Many of us are currently deficient in vitamins and minerals, as it seems increasingly difficult to get enough quality nutrients from food alone.

One of the most common deficiencies is iodine deficiency. In the United States, researchers estimate that 74% of the adult population is iodine deficient. Iodine deficiency rates have quadrupled in the last 40 years.

The adverse health effects are numerous

This may manifest itself as dizziness or headaches, fatigue, worry or anxiety, emotional instability, disorientation, loss of visual acuity, dryness of the skindigestive problems or constipation, but also much more serious problems of a degenerative nature.

A growing number of studies point to the very strong correlation between iodine insufficiency and epidemics of obesity, cognitive impairment, psychiatric disorders, heart disease, fibromyalgia, and even cancer.

Strangely, insufficient iodine can lead to hypothyroidism, which manifests as insufficient levels of thyroid hormone that leads to a slowed metabolism, but it can also lead to hyperthyroidism. In this case, an excess of thyroid hormone causes heart rhythm problems, osteoporosis, insomnia, fatigue or muscle wasting.

Breast tissue, for example, or even stomach muscles also need iodine to function optimally. The relationship between iodine deficiency and breast cancer, fibrocystic breast or stomach problems (including cancer) is becoming more and more evident.

This is understandable when we know that thyroid dysfunction disrupts cortisol levels as well as deficient immunity. A disturbed cortisol level disrupts the balance of the entire endocrine system. A whole series of disturbances follow: worry, anxiety, systemic inflammation, etc.

Why are we iodine deficient?

Crop soils and the sea are the most important sources of iodine.

The soils have been depleted by intensive and industrial cultivation with the result that the plants themselves are very low in iodine. As for the sea, not everyone is lucky enough to live near it. This fact led to the introduction of iodized salt in the 1920s.

Industrial iodized salt was supposed to be an adequate source of iodine and thus reduce iodine deficiency. A few decades later, scientists drew attention to the harmful effects of eating too much salt, and doctors were quick to put their hypertensive patients on a salt-free diet and urge others to cut back.

And indeed, iodized salt is not the ideal way to meet the body's iodine needs. Especially since table salt is cleaned and chemically processed to give rise to sodium chloride which is considered by the body as a foreign agent. Its metabolization is excessively costly in energy and water for the body, which disturbs the whole hydric balance of the body, but also the immune system.

Industrial salt also contains toxic chemical additives such as fluoride and aluminum, two substances well known for their harmful effects on the brain.

So what to do?

To avoid the harmfulness of chemical salt, opt for natural sea salt or Himalayan salt.

When it comes to iodine, turn to other food sources. For those who eat it, cheese and eggs contain it. But it is mainly the products of marine origin that you should turn to. Sea fish, crustaceans and seafood are very rich in them. Vegetarians will easily find their iodine fix in seaweed such as dulse, kelp, bean or sea spaghetti, wakame or nori.

Could this be the key to the low incidence of breast cancer among women living in Japan where seaweed is an integral part of the daily diet rather than soy as scientists have long thought?

If you are not a fan of seaweed, you can easily find food supplements in capsule or tablet form that contain it.

Whichever product you choose, just make sure the seaweed is from the low radioactive area. To do well, one would need to take in a minimum of 250 to 400 μg of iodine per day, although up to 1100 μg can be consumed daily to ensure excellent health.

If you combine iodine intake with selenium (cofactor of thyroid enzymes), you amplify its effects and protect your thyroid gland in the process.

Thanks to this you will increase your energy level and fatally your quality of life both in the short and long term, as you will be more adaptable and less vulnerable to environmental stresses.