Are Some People Iodine Deficient?

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By Crown Import, Chicago, IL are some people iodine deficient?

Foreign.

This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Simone from Instagram asks, are some people iodine deficient? Well, Simone, I have the perfect person to answer this question. He has been deep diving into all things iodine and how they relate to your thyroid and he talks about that in his new book, the Thyroid Reset Diet. Yes, I've got Dr. Alan Christensen, aka Dr. C with me to answer this question. He's a board certified naturopathic endocrinologist and a New York Times bestselling author and a super athlete, including the sport of mountain unicycling. Bet you didn't even know that existed. He'll be right back to answer this question. Stay with us.

Hey, it's J.J. here. Now let's be honest.

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If we go back as recently as 1991, there were 112 nations that were categorized as severely iodine deficient. And that's a big deal. The World Health Organization showed that at that level, kids, they didn't develop properly. So the lack of iodine meant that their thyroid glands were not working right and that meant that their brains couldn't develop. And there were several key milestones in those early years that, you know, once you miss them, that's it. The lifelong opportunity for normal brain function has come and gone. And the effects were just huge, hugely negative for that. So that was recent. Now this was 1991. It was 112 nations. At that time, there were no nations that were categorized as at risk for thyroid disease due to iodine excess. So that number was zero. And it was seen by public health arenas what a tragedy this was. So the World Health Organization, the iodine organizations, they gathered together and said, hey, we can fix this. You know, there are ways that they could give iodine even like once or twice per year. It was quite inexpensive. And also they would fortify water in many regions. So it was done successfully. And it was this huge, huge public health win. So if we go forward just a few years, 23 years, from 1991 to 2014, the number of nations that were categorized as severely identification went from 112 down to zero. That was really cool. It was a huge, huge win. So it completely eradicated this problem that was holding back a billion people on the planet. This is like one of the biggest feel good stories that we've had for quite a while. Like a billion people's lives got better and it was a success. But. And here's the but. Because iodine is so exacting, many countries ended up overshot. They got more than they needed. So as the efforts went out to raise iodine in areas that were deficient, some of those same efforts caused there to be more iodine in places that had enough, and some caused there to be excess where there used to be deficiency. So by 2014, the number of nations that were severely deficient was zero, which is cool. But the number of nations categorized as at risk for thyroid disease due to iodine excess, well, that became 52. So now we're on the opposite end of that spectrum. We have 52 nations at risk for disease for too much iodine. As a generalization, iodine deficiency has the biggest impact on the youngest. So, yeah, children and toddlers are affected the most by that. Adults are not as strongly affected. Some can develop goiters. It's not as common, but most of the big complications occur early in life. Now, on the other side of it, when we see iodine excess, that's more commonly a problem in adults. It's less salient, less apparent in children, but it's the main known driver of ongoing chronic adult thyroid disease. And the US Is one of those nations considered at risk for iodine excess. Pretty much all of north and South America are in those categories. And even further studies have looked at a more detailed way at US Subpopulations. They've broken up the US in terms of our ages, our genders, our ethnicities, and looked at the iodine status in those various ways. And those most prone to thyroid disease are women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and more. So with each decade, and especially in North America. And that's gone crazy over these last several decades, since around 1990. Well, that's when we entered into the stage of iodine excess. And we now know that in those subpopulations, 30 to 40% of women, 30 to 45% per the exact group, are at severe risk for thyroid disease due to iodine excess. So, yeah, you can have the average population high, which we do, and we can have some subpopulations that are not high, but we've got many that are. And not all 30, 45% of women get thyroid disease because not all are prone to it. But of those who are genetically prone to thyroid disease, the extra iodine is the main trigger that pushes them over the edge. And it's gotten very clear to researchers that this is the reason that we're seeing thyroid disease on the uptick in these populations, quite simply because of their ongoing excess iodine exposure. So, yes, iodine deficiency was a big problem in some parts of the world. Mild deficiencies do still happen. So deficiencies are categorized as severe, moderate, or mild. We now have no countries that's severe deficient, and we have seven countries categorized as mild, but all the severe deficiency is gone and now we have this risk of iodine excess that is affecting adults.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.

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