Iodine & Selenium - Have I Got This Right?

I plan to start supplementing on Iodine and Selenium in the near future but I want to see if I understood this correctly. I do not have a thyroid issue but hear taking these is good for health and may help my hair. Please tell me if I have understood the following correctly:

1) A deficiency in Selenium causes an Iodine deficiency to worsen

2) When Iodine and Selenium are deficient, taking Selenium alone will eventually cause Hypothyroidism

3) If Iodine intake is high and Selenium low, this will eventually cause Hyperthyroidism

4) Taking Selenium and Iodine together (e.g 13mg of Iodine and 400mcg of Selenium per day) will keep the thyroid balanced and will not cause Thyroid issues like hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism

5) Magnesium and Vitamin C are complementary but not essential, unlike Selenium which is essential for normal Thyroid functions whilst supplementing with Iodine

I'm no expert or anything, but I thought by taking iodine, it drained selenium, so that must be supplemented and by taking iodine and selenium over a period of time helps correct any thyroid changes you have.

I find that many on any forum taking information much too literally. The human body is not a machine of exact quantification, but rather only produces tendencies, under various physiologic circumstances.

To simplify everything, it's a good idea to have adequate intake of minerals, particulary those what are deficient. These minerals are usually selenium, iodine, and magnesium in particular.

200 mcg of selenium is a good place to aim for. If you take very heavy amounts of iodine, then taking quantities up to a 1,000 mcg maybe indicated, however this is not usually necessary.

An optimal level of vitamin C for male health falls somewhere around 2,000 mg per day. This is if one is interested in optimal health.

Could someone go over my numbered points and tell me if they are true or false then? My main fear about taking Iodine is getting hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism.

Also, if I took 13mg of Iodine a day, how much Selenium would I need?

goten574 - Taking iodine at 13 mg per day will not cause high or low thyroid. Of course if you ask most physicians about this, they'll tell you the opposite. They get their information from out dated texts, which are not relevant to humans.

CausticSymmetry wrote:goten574 - Taking iodine at 13 mg per day will not cause high or low thyroid. Of course if you ask most physicians about this, they'll tell you the opposite. They get their information from out dated texts, which are not relevant to humans.

Would you recommend 13mg a day of iodine? How much Selenium to go with this? 200mcg? I say 13mg as that's almost what a typical japanese person has per day of iodine right? If there is no risk of going hypo or hyper, I have been worrying about this for nothing

goten574 - 200 mcg is excellent.

Yes, no worries about the iodine. Unfortunately, a vast number of doctors, including some who write current books still believe the outdated research that iodine is some how "bad" for us.

Based on everything I've seen, witnessed and read, to me it's almost like saying that magnesium is 'dangerous,' or that an essential substance called cholesterol is 'dangerous.' However, I bet a vast majority of people today still think that cholesterol is bad for us. It's almost hard for me to believe, because over ten years I ago, there was plenty of research then to show that cholesterol has nothing to do with heart disease, but well that's a whole different story.

What is the best source to obtain selenium from? I was taking the SeleNext per IH's recommendation, but now it has been discontinued.

I've been recommended Now Foods 200mg Selenium, but I am yet to order and try some.

tooyoung wrote:I've been recommended Now Foods 200mg Selenium, but I am yet to order and try some.

you mean mcg? not mg? 200mg is a huge amount


CS or others, here is a quote about 200mcg of Selenium being too high:

Some people - because of media hype (more is better) - take several hundred mcg of selenium a day, but I usually advise my own patients against higher amounts - not so much because of selenium toxicity (although that does become a concern at higher amounts), but because of its antagonism to chromium, magnesium, zinc and other nutritional factors. Long-term excessive intake of selenium increases the potential risk of triggering shingles, or developing trabecular osteoporosis, an enlarged prostate, reduced glucose tolerance, cystadenoma (usually in the throat), neurological disturbances, or other negative consequences.

from http://www.acu-cell.com/ses.html

Any truth in this? Perhaps taking 100-150mcg is more sensible?

Hah yeah, my mistake, 200mcg is the one.

That quote says "several hundred", surely its not meaning 200mcg, but more than that?

tooyoung wrote:Hah yeah, my mistake, 200mcg is the one.

That quote says "several hundred", surely its not meaning 200mcg, but more than that?

True, however the site also says this:

I always urge my patients to slowly increase their selenium dose from as low as 25 mcg per day (or even lower), up to eventually the full dose, which generally is around 100 mcg, or sometimes higher, depending on circumstances.

Suggesting that 200 is more than what he calls "full dose". I think 200mcg is the maximum I would go from reading this.

I was planning on using Source Naturals Renewal Antioxidants as my source for selenium (have 1 bottle on the way). I just realized the suggested dose is 4 tabs. At that rate one bottle will only last 15 days!

Going to be giving Iosol a shot here in about a week.

If I can't get a good answer here, I will make a new thread.

I have a hardly used bottle of SSKI sitting in my cupboard and I plan to buy 200mcg of Selenium soon. How do I turn this combo into something like Lugol's? SSKI is iodide so I need some kind of iodine right? I don't want to pay for Lugol's when I already have SSKI here, I may as well buy an additional bottle of iodine and take that with the SSKI but what would I buy?

Is 2mg of Iodine (one drop of Iosol) along with co-factors enough for fixing thyroid? If not how much is sufficient?

goten574 wrote:If I can't get a good answer here, I will make a new thread.

I have a hardly used bottle of SSKI sitting in my cupboard and I plan to buy 200mcg of Selenium soon. How do I turn this combo into something like Lugol's? SSKI is iodide so I need some kind of iodine right? I don't want to pay for Lugol's when I already have SSKI here, I may as well buy an additional bottle of iodine and take that with the SSKI but what would I buy?

i actually asked this the other day. CS helped me out and told me that the iodide gets turned into iodine inside the body. he said include vitamin C to speed up the process. i bought some potassium iodide and have been taking a lot of it, it makes me feel very good.

be sure to make sure you get those toxins out also. i've been taking betonite clay everyday as well to pull out toxins that iodine pulls out and i also have glutahtione patches because i believe my glutahtione is compromised, which may make it difficult to get toxins out that iodine pulls out.