Hello,

How can you say "Stick with the iodized salt!" - isn't it better to educate people how to find natural sources of iodine, instead of mass-medicating the nation without its consent by using factory-manufactured artificial iodine?

Is the sodium content found in the majority of foods, iodized?

Half a teaspoon of iodized salt per day sounds enormous for those of us who prefer the taste of unsalted food and rarely touch the stuff. What other foods are good sources of iodine?

isn't this salt chemically synthesized?? simply Na plus Cl?

I would think that celtic sea salt devoid of mercury would be far better since it contains essential trace minerals.

You can buy iodized natural sea salt which contains all the natural beneficial micro-nutrients plus added iodine. Or you can incorporate seaweed into your diet. It is widely available now even in mainstream supermakets due to the popularity of sushi-making. It's yummy!

Normally, I agree with you guys nearly 100% of the time, but I think you're wrong on this one.

Sticking with salts like Morton is not in line with your usual precautionary recommendations.

Here's what the Real Salt company says about regular table salt, "Normal table salt begins as a saline solution. Then after processing and kiln drying at temperatures in excess of 400 degrees, its natural state is changed and nearly all trace minerals are lost. Then chemicals are added like Silico Aluminate, Potassium Iodide, Tri-calcium Phosphate, Magnesium Carbonate, Sodium bicarbonate, and yellow prussiate of soda just to name a few. These are added to bleach the salt, prevent caking, and aid in free-flowing so your salt will flow free even on rainy days."

Table salt leads to a one-sided overload of sodium chloride that in turn leads to all the well-documented undesirable effects of diets that are high in refined salt.

Please rethink this one.

Thanks.

Amy Todisco

Dorian- I'm double-checking with Dr. Jacobs just to be sure, but my understanding is that most salty snacks and prepared foods (canned soup, for example) are not made with iodized salt.

L.F., Good question! Kelp and seafood are both reliable sources of iodine. Some fruits and vegetables can also be good source, but only if they're grown in iodine-rich soil, so that's not quite as reliable.

Noam- Believe it or not, sea salt is at best an unreliable source of iodine.

one issue with iodized table salt is that filler are addedt to it. it can contain as much as 40% dextrose, a sugar. other natural sources of iodine include sea kelp. a better source.

Thanks for your comments, Amy -- I'll pass them along to the research team.

You guys are way off on this one. I was shocked and dismayed. Articles like this one are what one might expect to read in a fashion magazine. Do your research. Iodized salt is poison!

I respect most of what you advocate on your site, but you fail miserably on this issue. Regular table salt, iodized or not, is loaded with undesirable fillers. Using unprocessed grey sea salt, together with sea vegetables, particularly kelp, is a much safer way to incorporate iodine into your system. Education is the keyword here!

I have been told to stay away from iodine because I have hyperthyroidism. So, what about people like me?

just say to no table salt!!!
Sea salt vs table salt, has a balance of minerals which is much better for you. Also, kelp and other sea vegetables are excellent sources of iodine (green drinks are a tasty way to get them, but avoid Odwalla as they are owned by Coca-Cola).

Adequate iodine intake is useful not only to protect people from perchlorate exposure, but also fluoride exposure. Consider, for example, what the National Research Council concluded last year:

“The recent decline in iodine intake in the United States could contribute to increased toxicity of fluoride for some individuals.”

and:

“In humans, effects on thyroid function were associated with fluoride exposures of 0.05-0.13 mg/kg/day when iodine intake was adequate and 0.01-0.03 mg/kg/day when iodine intake was inadequate.”

For more information about this, see: http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/thyroid/

Yeah, this boggles my mind. I have never heard anything from EWG that I don't agree with, but recommending that one should consume the synthetic iodine in normal table salt as a health measure is ridiculous. You can obtain high levels of idodine from a nuclear explosion as well, but it's radioactive. I say switch to natural sea salt, or kelp. Both of which are high in trace minerals, including Iodine.

I believe sincerely that the person who wrotes that article didn't do his/her research properly. I agree that sea salt or even kelp is a better alternative

I think your response was balanced, considering the harmful effects low levels of iodine can cause. There are many benefits to adequate levels of iodine. Thank you for being concerned for our health enough to publish this piece. I prefer iodized sea salt myself, but iodized table salt is what is most readily available. Most people don't even realize the danger. Thanks again!

I seem to remember reading a report at one time, probably 20 years ago, that lack of adequate amounts of iodine ended up linked to the polio epidemic of the 50's. Am I correct in that there was an article of this sort?

Iodine was added to salt as a way to prevent goiters in the midwest where people did not have as much access to shell fish, a natural source of iodine. I say iodine helps thyroid health, but the source can be of your choosing.

I can't believe this article. I have never read anything good about iodized salt. If you are eating a healthy diet rich in a healthy variety you will certainly get the needed iodine in your system. Compare the taste of iodized table salt to sea salt and you will be able to taste the chemicals in the table salt. I can't believe this has been posted on EWG. Shocked to say the least.

Also read up on the blood type diets, which I thought were fads but have helped me identify my food allergies (as an 0, I gave up gluten, corn & especially corn syrup which last is all GMO).I saw a naturopathic doctor from the school I will attend with a patient of 70 who looked fantastic & had followed the diet for 9 years, but I also researched information. I changed to sea salt, but rely on salmon & bladderwrack (kelp) for my iodine & trace minerals (with occasional blackstrap molasses, too).
In Nutrition we learn that all packaged and fast foods are non-iodized. The book will make you aware that there are 'goitragens', everything in the brassica family, all the vegetables I was eating to be healthy. Broccoli, cauliflour,cabbage, etc block iodine & I ate them from my freezer or organic garden daily. For my type I eat much spinach & greens as my blood needs to clot. You can notice big differences, I would never go back! Cravings, joint pain, etc went away. (After 6 weeks you can modify, if you do before your gut can inflame ~ drink fresh juices, or soup if it is tolerable). But the answer is right that one should never change diets drastically without finding a safe alternative source! One of the reasons so many are iodine-deficient indicates there is a problem with the form of iodine being ingested (or not). We are all complex individuals.

So now what? Any recommendations for getting necessary iodine and using sea salt without eating kelp?

In Tibet where most people have no access to kelp and seafood and the soil is extremely iodine deficient there is a very good case for iodized salt -- people were developing tremendous goiters and other thyroid-related illness. Except the locals wouldn't buy the salt because they could get local salt cheaper. So the Chinese government is now distributing gel caps filled with oil and iodine. One gel cap contains enough iodine for six months. In America, let's face it, most people just don't get enough kelp in their diets, so maybe considering replacing our iodized table salt with iodine supplements in a more pure form is also a good strategy for Americans, and then we can finally allow sea salt to take it's rightful place on our tables.

I must agree with other readers. The trace minerals in sea salt are important. When I switched our household to sea salt, my husband began to lose weight and now they say his thyroid is starting to work again. He has been hypothyroid and taking Synthroid for over 20 years.

I for one agree with Amanda. In Australia, up to 50% of people have sub-clinical iodine levels of iodine. This is alarming. Iodine is critical not just for thyroid function but also mental development in young children.

In Australia, the levels of iodine have dropped for two reasons:

1. A reduction in the regular use of iodised salt
2. We discontinued the use of using iodine washes to clean machinery in the dairy industry.

Sea kelp just doesn't cut it as a reliable source of iodine and quite frankly not enough people know about as a source or include it a regular food in their diets.

I do think that iodised salt can play a role in maintaining healthy levels of iodine. I agree it should be supplemented with other sources and sea kelp is one of those. I also think that some iodised salt is a better choice than low iodine levels.

Are you guys promoting Morton?
Table salt is a KILLER!

Store salt is terrible.
Sea salt is not dependable becasue of pollution of oceans and they remove trace minerals to sell for other purposes.
Flouride attaches to thyroid when iodine is in short supply.Flouride (from water and tooth paste) causes depression.
Farm raised fish have mercury, PCBs and dioxins and should never be eaten.
Linus Pauling (and many others) stated that all disease is related to lack of trace minerals (there are none is grocery store foods today). The farm land was farmed out 100 years ago.
Most thyroid problems today are due to lack of iodine and flouride. High blood pressure is due to the lack of magnesium. Trace minerals have to be in balance to be safe. The only source of trace minerals I know of that is 100 % polution free (most kelp has pollution and/or not processed correctly), correct balance of trace minerals that are never tampered with is Real Salt from Redmond Minerals, from Redmond Utah.
To your good health.
Dr Bob

I completely agree with several of the people commenting on here. EWG is WAY OFF on this one! With chemicals added to bleach it and all of the natural trace minerals removed along with its role in increasing blood pressure in those susceptible to this.
When you show a half teaspoon of added salt it seems to ENCOURAGE people to add MORE salt to their food. That 1/2 teaspoon is a maximum level and should take into account the high levels of sodium in the foods people eat--which you made no mention of.

Please remove this video, this shoddy recommendation discredits the other great work EWG does.

Several researhers have shown convincing evidence between inadaquate iodine and breast ,uterine and prostate cancer. Japanese women who consume 13.8 mg of iodine experience one of the lowest rates of these cancers in the world. In the 1960's bread contained 0.15 mg of iodine and the risk of breast cancer was 1 in 20. over the past 2 decades it has been replaced by bromine in the bread making process. Bromine blocks thyroid gland function and interferes with the anticancer effect of iodine on the breast. We need iodine and lots of it. Try sea weed or Iodine supplements especially if you have breast, uterine,ovarian or prostrate problems or family history.

I don't normally respond to these blogs, but felt I had to this time. I'm writing
from Australia; because last night, on our National News, there was a report that great concern is now being expressed by health professionals re people using non Iodised salt. I was quite shocked and surprised having always used non iodine salt to learn that preventable health problems are being created by something that could be fixed 'overnight' by using iodine salt. The report focussed on the overwhelming incidence here of thyroid problems, which is one of the most commom causes of birth defects. This increase in thyroid problems is postively correlated with a significant drop in our iodine salt consumption. I don't understand why people on your blog are getting so overheated on this one. It's basic common sense that, as with all things, care needs to be taken. Obviously if you have health concerns re salt, then you'll have to find some other way of treating a thyroid problem. However, for most people, switching to iodine salt is not going to cause any issues given our recommended dose is low anyway.

If experts, whether they be from EWG, or some other arena, give advice based on sound research outcomes, then I think we owe it to ourselves, and possibly our unborn babies, to at least listen, digest it, and even do further research ourselves. But, to just discount a recommendation
because it doesn't suit your current 'frame of reference' is not going to help in the end.

We should always be challenging our assumptions and utillising most up to
date research in doing this.

Kind Regards
Lucy

What a lively discussion!

Thank you all for your comments -- I'd like to let you know that they've been heard.

EWG is known for quality research and analysis, and we would never publish recommendations like these unless we were confident that they were accurate. Iodized table salt is an inexpensive and readily available source of iodine for the millions of people in the US who can't afford kelp, don't know how to prepare it, or have never even heard of it.

If you've got access to a diet rich in seafood and seaweed (and you happen to like those things), you can count yourself among the lucky. For the rest of us, a minimal amount of iodized salt helps protect against completely preventable thyroid dysfunction -- and that's something EWG can support.

Stick with iodized table salt? do you also think we should stick with flouridated water?
sea salt and table salt are in categories of their own. I wouldn't touch table salt. Our bodies crave salty to balance other flavors, and sea salt is a great, natural way to get it. as far as how much, listen to your body. a little goes a long way. experiment with the different types..I like Celtic Sea salt and himalayan.

These people have given great examples of NATURAL sources of iodine. i LOVE kelp!

I'm a holistic health counselor. I so hoped EWG would have stuck with natural so I could have forwarded an informative article to my clients.

iodine poor soil is in the great lakes area, sodium chloride is toxic poison that dehydrates a common suicide in china, fresh fruits and vegatables in variety provides all the food intake we need, stick to environmental issues dont tell people to eat poisons like salt and fish

I continually educate on the topic of detoxifcation and nutrition, unfortunitely there is no one answer that is suitable for everyone. However one suggestion for iodine replacement along with considerable amounts of trace minerals and other nutrients comes from marine pythoplankton. To learn more about plankton you can visit www.whyplankton.org

The high amounts of potassium now in foods can make some people ill. Potassium iodide can increase that load. I have a high salt need and can only have small amounts of iodized salt

Sorry folks, EWG is truly onto something here. I personally experienced decreasing thyroid levels a few years ago. I had eliminated table salt for sea salt. After a a battery of bizarre tests in an effort to determine what was happening to me, I had a friend who is a nurse suggest that I go back to table salt. Eventually my levels went back up and my thyroid levels are once again normal.
The minerals in our soil have been significantly depleted and iodine in the diet is hard to obtain today; the two most significant sources that are readily available are from table salt and kelp.
I prefer table salt to thyroid meds and ongoing testing, I truly experienced a positive change in my health.

I've been using Hain Iodized Sea Salt, but I'll now change to Real Salt as mentioned by Amy and Dr. Bob.
http://www.realsalt.com/about.cfm

Heh, is it just me or do the "Real Salt" people sound an awful lot like the Arbonne Cosmetics folks?

Have you heard of Lugol's? That is a very inexpensive source of Iodine and can be purchased at a health food store. I put one drop a day in a glass of water in the morning and I am all set. One bottle last about a year and costs $ 15.00.

I also use Celtic sea salt. Regular sea salt is processed and bad for you.

Tried to trackback a post and throttled (again. don't you love me anymore? :) )

Anyways, there is a message on my site
for all you crazies on this post and also for all you who are aghast at the crazies.

(Seriously, "Dr. Bob"?)Also, you'll note that "real salt" doesn't have chemicals in it. No chemicals! Not even sodium chloride, apparently. So it's ether, or just a hologram of salt. ;)

I have switched to Himalayan sea salt - here is a description - "rich with 84 minerals, and slightly pink in color, this salt is used by holistic chefs around the world. 100% natural, unrefined, 250 million year old sea salt crystal is hand excavated, sun washed , sun dried, and hand packed from the foothills of the Himalayas."

It's delicious and I hope it's not a hoax b/c regular table salt is a definite no-no in our home. Any comments on this product most welcome.

I think you have to educate yourself more in this matter. Tablesalt is a POISON. Please read the books by Dr.David Brownstein." Iodine, why you need it Why you can't live without it"
"Salt your way to health"
"Overcoming thyroid disorders".

His website is www.drbrownstein.com

Dr. Brownstein is a medical doctor, specialized in thyroid disorders and the body's need of iodine.

Respectfully
Eva

Dr. Brownstein is full of it (especially on the toxicity of table salt section). Now, I know he's an MD, but I'm a Ph.D. in toxicology so it sort of evens out. Let's see if we can figure out which "expert" is blowing smoke: The guy who makes money off of telling you that modern medicine has it all wrong or the person who has no financial intrest in the matter?

Take all the time you need on that one.

Dr. Brownstein's website takes the cake on style, though. He's got me beat on that.

I have to agree with Amy and the others who object to this posting. There's no doubt that we need iodine in our diet, and sea salt is one of the best natural ways to get it.

Some are recommending specific brands of sea salt (Real Salt, Himalyan sea salt) because sea salt that was deposited on land thousands of years ago is free of the mercury and other contaminants we have dumped into our oceans.

That makes good pure sea salt one of our best natural sources of iodine. Sea salt already contains iodine and therefore doesn't need to be supplemented with it.

The blood in our veins is essentially reconstituted sea water. The amount of iodine in sea salt is proportional to our body's needs. Assuming that it's contaminant-free, sea salt contains all the other trace minerals we need as well—and in the right proportion.

Bill Suydam
Editor, Health Spectator

For those of you who are using sea salt, I highly advise you to be sure you go significantly up on your potassium, less you want to end up with a potassium deficiency. Also, kelp doesn't just have iodine, it also frequently has bromine and arsenic as well. Also, Norman Walker strongly advised again sea salt from "inland shores". For whatever reason, I do not know. Perhaps you should investigate.

Apparently iodized salt isn't always so iodized. I came across this abstract "Iodine Nutrition: Iodine content of Iodized Salt in the US" from Environmental Science and Technology by PK Dasgupta, Y Liu and JV Dyke:

It says that even though iodized salt is supposed to contain 45 mg of iodine per kg most boxes of salt don't actually contain that much. The amount of iodine in the boxes also differed a lot depending on whether salt was taken from the top portion, middle or bottom. They also found that storing salt in a humid environment caused a lot of the iodine to be lost.

I don't use much salt when I cook (I'll add half a teaspoon to 3 cups of dried beans, for example) so most of my sodium intake is from cheese & from processed foods, which I've read you can't count on to use iodized salt.

So, I made sure to find a prenatal vitamin that had iodine in it. Hate to promote a brand name, but I searched for weeks before finding a decent one so I think it's worth sharing. The only one I found that had everything I needed, right kind of Vitamin A (beta-carotene only), no mega-doses of any vitamins, no herbal ingredients (in lots of prenatal vitamins, & some are dangerous during pregnancy) & no preservatives, artificial flavors or colors was called Pregnancy Plus. You can order it from the CVS website.

I never took multivitamins before looking for a prenatal, but I did look for a good regular multi during that search b/c my parents already take one & I wanted to find them something better. I was searching mostly based on criteria from a Center for Science in the Public Interest article called Spin the Bottle, available online. Pregnancy Plus would be fine for non-pregnant people except that it has too much iron (27mg). Might be OK for pre-menopausal women, but otherwise, it's a tough search... For my parents the best I could do was recommend the reformulated Centrum Silver, which is pretty decent on the vitamin/mineral front (& does have iodine) but has all sorts of artificial colors & preservatives. All the less chemical-laden vitamins out there seem to be made for people who drink the mega-dose & herbal kool-aid -- really too bad no one is making something basic w/o needless chemicals. Seems like the best thing would be to eat a balanced diet & supplement with the few individual vitamins you might need, like iodine pills/drops and whatever few things you worry you might otherwise be missing out on.

I can't stand comments like 'table salt is a killer'. They don't say what it does, just that it is a killer. There is proven affects of not enough idodine in your diet. This makes a good point for idodized salt. The anti table salt group offers nothing except the general 'table salt is bad' or 'table salt will kill you' these are absurd statements to say the least. You will not die from using table salt... iodized salt has been one of the most effective (and cheapest) ways to treat widespread medical conditions in the history of mankind.

Good morning.
We just purchased a memory foam 2 inch mattress pad to
go on top of our mattress.
We have a mattress pad (water resistance that we put over it) then our sheets/comforter. We have let it air out for multiple days but it still has an smell to it. Is there any health threats to sleeping on memory foam?

Thank you in advance for letting me know. I do not have the maker information right handy, but I could find out.

JoBeth

Your information on iodized salt is completely wrong. What type of researchers do you have. I think putting out information that is incorrect does great harm to your credability.

Dr. Glenn, we've got an M.D., a couple of Ph.D.s, and a whole bunch of people with extensive backgrounds in scientific research and analysis. If you've got scientific studies that contradict what our team put together, send them along! We'd love to take a look.

isnt salt bad for you in large amounts tho????

alliemarie- You're right, salt is bad for you in large amounts. half a teaspoon isn't a large amount for most people, though, especially if you're limiting your sodium intake from other sources. If, say, you eat low-sodium snackfoods and use a pinch of salt at lunch and dinner, you're generally in the clear. It's always a good plan to check with your doctor before drastically increasing or decreasing your salt intake.

The salt-is-bad myth has been unhealthy for many people. I believed it and cut back on salt, only to wind up dehydrated. My chiropractor set me straight - a little salt is good for you; a lot can be a problem for some people. Fad science is bad science!

I switched from iodized table salt to real salt (redmonds rock/sea salt) months ago. Coincidence or not, after about a month, my health declined. I went slowly down hill and then could not get back up. I became almost a vegetable in energy.

Blood tests were done to reveal I was SEVERELY depleted in iodine and had low thyroid function....

I was then put on multi/vitamin/mineral supplements, plus I switched back to the table salt...what happened? Things began to "coincidentally" lift again. I just felt more alive.

Sorry guys, but we need iodine and table salt may not be the poison it's being made out to be. I'm not disputing the stuff is not ideal, caking agents etc and so much taken out of it, but obviously iodine is essential because whatever stuff the table salt lacks, seems to be made up with other things quite easily. Unfortunately iodine isn't one of them. Not where I come from anyway (New Zealand).

maybe a mixture of celtic sea salt and kelp is the best answer for the mixture of minerals as well as the iodine from kelp...

Personally I like to use the rock salt in my vitamin drinks and simply use iodized table salt to sprinkle on my food. I also have a multi vitamin supplement that already contains iodine too. I figure I"m getting just enough right now.

Maybe oneday I'll switch my salt to celtic and kelp mix...

Cheers

I developed a severe allergy to iodine about 30 years ago, while using it to disinfect drinking water while wilderness backpacking. The allergy came in the form of severe rash, called lichen planus, consisting of deep lesions that were slow to heal and left permanent scars. As a result, I cannot eat seafood, use iodized salt (even sea salt has made me break out sometimes) or take multi-vitamin/mineral supplements. I was told by the dermatologist I consulted that allergies to iodine are not uncommon (his words). More recently (4 years ago) the same reaction was triggered by taking glucosamine/chondroitin at the advice of my physician. I discovered then that those supplements are derived from shellfish.

While this is, of course, anecdotal information, I have had no health problems from discontinuing the use of iodine. The problems have all been psychological--I can't accept invitations or eat at restaurants without asking for foods specially cooked without salt. And I of course have to read everything on every product label!

Most dermatologists suggest that their acne patients avoid iodized salt and mineral supplements as they've found that the iodine exacerbates the skin problems.

Iodine deficiency is more common than I thought. Although my family uses iodized salt (quite minimally), we are now aware that an adult requires about 200 micrograms of iodine daily and a child requires about 90-110 micrograms.
You can get Vegetable Iodine from kelp at any health food store. I use the Naka brand and if you are deficient, you need more for awhile but eventually just 2 drops a day, unless you are consuming food sources of iodine daily.
I give my children a drop (90 micrograms) every now and then, just to be sure. We don't take multivitamins.