Anastasia Weight Loss : How Lodine Can Accelerate Weight Loss

Anastasia Weight Loss : How Lodine Can Accelerate Weight Loss: if adjusting your diet and exercising more hasn't helped you reach a healthy body weight, you may have hypothyroidism, or an underactive th...

How Lodine Can Accelerate Weight Loss

if adjusting your diet and exercising more hasn't helped you reach a healthy body weight, you may have hypothyroidism, or an underactive thyroid gland. In addition to weight gain, other symptoms of hypothyroidism include a bad complexion, fatigue, forgetfulness, loss of sex drive, impotence, irritability and unhealthy hair, nails and teeth. Fortunately, you can help normalize an underactive thyroid gland by increasing your intake of the mineral iodine.
"The healthy functioning of the thyroid is essential to maintaining metabolism and preventing the accumulation of body fat," writes Burton Goldberg in Alternative Medicine. An underactive thyroid gland slows your metabolism; you thus burn dramatically fewer calories and feel sluggish. In addition, in Asian Health Secrets, Letha Hadady explains that an underactive thyroid gland promotes excess weight and cellulite by causing water retention.
After-effects observed following thyroid removal surgery helped prove the connection between the thyroid gland and metabolism to the medical community. For example, according to Gayle Reichler's book Active Wellness, thyroid removal caused one patient to gain weight daily and feel that her "system had slowed down considerably." Unless your thyroid has been completely removed or damaged, your symptoms will not be quite so severe; however, even moderate hypothyroidism can make you gain weight and body fat.
Iodine makes up less than a hundred thousandth of a percent of your body weight, but your thyroid cannot function without this trace mineral. If you have too little iodine in your diet, hypothyroidism and weight gain will occur. "I believe that an insufficient intake of organic iodine in today's modern diet has led to a serious and chronic form of low-grade hypothyroidism," writes Donald R. Yance, Jr. in Herbal Medicine, Healing and Cancer. Increasing your iodine level will allow your thyroid function and metabolic rate to return to normal.
You can add iodine to your diet by taking supplements, but beware: Excessive thyroid function resulting from excess iodine is just as detrimental to the human body as hypothyroidism. You should have normal, moderate amounts of iodine in your body. In Food and Healing, Anne Marie Colbin provides a caution: "Considering that we are already ingesting large qualities of this mineral because of its presence in fertilizers and table salt, the situation (your iodine level) definitely bears watching."
Because of this danger, Earl Mindell recommends kelp, which naturally contains iodine, as an alternative to iodine supplements in pill form. "Kelp has a normalizing effect on the thyroid gland. In other words, thin people with thyroid trouble can gain weight by using kelp, and obese people can lose weight with it," Mindell writes in hisVitamin Bible for the Twenty-First Century. Whichever form of iodine supplementation you choose, however, you must also be sure to get enough vitamin A in your diet. According to Goldberg, without sufficient vitamin A, your thyroid gland cannot produce thyroxin, a hormone that helps the thyroid absorb iodine.
If you believe that you have a thyroid problem, then by all means, go to a doctor or other medical professional. On the other hand, if you just haven't been exercising enough or following a healthy diet, don't put blind faith into iodine supplements as an easy and effortless way to lose weight. "Iodine itself will not help with weight loss if there is normal thyroid function," writes Dr. Elson M. Haas in Staying Healthy with Nutrition. Unless you do indeed have abnormal thyroid function, there is no substitute for exercise and a healthy diet.