Organic Living and Lifestyle Blog

Breast Cancer & Thyroid disease, A Natural Approach

September 18th, 2007

As breast cancer rates nationwide continue to skyrocket, more people are interested in early intervention or prevention.

Dr David Derry in his book, “Breast Cancer & Iodine”, focuses on new research showing how women can prevent breast cancer and survive breast cancer. His focus is on iodine and its relation to the body and thyroid gland.

“In 1993

Ghent and Eskin published a landmark paper on the treatment of severe fibrocystic disease of the breast with iodine supplements.

This paper was the result of more than 30 years of marvelous research by Dr. Bernard. A. Eskin of the

Medical College of Pennsylvania in

Philadelphia. First in animals and then in humans he proved fibrocystic disease of the breast is the result of low dietary iodine. He has shown also that this can go on to develop into breast cancer. I feel Dr. Eskin’s research represents a major step toward conquering breast cancer and likely other cancers.”

Why all the sudden attention on iodine? Well, in the past, our main source of iodine came from iodised table salt. But because health studies came out showing that salt was bad for us, we’ve significantly reduced our salt intake. Also, iodine is no longer automatically put in table salt. According to Dr David Derry, this salt avoidance leads to a relative dietary iodine deficiency.

“I would like to tell you my thoughts on breast cancer and thyroid disease in an abbreviated form. Breast cancer takes around 20-30 years to develop.

The discovered lump represents the end stage of slow cancer progression over decades. The longest period is the first phase of cancer development. This phase which is often called pre-cancerous happens as a normal cell is gradually turned into a cancer cell. These pre-cancerous lesions are known as fibrocystic disease (lumpy, tender breasts) of the breast. Most fibrocystic disease is benign, harmless and has no consequences.

On the other hand, some more advanced forms of fibrocystic disease have clearly defined tendencies towards breast cancer. So there are grades of fibrocystic disease with some of the cells looking more abnormal than in the benign forms. The greater the difference in the cells from normal (abnormal) the greater chance of these cells converting to a cancer cell over 10-20 years. So if you have fibrocystic disease still at the age of 45-55, you likely have had this for many years. There maybe then a significant chance the cells may change into a cancer cell. The good news is that it can be cleared up completely with a daily intake of iodine.”

Dr Greg Emerson, a consultant in Nutritional and Environmental medicine in

Australia

, states “If an iodine deficiency in the body is not corrected, the thyroid gland will steal iodine from the breasts. The Japanese who consume large amounts of iodine have very low levels of fibrocystic breast disease, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer.” (www.drgregemerson.com.au)

How can I tell if I am iodine deficient?

A 24 hour urine test after taking a prescribed amount of Lugol’s solution (an iodine in water solution) will show how much your body absorbed and how much was excreted. In my case less than 50% was excreted showing I was somewhat deficient.

How much iodine do I need?Only one drop a day!

A teaspoon of iodine is all a person requires in a lifetime. However, the thyroid gland does not have the capacity to store this amount, so small amounts of iodine must be consumed regularly in the diet.

According to Dr Derry, an adequate dose of iodine can be defined as more than 4 mg per day. Lugol’s solution is an iodine-in-water solution used by the medical profession for 200 years. One drop (6.5 mg per drop) of Lugol’s daily in water, orange juice or milk will gradually eliminate the first phase of the cancer development namely fibrocystic disease of the breast so no new cancers can start.

It also will kill abnormal cells floating around in the body at remote sites from the original cancer. Of course this approach appears to work for prostate cancer as prostate cancer is similar to breast cancer in many respects. Indeed, it likely will help with most cancers. Also higher doses of iodine are required for inflammatory breast cancer. As well we know that large doses of intravenous iodine are harmless which makes one wonder what effect this would have on cancer growth.

What are the best dietary sources of iodine?The richest natural food sources of iodine are seafood and seaweed (such as kelp and nori), because the ocean is a rich reservoir of iodine. Two or three serves a week of seafood will provide sufficient intake of iodine.

Although generally lower than in most seafoods, the iodine levels in foods of animal origin (eggs, meat and dairy products) are higher than in most foods of plant origin, and they may have been further enriched by the use of iodine-supplemented animal feed.

The variation of iodine content in natural foods can be considerable. For example, in

Britain iodine levels in fish varied from 110–3,280 micrograms per kilogram. The iodine content of whole milk samples collected in

Tasmania in 2002/03 ranged from 110 to 440 micrograms per litre (average level 213 micrograms per litre). Analysis of Australian milk in 1991 showed an average content of 50 micrograms per litre.

Australia, iodised salt contains 25–65 micrograms of iodine per gram of salt. In NZ it varies from 40–80 micrograms per gram. Iodised salt is available at all major supermarkets. Note that sea salt is a poor source of iodine—it contains less than two micrograms per gram.

Personally, I don’t use iodised salt because I believe Sea Salt and other salts have far better health benefits. My doctor has prescribed an iodine supplement called Lugol’s solution for me, one drop per day. He told me not to take it in juice but in water or tea instead as he was concerned about fruit acids.

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