Canada - No, it isn't. Yes, it is.

A short time ago, according to health news, cellphones didn’t cause cancer. Now they do. Hormone replacement therapy was once considered safe. Now it’s not.We didn’t used to need to supplement our food intake with vitamins, but now we do, and once upon a time fluoride added to our drinking water had no adverse health effects. Now it does. About the fluoride: on teeth, it protects; ingested, it wreaks havoc. An as-yet-little-publicized finding (recently reported by the National Research Council) is that even low levels of ingested fluoride are linked to thyroid dysfunction and bone damage. And speaking of thyroid dysfunction, I seem to have touched a nerve with what I said about iodine supplementation a couple of weeks ago. In case you missed it, I am aware that Health Canada recommends intake no higher than 150 micrograms per day—which is not a lot. We’re talking micrograms, not grams. What I did (heaven forbid) was question the validity of that recommended allowance. What I did was suggest that, thanks to fluoride in our water and a million other interferences, we’re not getting as much as we need and may need to supplement. Levels of iodine in food are declining (thanks to super-efficient Big Ag farming methods and depleted soil levels), and levels of iodine-disrupting substances in our food and water and environment are at an all-time high. And prevalence of thyroid and related disorders in Canada and the US are up and rising. To continue ignoring road signs pointing us in a different direction—to keep trusting that iodized salt will result in healthy thyroids and lower cancer rates when it hasn’t been doing that—could be called magical thinking (or, on a cranky day, insanity). The truth is that average blood levels of iodine are down over the past 30 years, and thyroid and hormone-related cancers are up. Maybe there’s no link, but maybe there is.We know that environmental and dietary compounds that mimic estrogen upset endocrine balance (endocrine referring to hormones secreted directly into the bloodstream by glands like the thyroid). When soy was introduced to baby formulas back in the ’60s, incidence of goitre (abnormally enlarged thyroid glands) in babies skyrocketed; when iodine was supplemented, incidence was reduced again.And now we know that fluoride in our water is linked to thyroid trouble.
Here’s the thing: although blood tests may indicate normal thyroid function, symptoms such as weight gain, insomnia, heart palpitations, fuzzy thinking, forgetfulness, irritability, dry skin and hair, headaches, feeling cold, fatigue, depression and hot flashes often disappear with the addition of kelp (a concentrated seaweed source of iodine) to the diet.One last little tidbit: iodine helps us get rid of toxic metal build-up—things like lead, mercury, cadmium, fluoride and bromide. Not that heavy metal toxicity has any connection to thyroid trouble or cancer. I’m not telling anyone what to do (most definitely not)—I’m just presenting an argument for iodine deficiency. I’m suggesting that a naturopathic doctor might be the best route to take when dealing with symptoms of thyroid and hormone imbalance, whether the condition is pronounced enough to show on blood tests or not. I’m suggesting that things change, and that Health Canada recommendations are not infallible and perfect for all time.Just this week we heard again about the ordinary B vitamin niacin being an effective HDL (good cholesterol) booster. Our current high LDL cholesterol epidemic should really be no surprise, given how we’ve undervalued whole foods and the importance of B vitamins and refined the crap out of everything (and then “enriched” it again, so we’d feel like we’re eating well, which we’re still not because white flour, even enriched, doesn’t even remotely resemble the whole grain). But it’s a sunny day; no need to be cranky. V