“In all species studied the tolerance is high relative to normal dietary iodine intakes, pointing to a wide margin of safety for this element” (12).

The oblation of the thyroid gland in favour of introducing the antiarrhythmic drug Amiodarone (a toxic form of sustained-release iodine) became effective when the body has accumulated approximately 1.5g (1,500,000µg) of iodine - exactly the amount of iodine retained by the human body when iodine sufficiency is achieved following orthoiodosupplementation (120).

“The implication of such observation was that an iodine/iodide-loading test could be developed to assess not just thyroid sufficiency for iodine but requirement of the whole human body for that essential element...

To achieve sufficiency within three months, most subjects required 37,500µg - 50,000µg per day (37.5 - 50mg), and some obese and diabetic subjects required even more than 50,000µg per day nto achieve and maintain sufficiency” (122).

“In patients on thyroid hormones, orthoiodosupplementation resulted in a decreased requirement to much lower levels of thyroxine and in some cases resulted in the complete discontinuation of this hormone.

This decreased requirement for thyroid hormones...was (also) observed in a female patient with total thyroidectomy, suggesting that iodine not only improves thyroid function but also has an effect at the target organ level” (122).

* Dr Guy Abrahams is a credible and current researcher in this field, a former Professor of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Endocrinology at the UCLA School of Medicine. He holds research Awards from Pharmacia, Sweden (1980), the University of Liege, Belgium (1976), and the Canadian Association of Clinical Chemists (1974).

He pioneered assays to measure steroid hormones in biological fluids and nutritional programmes for women with PMT syndrome and post-menopausal osteoporosis, now the most widely used by American obstetricians and gynaecologists.