes it, makes it into thyroid hormone. We do have to convert it, which is a process that requires a lot of other minerals, but which we’ll talk about more like next week when I talk about the CO factors for i9. But ultimately that’s how we’re utilizing it. And that’s just like one example of what happens in the body when we do take it. It tends to increase tsh. And that’s not a bad thing as far as, like women’s health. It’s really important for ovulation progesterone production. Again I was talking about how it metabolism impacts how we metabolize estrogen.
Amanda Montalvo [00:17:55]:
That’s important for women with endometriosis cuz they tend to have more estrogen receptors, higher estrogen levels. And then for women that have the history of breast cancer, whether it’s themselves or in their family, I just think it’s good to understand and know your iodine status if that is the case for you. Because we do need enough iodine in order to metabolize estrogen down favorable pathways. And then of course if we don’t have enough then that, if we have a deficiency, then that is you’re more likely to have things like cysts or fluid filled sacks get created. And then those, they may be totally benign, they could also be cancerous. So it is an important one, we need it for optimal function of our reproductive organs and tissues. The biggest thing, and now we know we, our uterus has I, it takes up iodine and we have the transporters in our endometrium. So that’s huge.
Amanda Montalvo [00:18:45]:
And I’ll link a research article on that. But the other big thing is like okay, well why, why can’t I use that iodine? Like if I am getting it through my diet, why is it not working? That’s when estrogen comes into play. And so basically if we have excess estrogen, this downregulates that little the nis, the sodium iodide symporta, the thing that helps transport iodine. And so we have less iodine in our reproductive tissues and less iodine available for use in the body in general. So it can affect our thyroid and our reproductive organs. And excess hydrogen, excess estrogen typically leads to a higher level of thyroid binding globulin tbg and this is going to bind to thyroid hormone and make it inactive. So if we have too much estrogen, that means we have less iodine and less available thyroid hormone. And that is a huge contributor to hypothyroidism.
Amanda Montalvo [00:19:41]:
I think for me personally that was a big part of my thyroid story. And I, I just couldn’t get, no matter what. I did all the estrogen protocols, all the gut protocols, it was like nothing worked as soon as I stopped taking supplements. And I think it was just because of this presence of excess estrogen and that was having a huge impact on my thyroid. So that’s crucial. Iodine also has antibacterial properties, like I mentioned at the very beginning when I was talking about like what does iodine do in the body. And they can be effective for those with endometritis, which can prevent from con. Which can prevent you from conceiving.
Amanda Montalvo [00:20:14]:
We need more studies, but we have some really cool animal studies that show that local iodine can decrease inflammation and improve conception rates. We have had clients with a history of endometritis. There is a full approach. It’s not just iodine, But I do think that iodine is an important part of addressing that as well. The other big thing is our ovaries. So our ovaries have the highest concentration of iodine outside of our thyroid glands. And basically, we store iodine in all the tissues of the body, but the amount’s gonna vary. So it’s mostly in the thyroid gland.
Amanda Montalvo [00:20:48]:
And then we have a lot in our ovaries. Why, like, why do you. Why do our ovaries store so much iodine? It’s because the small and growing follicles take up iodine in order to develop properly. So this is why iodine’s critical for ovulation and for progesterone production. Iodine’s also been found in follicular fluid, which is pretty neat. Most of those studies are related to, like, ivf, because why else would someone be studying follicular fluid, unfortunately? So we’ve been able to learn a lot, actually, about iodine and the ovaries and follicular fluid and endometritis and things like that through that type of research. And it makes sense that an iodine deficiency would be associated with reduced fertility. The.
Amanda Montalvo [00:21:32]:
When you start to hear about, like, how it affects the ovaries, how it affects follicle growth and development, which will then affect how, you know, if that follicle is being chosen as the dominant follicle to actually ovulate, make enough progesterone, and potentially conceive. There was an observational study that was between 2005 and 2009 by the National Institute of Children and human development, and 467 women were trying to conceive. They basically looked at their iodine status, and what they found was that 44.3% of them were discovered to be iodine deficient. And they determined they did this with, like, a urinary iodide concentration. And then they compared it to women with normal urinary iodine concentration. And those with low iodine were 46% less likely to achieve pregnancy during that. During each menstrual cycle. So that is huge.
Amanda Montalvo [00:22:25]:
That’s very significant. That’s a significant amount of women. And I. It’s Even just more like, we’ll talk about deficiency prevalence next. But it’s, it’s just something where I think that more people are deficient than we realize. We definitely need more research on this about iodine infertility. There’s some research on iodine and unexplained infertility as well. But it’s, it’s incredibly important for the actual function of our reproductive glands, which is why this, none of this information is shocking in our breast tissue.
Amanda Montalvo [00:22:53]:
I feel like a lot of people know iodine for breast tissue. They’re like, oh, like if you have fibrocystic breasts, then you can, taking iodine can improve that. I feel like even conventional doctors know that now. And fibrocystic breasts affect up to 50% of women of reproductive age. Like, that’s a lot. But now we know that iodine supplementation can be beneficial with treating it. It’s also important for our breast health because it has really strong antioxidant properties. So it can help protect from damage inside the breast tissue.
Amanda Montalvo [00:23:22]:
Which is probably a huge part of why when we see, you know, different countries that have, you know, a sufficient or even like a lot of iodine in their diets, they have a significantly reduced risk of breast cancer and typically hypothyroidism. Iodine’s also known to promote the development of normal breast tissue. So it’s very protective against that because it’s that strong antioxidant. It protects against inflammation. You know, really pro oxidant molecules or compounds basically in the body that they couldn’t disrupt that proper formation and lead to those issues. Like with the sacks, the fluid filled sacks forming, the cyst forming. And then so that’s like really what it’s protective against, particularly in breast tissue. So it’s overall, when I think of like women’s health, I’m like, iodine is absolutely crucial.
Amanda Montalvo [00:24:13]:
And while we may not all need to supplement, I think it’s important to like at least prioritize it from food. And if you have certain health history, then you may want to look into your iodine status. So let’s talk about deficiency and then I’ll get into like how we assess our iodine status. Because this is probably the biggest thing I get is like, well, no, we’re in the United States. Like people aren’t deficient in iodine. But 60% of women of reproductive age are deficient in iodine. And iodine levels in the US have dropped by over 50% in the last 40 years. And I’ll link the NHANES study that goes through that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:24:46]:
This is also something like Dr. David Brownstein talks about a lot. He thinks it’s even higher than that. He. But it. I mean, his patient population is very specific. Like, they typically have thyroid issues, and so 95% of his patients that are tested were deficient in iodine. So he sees a lot of that.
Amanda Montalvo [00:25:04]:
Um, but I think it just kind of depends on your client population as well. So we should keep that in mind. But 60% of women is incredibly high in of reproductive age, which is like, where a lot of my concerns come in, because this is, again, like, I look at iodine as, like, preventative is. The goal is like, we want to support women’s health. We ideally, you want to avoid disease and things like fertility issues coming up. And that’s where I think iodine has a huge place. So why has iodine deficiency increased so much? Why has it alone has it dropped by over 50%? Iodine levels, why have they dropped by over 50% in the last 40 years? I think a lot of it is, like, nutritional intake. So we’re not getting as much fish in our diet.
Amanda Montalvo [00:25:47]:
Definitely. Probably not getting a lot of sea veggies, and that’s like the number one source of iodine. Vegetarian and vegan diets that don’t include any animal foods like meat, dairy, or seafood are becoming a lot more popular. And sometimes sea veggies are priorities in these, but a lot of times they are not. And then finally, we do have a very increased exposure to halogens, meaning that we’re getting more of those other compounds that have a similar chemical structure to iodine. So chlorine, fluorine, bromine from our food and our water sources, especially water, like, the amount of chlorine in the water is awful. And all these halogens compete with each other. So if they have that similar chemical structure as iodine, then that means any of them can bind to iodine receptors and prevent iodine from binding.
Amanda Montalvo [00:26:34]:
So they can induce an iodine deficiency. Chlorine and fluorine are definitely mostly coming from the water that we’re drinking and bathing in, while bromine is typically coming from baked food, baked goods, and, like, processed foods, things like that. We actually used to use iodine in baked goods, but this was replaced with bromine in the 1970s. And then this significantly reduced the amount of iodine that Americans were taking in, because before one slice of bread was giving us a hundred percent of the RDA for iodine, which for adult males and females that are not pregnant or breastfeeding is 150 micrograms. So even just one slice of bread, they’re getting 150 micrograms. Um, they’re probably getting a lot more than the RDA if you looked at their total food intake. So replacing that iodine with bromine meant less iodine and more halogen exposure. So they’re getting less iodine in and then they can further decrease the iodine levels because that bromine can bind to iodine receptors.
Amanda Montalvo [00:27:32]:
The last big issue is I just think the RDA is very low and I’ve talked about RDAs a lot in different episodes. I have all my mineral deep dives as well where I kind of dig into these. But I they’re not meant to reverse disease, they’re only meant to prevent it. And I just think like they weren’t considered when we also had more halogen exposure, when we all of a sudden were taking iodine out of the food system and replacing it with bromine. And in general if we’re, they’re just really to prevent disease, they’re not meant to help you thrive and they don’t honestly the art. It’s a general recommendation, right? So it’s like depending on the person, the health history and like your parents health, I mean you’re inheriting your health from them. You know, if they had a deficiency, you’re gonna have a deficiency. And then depending on how you live and eat and what your lifestyle is like, that could be further exacerbated.
Amanda Montalvo [00:28:27]:
So I just think it’s like probably more of an issue than many people realize. A lot of people then ask me so should I have iodized salt? Cuz I switched to sea salt because it’s less processed. So it’s not gonna, it’s not gonna be exposed to harsh chemicals and it’s gonna have more like a broad range of minerals in it. And my thing is always like we don’t actually consume that much of the iodine in iodized salt. There’s a study that Dr. David Brownstein talks about in the his book Iodine why you need it and why you can’t live without it. And they were measuring the bioavailability of iodine in salt versus bread. So basically there’s two groups of people.
Amanda Montalvo [00:29:04]:
One group ingested a measured amount of iodine in salt. So iodized salt. The other group ingested a measured amount of iodine in bread because it’s used as that preservative. Both subjects, both groups were estimated to ingest about 750 micrograms. So a lot more than the RDA, right? Let’s go. RDA is 1 50. Pregnancy, it’s 2 20. Breastfeeding, it’s 2 90.
Amanda Montalvo [00:29:27]:
So they were ingesting 750 micrograms of iodine. Both of them. By ingesting that, they expected the serum levels of iodine would be about 17.2. What they saw was the iodized salt group only had serum levels of 1:7. And then the iodine, the bread group that contained iodine instead of bromine had eight levels of 18.7. So what this tells us is that the iodine in iodized salt is, only has about 10% bioavailability. So you’re only absorbing about 10% of it. So that’s.
Amanda Montalvo [00:30:02]:
I just think that even whether someone uses the iodized salt or not, it’s probably not gonna make or break their iodine status. So when people are concerned, like, I switched to sea salt, am I doing the wrong thing? I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t switch back to iodized salt to get iodine. I would try to prioritize it from iodine rich foods for sure. But I just wanted to go through that because I, I get that question a lot. The last thing I’ll cover for the deficiency thing is it’s also important to pay attention to your symptoms. Like, we go through this with clients all the time of like, oh, my thyroid lab, show me this. Or like, I’ve seen, I like, they’re not this level. Or my hair test says this.
Amanda Montalvo [00:30:36]:
I’m like, okay. And that’s one piece of the puzzle. But we cannot ignore how you feel and what you’re noticing in your cycle. Like, it. How is your nail health? Like, brittle nails is very common. Are you cold all the time? How’s your basal body temperature? How’s your digestion? Are you constipated? How’s your hair? Are you, do you have like thick, healthy hair or are you experiencing hair loss? Um, how’s your mental health? Are you anxious? Are you depressed? Those go right along with iodine deficiency, slash hypothyroidism. Because basically anything that qualifies as an issue with the thyroid gland, that also is going to be signs of iodine deficiency because we use iodine to make thyroid hormone. So like a lot of those, like your skin health, you have dry, scaly skin.
Amanda Montalvo [00:31:21]:
Is it puffy? Do you have a lot of fluid retention? How’s headaches, reflux? How are your cycles? You know, we already went through how important it is for ovulation, so like if someone has irregular cycles, they have fibrocystic breasts, if they’re struggling with their fertility, if they’re gaining weight, muscle cramps and weakness are another really common one. And then like I would think of like cognitive things like how’s your memory, how’s your mental clarity? So all of those are so, so, so important for assessing. Like when we have clients working, one of their main goals is to improve their thyroid function. I’m like, yes, we want your labs to improve, we want to see changes on your hair test. But ultimately like we need you to, we need to see those changes in you. That’s what’s truly the most important. So that those are all things you want to consider. And I think that’s a big part of assessing our iodine status.
Amanda Montalvo [00:32:12]:
As far as like numbers wise, how do I just test my iodine levels and understand, do I possibly have an iodine deficiency? Am I trending that way? Would I benefit from taking iodine? There’s a few different ways that we want to look at this. One is your physical symptoms that I just went through. Number two, I like to look at hair tests. So hair mineral analysis, I have a episode on that that I will hopefully remember to link through. And I’m going to like put it now cause I’ll lord knows I will forget cuz I’m rushing to do this between the naps and meals and whatnot. But I really like to look at hair mineral analysis for iodine status. I also like to look at it for thyroid health in general. And I did a whole episode on that as well.
Amanda Montalvo [00:32:58]:
So I’ll, I’ll like thyroid episode HTML. We’ll definitely link that one. That was like one of my favorite episodes. Just like very like action based. And you know, if you have a hair test you can understand your thyroid health based on that. But I like to look at different markers. So the hair test doesn’t measure iodine. And I get that question a lot of like, well it doesn’t measure iodine.
Amanda Montalvo [00:33:17]:
How will I know my iodine status? You won’t. Just from a hair test. Like you’re not gonna get a measurement. Iodine loss in excretion is measured in the urine. But on a hair test there are markers you wanna look at. So if potassium is less than 4, that’s a red flag. If calcium’s over 70, that’s a red flag. If copper is greater than 2.5 or less than 1.5, that’s a red flag.
Amanda Montalvo [00:33:43]:
If the thyroid ratio, which is the calcium potassium ratio, if it’s greater than 10.1, that’s a red flag. If selenium’s less than 0.08, that’s another marker. And then mercury, if it’s greater than 0.02, then that’s another marker. The typically, if you have more. If you have four or more of those, then that is a sign that you would likely do well with iodine support. But this is when you would say, okay, I’m going to try to prioritize iodine rich foods. That would be like, number one. Um, but that is like, one way.
Amanda Montalvo [00:34:16]:
And that’s something. If we’re gonna do iodine with someone, we always do a hair test. If your calcium is very low, you have to be careful. If your minerals are very low, you really need to be careful because then you. It’s showing that you don’t have a lot of mineral resources. And iodine helps you make more thyroid hormone, which is increasing your metabolism. So if you don’t have the resources to back that up, you’re probably not gonna do great with iodine. And I’ll talk more about that next in the next episode.
Amanda Montalvo [00:34:41]:
But that’s just like, one way that we like to look at. Okay, do they have lots of signs of iodine deficiency on their hair test? The other way is blood work. So you can look at your thyroid labs. We look at a full thyroid panel. We’d like to look at TSH free T4, free T3, reverse T3, and then Thyroid antibodies. It is very important that you test your thyroid antibodies prior to taking iodine, even increasing it from food. Because if you have elevated TPO antibodies, then that is one. Like, if Hashimoto’s is present, then iodine’s likely only going to aggravate that further.
Amanda Montalvo [00:35:18]:
Even, like, from food sources, you want to be careful. So if, basically I’m looking at our. Our antibodies present. Usually we know way before that test if someone has Hashimoto’s or not. But I still like to have people double check. It doesn’t hurt. And it’s something that I think you should check off the box. Check off box four.
Amanda Montalvo [00:35:36]:
So we’re really looking at is T3, is T4 low or are those levels low? Because that’s gonna show us that you definitely need iodine and then T3 as well. But we mostly. I’m looking at T3. Like, are you converting it? The. The tricky thing is, since bromide can be mistaken for iodine on thyroid panels as well, your T4 and T3 can look better than they are. And Then when you start taking iodine, your TSH can go up and your T4, T3 can go down a little bit. I don’t honestly see it a ton, but I do see it sometimes that can also be a sign that maybe you’re taking too much or your body’s too stressed out right now. Again, next episode, I promise I’m going to go through how to use it in a supportive way because there’s, you know, it’s, it’s not just like I’m going to supplement with iodine, it’s like I’m going to, I’m going to prepare my body and I’m going to do this the right way.
Amanda Montalvo [00:36:24]:
So I like to look at blood work. I do like to look at reverse T3 as well because that’s a sign that there’s a lot of stress present if it’s elevated. And that is one where, if it is elevated, it doesn’t mean we don’t use any depending on the person. But it’s one where I’m like, is there insulin resistance present? That can be a huge cause of elevated reverse C3. Usually there’s a lot of inflammation and stress, are they eating enough, all that kind of stuff. So we would just want to make sure to take a deeper look at those and use a conservative dose. And then finally TSH is, I mean, I’m not gonna, if it’s high, I’m not gonna not use. It’s not, I’m not gonna not use it.
Amanda Montalvo [00:37:01]:
But I really like to look at the full blood thyroid panel to get an idea of like, where is the dysfunction coming from with their thyroid. Cuz usually iodine’s just one piece of the puzzle. It’s not everything. And I have a thyroid, a free thyroid mini course. It’s called the functional thyroid series that I poured a lot into. I made it like a couple months ago and I basically took my old thyroid training and made it into like a course that’s easier to digest. And you know, obviously I struggle with thyroid issues for so long and we work on it with so many of our clients that I was like this, I want it accessible to everyone. And if so basically if you have your thyroid blood labs, if you have a hair test or want to get like most, not everyone has them, that follows me.
Amanda Montalvo [00:37:42]:
But like your thyroid blood labs that you’re, you’ll basically be able to understand where the thyroid, where the root cause of your thyroid issues are coming from. And then I go through like how to start working on that, but just kind of understanding what it means because it’s unfortunately so much of the language is just around tsh and it’s like, it’s so much more than that and it’s so much more than iodine a lot of the times. Yeah, if, if you’re deficient iodine, you’re not going to make enough thyroid hormone. But if you have a lot of stress, inflammation, a lot of gut issues, taking iodine isn’t going to fix all of those. So you really have to look at the whole person and understand where the thyroid condition’s coming from. And iodine’s usually a piece of the puzzle, but it, you, you have to address everything else as well. So if you’re like, I want to nerd out more about blood labs for thyroid, definitely consider getting that free course. I’ll put the link for it in the show notes.
Amanda Montalvo [00:38:32]:
The last thing. So basically it’s hair test, it’s thyroid blood work. Those are the two non negotiables for me. I used to always do iodine loading testing with every single client we use iodine with. But now that I’ve done this for a really long time, I don’t, I think it’s helpful if, if you’re doing it on your own because basically the iodine loading test is you take a tablet that’s 50 milligrams of iodine and you measure, you, you cons, you keep all of your urine for 24 hours. There’s more specific instructions on the test, but I’m not gonna get into all that here. But you’re measuring the output of that iodine because ideally when iodine levels are sufficient, we’re only absorbing 10% of the iodine in the gut. When our iodine has, when our thyroid has enough iodine, this means that 90% should be excreted in our urine.
Amanda Montalvo [00:39:24]:
And that’s what you’re wanting to see on an I, on an iodine loading test, you want, there is the clearance to be 90%. When it’s below that, then that’s a sign that there’s a deficiency or less optimal levels present. So if iodine levels are deficient, then the thyroid will take up significantly more from the gut, sometimes even 80% of what is present in the gut. And I, I link the study that kind of goes through all of this in the show notes. But basically we want to have 90% excretion in the urine on an iodine loading test. If it’s just an, a 24 hour iodine test and it’s, and you’re not taking an iodine supplement. I don’t think that’s a super accurate way to test your iodine, because if you’re not consuming a lot in your diet, then there’s not going to be a lot in your urine. So I would say if you can do that test, Hakala Labs is the one that I like.
Amanda Montalvo [00:40:14]:
You can’t do it if you’re in California or New York, unfortunately. And that’s what we’ve run into with a lot of our clients that live in those places. We’re like, okay, we can’t test. So, like, what else can we do? And that’s when we look at the hair test and the blood work and just use a more conservative dose, just a lower dose, and go retest their blood labs, retest their hair test, pay attention to their symptoms, and then monitor whatever other significant things we’re focusing on, whatever they’re coming to see us for. So I think the iodine loading test is very helpful if you’re doing it on your own or if you’re a new practitioner working with clients, if you’re really not sure if someone is deficient. But for. I think, like, the longer you work with clients, like, the more you know when it’s going to be a good fit. You’ve learned what doesn’t work, what does.
Amanda Montalvo [00:41:00]:
So, and it’s also tricky. Like, I like to have people salt load before they do the iodine test, because if you have a lot of halogen exposure, which honestly, most of us do, then that can also give you a false positive. Good result for that test. And they can measure halogens as well in that test. I just don’t. I’m like, when you know someone, what they’re exposed to with their water, their job, their environment, and then the test comes back and you’re like, that does not add up. Um, I just, like, wonder. I think it’s hard to honestly, really, truly measure our halogen exposure.
Amanda Montalvo [00:41:32]:
So I don’t typically add that onto the test. I just do the iodine loading test, and then I have them salt load beforehand, and I’ll go through this next week as well. So those are the ways you want to look at. You want 90% clearance on an iodine loading test? I don’t technically think it’s essential unless you’re doing this on your own. You want to look at your hair test, the markers that I went through, and then for iodine on your thyroid blood work, you want to assess that to understand, like, where’s the thyroid dysfunction possibly coming from? And do you have antibodies present? Because then that would be a case where you wouldn’t use iodine. And then if you have high reverse C3, you want to be very careful with revving up your metabolism more. So that is episode one. It’s a lot.
Amanda Montalvo [00:42:13]:
I hope you guys can see why I did a two part series on this. I hope that this has been interesting for you so far. And the next episode I’m going to go into like how do we use iodine to support our bodies, how do we know if it’s a good fit for us, things like that. In my Patreon I got a lot of other questions as well on iodine, so I’m doing bonus episodes to answer those and go through. I’m going to do two case studies. So one case study will go with this episode this week and another case study will go with the one after just to get different views on utilizing iodine with different types of people. And if you want to join Patreon to check those out, it’s just patreon.com hormone healing RD and I think that’s it. All resources are in the show notes and I will see you in the next episode.
Amanda Montalvo [00:42:55]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Are you Menstrual Podcast. If you want to support my work, please leave a review and let me know how you like the episode. This lets me know like what you guys want more of, less of. I read every single one and I appreciate them more than you know. If you want to keep learning, you can get access to the bonus episode and additional read resources on patreon. Com Hormone Healingrd I’d love to have you in there. Thanks again and I will see you in the next episode.
