iodine

[thyroidnodules]

hi, does anyone on this site know if hypothyroid people need to take iodine. my daughter has read an article which says that people with hypothyroidism should take iodine supplements as everyone is very low on iodine especially people with hypothyroidism. I had understood we shouldn't take iodine supplements

[greygoose]

No, you shouldn't take them.

It is possible to be hypo because of iodine deficiency, but that's rather rare in Europe. There are many, many other reasons for becoming hypo.

Iodine is not some magic ingredient that is going to fix your thyroid. It's one of the ingredients of thyroid hormone - T4 has 4 atoms and T3 3 atoms of iodine, so you can see that you don't need very much. So, if your thyroid is damaged, or otherwise unable to make hormone, just adding in more ingredients isn't going to result in more hormone.

Iodine is also anti-thyroid. It used to be used as a treatment for people who were hyper, to reduce the amount of hormone made by the gland. So, that's not really what a hypo wants or needs.

[Angel_of_the_North]

It depends. It is very easy to overdose on iodine and, for some people, it can exacerbate autoimmune thyroid problems. Therefore you need to do a urine or other iodine test (not a skin patch test) and take it only if you are deficient. In the last two centuries, low iodine was a common cause of hypothyroidism and goitre (look up Derbyshire neck). That's not true in the UK now, where the most common cause is autoimmune thyroiditis (aka Hashimotos disease). Iodine was used in the past as a treatment for overactive thyroid.

[MaisieGray]

I wouldn't take the word of any author writing any article, who asserts that everyone is "X" and therefore everyone needs "Y". I wonder what are the credentials of that author ...... That is not even remotely scientific never mind accurate. In fact, Japan for instance, is an adequately iodine-supplied country, and yet Japanese people still develop thyroid disorders (the difference being that they seem to be less symptomatic, so higher baseline levels of iodine might in some way, infer a greater resilience to the effect of the disease, although not to its development).

[diogenes Remembering]

Excessive iodine can cause hypothyroidism. See this paper:

PLoS One. 2017; 12(3): e0173722.

Published online 2017 Mar 10. doi: [10.1371/journal.pone.0173722]

PMCID: PMC5345857

PMID: 28282437

Effect of excess iodine intake on thyroid diseases in different populations: A systematic review and meta-analyses including observational studies

Ryoko Katagiri, Xiaoyi Yuan, Satomi Kobayashi, and Satoshi Sasaki

[G2G2]

The way to know if you're iodine deficient to have an iodine loading test.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to G2G2]

This is controversial. The simple fact of loading with a significant dose of iodine itself might not be good for some people. And the rate at which it is excreted in urine has also been challenged (i.e. not as large a percentage in 24 hours as assumed). Loss other than via urine is ignored.