Heavy metals !

Heavy metals poison us by disrupting our cellular enzymes, which run on nutritional minerals such as magnesium, zinc, and selenium. Toxic metals kick out the nutrients and bind their receptor sites, causing diffuse symptoms by affecting nerves, hormones, digestion, and immune function. The heavy metals most often implicated in human poisoning are lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium but uranium is playing catch up since depleted uranium became the favorite armament of the United States military. Once in the body, they compete with and displace essential minerals such as iodine, zinc, copper, magnesium, and calcium, and interfere with organ system function.

No where is this process more evident than in the case of the halides, which are all antagonistic elements to iodine, meaning they will impede the absorption of iodine. Heavy metals get stored in the same receptors that are looking for iodine. Almost all of us are exposed to bromine and fluorine and are storing these toxic halides in our iodine deficient receptors. The mechanism of iodine in the cells is very ancient and lacking of specificity, in fact, cells are not able to distinguish iodide from other anions of similar atomic or molecular size, which may act as “pseudo-iodides”: bromide, flouride, chlorine, thiocyanate, cyanate, nitrate, pertechnate, perchlorate.[v]

Iodine intake immediately increases the excretion of bromide, fluoride,
and some heavy metals including mercury and lead. Bromide and
fluoride are not removed by any other chelator or detoxifying technique.

Dr. Kenezy Gyula Korhaz states that iodine chelates heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium and aluminum and halogens such as fluoride and bromide, thus decreasing their iodine inhibiting effects[vii] especially of the halogens. Iodine has the highest atomic weight of all the common halogens (126.9). Iodine is the only option when it comes to removing these toxic haloids from the thyroid and even the pineal gland where fluoride concentrates, especially when there is a deficiency in iodine in the body. In an age of increasing radioactivity and toxic poisoning specifically with fluoride[viii], chlorine and bromide, and even mercury, iodine is a necessary mineral to protect us from harm for immediately these toxic substances will increasingly flow out of the body in the urine.

Many of us are forced or conditioned to drink fluoridated water and also brush our teeth with fluoride. Could an iodine deficiency be related in some way to the current epidemic of hypothyroidism, breast, and prostate cancers? Are government health officials poisoning the public with fluoride and bromide, aspartame and mercury, and even with rocket fuel, just to name a few things? Yes this is exactly what they are doing and they are feeling quite defensive about it.

Dr. David Brownstein says that fluoride inhibits the ability of the thyroid gland to concentrate iodine and research has shown that fluoride is much more toxic to the body when there is iodine deficiency present. When iodine is supplemented the excretion rate of the toxic halides bromide, fluoride and perchlorate is greatly enhanced. Brownstein says that after only one dose of iodine the excretion of fluoride increased by 78% and this is very important for those who are drinking fluoridated water or are taking medicines with fluoride in them; bromide excretion rates increased by 50%. Our environment is loaded with the toxic halides bromine and fluorine and up to now we have had no way to detoxify the body of these thyroid poisons.

No chelation or detoxification
protocol can afford to ignore iodine.

Over the last 2 decades bromine has contaminated our bread. Bromine blocks thyroid function and may interfere with the anticancer effect of iodine on the breast. Now, the risk for breast cancer is 1 in 8 and increasing 1% per year. Chlorine also blocks iodine in the body, so chlorinated water (both drinking and bathing) should best be avoided when possible. (See chapter on sodium thiosulfate for chlorine neutralization) Iodine increases mobilization of bromine from storage sites with increased urinary excretion of bromide[ix]. Elevated bromide levels were observed in urine and serum samples,[x] twenty times the levels reported in the literature in normal subjects.[xi]

Chloride competes with bromide at the renal level and increases the renal clearance of bromide[xii] thus magnesium chloride is ideal for magnesium supplementation. Some patients require up to 2 years of iodine therapy to bring post loading urine bromide levels below 10 mg/24 hr, if chloride load is not included in the bromine detoxification program. Rapid mobilization of bromine from storage sites with orthoiodosupplementation combined with increased renal clearance of bromide with a chloride load often causes side effects. Increasing fluid intake and adding a complete nutritional program minimizes these side effects.

Dr. Abraham noted that in some patients the excretion of lead, cadmium and mercury increased several fold after only one day of iodine supplementation and that increased aluminum excretion was noted about a month after beginning supplementation. Orthoiodosupplementation induces a detoxification reaction in some patients with high bromide levels. The symptoms include increased body odor and cloudy urine. The body odor lasts one to two weeks, but the cloudy urine may last several months before clearing up. Side effects can be minimized by increasing fluid intake. Increased fluid facilitates the excretion of excess iodine and the bromides, fluorides and heavy metals that the iodine displaces. Dr. Abraham also reported that the administration of magnesium in daily amounts up to 1200 mg eliminated the body odor but not the cloudy urine.

Released bromide from storage sites can induce decreased
thyroid function, bromide being a potent goitrogen.

Dr Kellman of the Centre for Progressive Medicine in New York said, "Once damage to the thyroid takes place it affects all the other organs – starting with digestion and absorption. Toxins start accumulating in the system. You can have an array of symptoms: heart disease and its complications, high homocysteine levels, poor circulation, weight gain/loss, no appetite or bingeing, bloating, fluid retention, skin problems, aching joints, low blood pressure, high cholesterol, low libido, hair loss, and sensitivity to cold." [xvii]

Dr. Sebastiano Venturi informs us that “iodine is one of the most abundant electron-rich essential elements we consume and is transported to the cells via iodide transporters. Iodide, which acts as a primitive electron-donor through peroxidase enzymes, seems to have an ancestral antioxidant function in all iodide-concentrating cells. Oxygen is a potent oxidant whose accumulation in terrestrial atmosphere resulted from the development of photosynthesis over three billion years ago, in blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria).” Iodine was used by Nature as one of her main strategies of antioxidant defense in plants and animals. The point is that antioxidants, iodine included, are important as protective substances against many chronic and degenerative diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

Mercury is the most toxic non radioactive poison on earth
and has the capability to destroy all biological life and
activity either through a slow torturous death or a quick one.
It qualifies as an intense systemic poison meaning it has
its effect which is remote from the site of entry into the body.

Dr. Brownstein indicates that iodine is also a chelator of mercury and had tested quite carefully the amounts removed.[xxiii] Mercury not only poisons the nervous system and digestive tract, it can also poison the thyroid gland. There are 4 iodine binding sites or receptors on the thyroid gland. These receptors bind with the iodine we get from our diet. The iodine enters the thyroid and activates it. If the thyroid is not absorbing enough iodine it will not be fully activated and the body's temperature will be abnormally low. Mercury from dental fillings can migrate to the thyroid gland and sit on one or more of the thyroid's 4 iodine receptors blocking the iodine from reaching the receptors and activating the thyroid. When this happens iodine is not absorbed in normal amounts by the thyroid gland. The result is low body temperature or hypothyroidism.

Several mechanisms are utilized to remove mercury from the body. In order for these detoxification mechanisms to work properly, numerous essential minerals like Iodine, Zinc, Sulfur, Selenium, and Silica stimulate the excretion of mercury. Unfortunately, the average person’s daily intake of Iodine is not high enough to protect them from mercury. The National Health and Nutrition Survey undertaken by the CDC showed iodine levels falling over 50% in the last 30 years. In 1940 the average American got 800 micrograms of iodine in their diet. In 1995 we averaged 135 micrograms; an 83% decline! Eating seafood and seaweed can keep your dietary levels in the healthy range. Supplementing with iodine can offer additional help in maintaining these healthy levels of iodine.

The involvement of free radicals in tissue injury induced by magnesium deficiency[xxiv] causes an accumulation of oxidative products in the heart, liver, kidney, skeletal muscle tissues and in red blood cells.[xxv] Magnesium is a crucial factor in the natural self-cleansing and detoxification responses of the body. It stimulates the sodium potassium pump on the cell wall and this initiates the cleansing process in part because the sodium-potassium-ATPase pump regulates intracellular and extracellular potassium levels.[xxvi] “ATP production is essential for every cell to have an ample supply to deal with the challenges of metal overload, as it is required to even permit the cell to keep on pumping out calcium. Lack of ATP then is the underlying cause of abnormal calcification of tissues,” writes Dr. Garry Gordon