What is the first step when it comes to full thyroid recovery? I want to talk to you about the unique relationship between iodine and thyroid health, and what you need to know about it to truly recover – with some super helpful and actionable steps along the way.
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Table of Contents
Why Does Iodine Matter for Thyroid Recovery?
What Causes Thyroid Disease?
Are You Getting Too Much Iodine?
How Much Iodine is Best?
Iodine and Thyroid Recovery: Action Steps
How Do You Know If Your Thyroid Recovery Is Working?
What If It’s Not Working?
Do You Need To Worry About Iodine Long-Term?
Why Does Iodine Matter for Thyroid Recovery?
Iodine is the single most important thing for your thyroid health. There is nothing else that is going to make as big of a difference in getting things right. For a lot of people, this comes down to one of two things:
- This is the biggest reason that they develop thyroid disease
- This is the biggest opportunity to get things back to working better again
Before we dive in, though, let’s start with a bit of important context…
What Causes Thyroid Disease?
We can’t have a conversation around thyroid recovery and iodine, without first talking about what causes thyroid disease in the first place. The causes mostly come down to genetics, with a higher likelihood with regard to age and gender (which is also, of course, genetic).
What do the genes that cause thyroid disease do? They are typically responsible for affecting certain enzymes that regulate iodine (called deiodinase pathways). Here is how all of this plays out, super simply…
When it comes to iodine, there are essentially two kinds of groups that humans come in:
- The first is the group that can do well in environments that contain a lot of iodine
- Another can do well in environments that are low in iodine.
Why did it play out this way? Over time, humans have evolved in different ecosystems when it comes to iodine. One big group was close to oceans, and the other was far away, which made the former group more predisposed to managing high levels of iodine.
The other was more inland and closer to freshwater, meaning that they needed to get good at vacuuming up as much iodine as possible into their thyroid (because they were surrounded by so little). Unfortunately, once you start vacuuming in it, it’s tough to stop.
Key Insight: These two gene expressions are still around today. But, the way and where we live has changed – meaning that it can be easy to get iodine just about anywhere, but some folks still vacuum it up as though it was a precious commodity.
When it comes to what causes thyroid disease, we have to look toward iodine as the single most important. This is because iodine is so prevalent and so easy to get, that many get too much of it – and, for reasons of genetics, age, and gender, this can be an issue.
What About Other Factors?
Certainly there must be things that cause thyroid disease beyond iodine, right? Of course, there are a lot of things that can be relevant (in certain cases). Things like:
All of these things are worth considering in some contexts. However, researchers argue that once we look past iodine, every other factor combined is less relevant than iodine.
Are You Getting Too Much Iodine?
It’s possible that you could be getting a dangerous amount of iodine in your system. But, more often than not, the amounts that cause thyroid disease would not shock you on paper.
It’s more a matter of personal intolerance. Again, this goes along with the genes that cause thyroid disease – because you are predisposed to struggle with iodine.
Should You Be Testing Iodine Levels?
In this case, testing doesn’t really help. When it comes to iodine and thyroid recovery, the amounts of iodine that build up in the thyroid are not often reflected in the amounts that we can find in blood or urine levels.
It’s more a matter of too much building up and your body reacting accordingly. That is not predictable in terms of testing.
Key Insight: The main way to know if iodine is a factor in your thyroid health is to monitor your intake. Watch and see if your thyroid function improves.
How Much Iodine is Best?
When it comes to iodine, we want to key in on being within a good window. That window is somewhere between 50-200 micrograms, per day, to prevent thyroid disease.
The trick here is that food labels are tough to decipher and hard to know how much iodine you might be getting. It’s exactly why I created The Thyroid Reset DIet.
In it, I talk you through easy ways of selecting food groups to help you hit your targets. It can take away some of that mental math and lack of clarity when it comes to food groups!
In terms of thyroid recovery, though, what are your options? This is the cool part of the story, especially for those who are suffering. Along with getting the right amount to prevent problems, you can also get to a different threshold to reverse problems.
That window is going to be below 100 micrograms per day. You don’t have to stay at this level forever, but it should be enough time to help properly heal your thyroid. For most people, that could be anywhere between 3-12 months.
Key Insight: The main way to know if iodine is a factor in your thyroid health is to monitor your intake. Watch and see if your thyroid function improves.
Iodine and Thyroid Recovery: Action Steps
The first thing is to be aware of the things that have a lot of iodine and the things that occasionally have huge amounts of iodine.
Some categories to consider here would include:
- Cosmetics and personal care products (PVP and TEA is important to look for)
- Supplements
- Salt
- Red light foods
In The Thyroid Reset DIet, I break foods down into three groups: green light, yellow light, and red light. Red light foods always have a lot or sometimes have huge amounts of iodine. To keep your thyroid safe and healed, you want to avoid those at all costs.
Green light foods are very much the opposite, You can freely enjoy these foods without worry with regards to iodine.
The last group worth noting is those yellow light foods. These are consistent in how much iodine they have and they have moderate amounts.
How Do You Know If Your Thyroid Recovery Is Working?
The first thing is to check your thyroid levels. Take a look at the antibodies, look at your thyroid scores, and talk to your doctor about them. I am also here to help.
Another thing is to watch out for thyroid symptoms. There are ways in which your thyroid works that won’t be visible on a blood test – some of it goes on behind the scenes.
Key Insight: There are many times when your thyroid levels may not improve as much as you want, but your symptoms do! Be sure to keep an eye on those over time.
What If You’re On Thyroid Medications?
If you are already on thyroid medications, you may need to lower them. It is quite common that if your thyroid gets the chance to work better, it will, but medications may get in the way of that unless you are monitoring and adjusting as needed (with your doctor’s help).
The other thought here is that many of those on medications do not need them in the first place (or have outgrown them). But, they may not know it because medications can often block your thyroid from working!
Ultimately, it is great to work with a doctor who knows about deprescribing and how to do it safely and sustainably. A couple of simple rules include:
- Those who are pregnant and nursing
- Those who don’t have a thyroid
Barring those two cases, almost everyone else has a good chance of being on less or no thyroid medication. So, it is worth considering for your thyroid recovery.
What If It’s Not Working?
Let’s say that you’ve done your homework and tried some things, but it’s just not working. This is the one thing where it can be useful to check your iodine levels.
There is a test called an iodine-to-urinary-creatinine ratio, and you want to see that at less than 100. If you are not there, it means one of two things:
- You have not found all of the sources of iodine in your life
- You had huge exposure that you haven’t caught up on yet
If your scores are still high and you’ve cut out all of the possible sources, and you were taking some big amounts before, you might want to simply stay the course. Keep doing what you’re doing and then check again a few months down the road.
Key Insight: When there is a lot of iodine present, sometimes it can take up to a year before you clear everything in your system. Patience and persistence will be key.
The other thought is that there might be comorbidities at play. There are a lot of illnesses that go along with thyroid disease. If you have thyroid disease, there’s a good chance you may be suffering from one or multiple other things as well.
A lot of these things go undiagnosed and prevent thyroid recovery. A couple include latent iron depletion (mild early anemia), adrenal stress, and disordered calcium – these are three out of about 15 or 16 really common comorbidities.
Do You Need To Worry About Iodine Long-Term?
Yes and no. Long term, you can heal your thyroid by avoiding iodine, and it’s also something you should keep doing. Try to stay away from the red-light foods, be mindful of the yellow-light foods, and enjoy the green-light foods – it’s just that easy.
The main thing I want you to take away from today’s discussion is that, if you don’t focus on your iodine levels it is virtually impossible to heal your thyroid. At the same time, this easy step is a golden opportunity to reverse thyroid disease by honing in on iodine.
All of this should be done in concert with other facets of care: Good lifestyle, appropriate nutraceuticals, thyroid medications if they are needed, and identifying any comorbidities. It is possible to get better, and it’s likely easier than you think! I hope you’ll start the journey with me.
P.S. Whenever you are ready, here is how I can help you now:
1. Schedule a Thyroid Second Opinion with me, Dr. C, Click Here for Details
2. Need A Thyroid Supplement Recommendation? Take My Thyroid Specific Formulations Quiz Now
3. Need a Personalized Supplement? Check out My Thyroid Specific Formulations
4. Download and use my Favorite Recipes Cookbook Here
5. Check out my podcast Medical Myths, Legends, and Fairytales Here
Dr. Alan Glen Christianson (Dr. C) is a board-certified Naturopathic Endocrinologist, and the author of The NY Times bestselling Adrenal Reset Diet, Metabolism Reset Diet, Thyroid Reset Diet, and the Healing Hormone Cookbook.
Dr. C’s gift for figuring out what really works has helped hundreds of thousands of people reverse thyroid disease, lose weight, diabetes, and regain energy. Learn more about the surprising story that started his quest.
