# Iodine

Category: Vitamins & Minerals

Iodine is an essential trace element required for thyroid hormone synthesis, but Ray Peat argued that modern populations face a greater risk from chronic excess than from deficiency. He maintained that while the thyroid gland needs iodine, the margin of safety is narrow…

12 passages · 1 author · 2016–2022 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/iodine

## Synthesis

**Iodine** is an essential trace element required for thyroid hormone synthesis, but Ray Peat argued that modern populations face a greater risk from chronic excess than from deficiency. [Source 1, 3] He maintained that while the thyroid gland needs iodine, the margin of safety is narrow; long-term intake of even **half a milligram** per day above the minimal requirement causes cumulative thyroid glandular damage, including increased rates of *hypothyroidism* and *thyroid cancer*. [Source 3, 12] Peat collected over 70 population studies demonstrating that iodized salt programs and the historical use of iodine-based dough conditioners in bread created a widespread, toxic oversupply in the American diet. [Source 3, 5, 6]

The mechanism of iodine toxicity involves its chemical reactivity, particularly with **polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs)**. Peat explained that iodine spontaneously attacks the double bonds in unsaturated fatty acids, a reaction quantified by the *iodine number* of oils. [Source 1] This reaction produces iodinated lipids that can interfere with the thyroid gland by occupying the receptor site for thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), potentially blocking its effect and disrupting hormone release. [Source 1, 7] Peat noted that PUFAs themselves independently inhibit the enzyme that releases thyroid hormone, meaning the combination of excess unsaturated fats and iodine creates a compounded anti-thyroid effect. [Source 1, 7]

Peat distinguished between the molecular forms of iodine, identifying **iodide** (the ionized, reduced form) as the species historically used therapeutically for conditions like atherosclerosis and breast tumors, while **iodine** (the oxidized form) posed greater risks of uncontrolled reactivity. [Source 8, 10] He cited evidence that iodide treatments had produced documented regression of arteriosclerosis, but cautioned that the effects of large doses were not fully understood. [Source 8] Peat was sharply critical of the high-dose iodine supplementation movement, tracing its origins to Guy Abraham, a former colleague whom Peat described as having an unscientific, commercial agenda for selling iodine products. [Source 2, 3, 10] He dismissed the concept of "nascent iodine" as a marketing gimmick based on a transient, electronically excited state that would not survive ingestion and would likely cause *free radical damage* in the body. [Source 7, 11]

For adequate and safe intake, Peat recommended obtaining iodine exclusively from dietary sources, noting that **milk** and **eggs** are reliably rich in the mineral because livestock require iodine for their own thyroid function. [Source 3, 4] He considered a single weekly serving of ocean fish sufficient to meet requirements, while warning that seaweed can easily deliver an overdose, which he linked to an anti-thyroid effect manifesting as nearsightedness in Japanese populations with high seaweed consumption. [Source 10] Peat even described a traditional method of boiling milk with oysters or seaweed to create *iodinized casein*, a substance with thyroid-like activity, as a safer alternative to isolated supplements. [Source 6, 9] He consistently advised correcting thyroid dysfunction directly with thyroid hormone rather than relying on iodine supplementation, which he viewed as inherently risky due to the prevalence of strange, immune-mediated allergic reactions and the well-documented long-term dangers of even modest excess. [Source 1, 9, 12]

## People also ask

### How does excess iodine damage the thyroid gland?

Peat argued that iodine chemically attacks polyunsaturated fats, creating iodinated lipids that block the TSH receptor and disrupt hormone release, while the combination with unsaturated fats produces a compounded anti-thyroid effect.

### Why did Ray Peat warn against high-dose iodine supplements?

Peat traced the high-dose movement to a former colleague with a commercial agenda and dismissed "nascent iodine" as a marketing gimmick that would likely cause free radical damage in the body.

### What foods did Peat recommend for safe iodine intake?

Peat recommended obtaining iodine from milk and eggs, noting a single weekly serving of ocean fish is sufficient, while warning that seaweed can easily deliver an anti-thyroid overdose.

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## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Iodine, Supplement Reactions, Hormones and More KMUD - Ask Your Herb Doctor - 2016

Ray Peat · Interview · Feb 19, 2016 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huW5IRBJKiY

> **Andrew Murray:** So brain development, aging and the hormones involved in that gradual decline in good health. So just for people listening to the show, we will be taking calls from 7.30 to the end of the show either related or unrelated to this month’s continuing topic of Nitric Oxide (NO) and wanted to get into a little bit of the subject of Iodine as an opener for the show for people thinking about supplementing with iodine and also open up a little bit about the Zika virus that’s really catching media attention here. I know there’s certain authoritative reasons for it and there are other supposedly conspiracy theories, if you can call them conspiracies, I think some of the merits of conspiracies are worth picking up and exploring. Anyway, if you live in the area, the number here is 1800 568 3723 or 9233911.
>
> **Andrew Murray:** So Dr Peat, I was looking today and I guess what prompted it was hearing advice of people touting a product called nascent iodine and I know that you specialized in thyroid hormone and that iodine is definitely a key component of thyroid hormone. And I think we’ve always been led to believe that there has been adequate supply of iodine in the diet and then they produced iodized salt back in the 50s or 60s, perhaps earlier or not, I’m not too sure, but iodized salt has been around and seafood also contains a lot of iodine in its own right. So when I heard about this product called nascent iodine they were saying that it was essentially not the stable, so stable ionic form and was more available and it’s more readily taken up by the thyroid gland and then I read some other articles about nascent iodine and how reactive it was and I just wanted to feel you out, what you know about the thyroid’s natural need for iodine, whether or not we are deficient and whether or not we need supplementation and if in fact, this is something that actually may not be necessary.
>
> **Ray Peat:** In the 1980s, I was looking into the iodine nutrition question because I saw some women with breast disease who recovered quickly when they took supplements of kelp or thyroid hormone and the safest thing, I think, is to correct the thyroid problem directly rather than counting on big doses of iodine because the large doses over many years, for example, there are about 70 or more publications looking at iodine intake around the world, over a period of decades, and they see that over half a mg or even especially over 1mg of iodine per day over a population is closely connected with increased risk of thyroiditis and thyroid cancer. One of the theories of why that happens is that iodine spontaneously reacts, or in the presence of white blood cells their enzymes can cause iodine to react with fatty acids that are unsaturated. And if you’ve heard about the iodine number to describe the degree of unsaturation of the fats - for example, the food oils that are highly unsaturated have a high iodine number. That means the number of molecules of iodine that will be spontaneously absorbed by a certain quantity of the oil, because the iodine attacks the double bonds in the fats and where they lack hydrogen saturation, the iodine fills in like an analogue to the saturated hydrogen content. So there is this tendency of unsaturated fats to react with iodine and when that happens the body can then interpret that as a signal to the thyroid gland, possibly imitating the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH).

### Source 2 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — December 20, 2021

Ray Peat · Interview · Dec 20, 2021

> **Patrick Timpone:** Fascinating. This is anecdotal, but I have a good friend of mine who is over 80. He's one of the healthiest guys I know, and he was a pilot his whole life. So, I mean, if that whole pilot thing or flying, he wouldn't even be around if it was so dangerous.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, insurance companies have known for more than 100 years that living at very high altitudes you have less cancer and heart disease mortality.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Now, his hair is totally white, and he said it's been white most of his life. That's interesting. I don't know how that happened, but, you know. Here's Lydia. A couple more, then we'll let you go, Doc. Our salt has not been iodized for so long now. Most people are deficient. See Dr. Brownstein's work on this, especially with regard to bromine-iodine relationships.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, Brownstein was a follower of Guy Abraham, and I think there's a lot of assertion, almost no science behind those claims. It's only these two or three people descended mentally from Abraham. Abraham the... pro-iodine. He sold an iodine product.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Now, you're not talking about like Abraham, biblical Abraham, somebody else?

### Source 3 — Iodine, Spider Veins, Oxalates, Fat Loss

Ray Peat · Interview · Aug 4, 2020 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uTJLfQUJOs

> **Ray Peat:** I have noticed about iodine, but his work didn't do anything special about iodine. He was very conscious of the electronic behavior of iodine in cells. with all around oxidation and what electrons are doing in cells and and slight very slight excessive iodine can disrupt the function of the thyroid gland as as well as the cellular handling of thing to supplement and there are cults Guy Abraham. He happened to study in the same lab and department that I did for my PhD. So I had brief contact with him. But he announced that he was the world's expert in iodine. day or even more and he got two medical doctor followers to continue his tradition but essentially he was mentally cracked on the subject and totally anti-scientific and so i think he started a very dangerous
>
> **Jodelle Fitzwater:** Well, I'm so glad I asked you about that, because one of his publications was one I came across. So you wouldn't be a fan of any sort of iodine supplementation, even in small doses?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Even iodized salt. I have a collection of, I think it's 72 articles on the long-range effects of... adding iodine to salt over the last several decades and even approximately doubling the normal amount of iodine the minimal amount is safe Half a milligram of iodine per day extra over the long run causes thyroid glandular damage.

### Source 4 — Iodine, Spider Veins, Oxalates, Fat Loss

Ray Peat · Interview · Aug 4, 2020 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uTJLfQUJOs

> **Jodelle Fitzwater:** And so it is important for the thyroid to have iodine, but you might suggest that we just get it through what food we take in, or food from the sea.
>
> **Ray Peat:** For example, cows can't use milk if they're deficient in iodine. The thyroid is... and so eggs and milk are guaranteed to contain adequate iodine. And there was a study in the 60s that found that Americans Almost every American eating a standard diet had a great excess of iodine in their diet. And at that time it was coming from bread. Iodine was used as a dough conditioner.
>
> **Jodelle Fitzwater:** Okay, very good. That's what I wanted to know. So always glad I can ask you these things. Okay, we're going to jump into the question queue here. And thank you guys, everybody that submitted questions. You guys are super fun. Whenever I post a thing about I'm going to interview Dr. Peat, you're quick to respond and send in your questions. So just look for those posts on YouTube every now and then and you'll... You'll be able to ask Dr. Peat anything you want. Mike is our first one here. Mike's up and he says, can you ask Dr. Peat about how to safely build muscle mass using weights and if a calorie surplus is needed? And then a sample diet for dropping body fat.

### Source 5 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — December 20, 2021

Ray Peat · Interview · Dec 20, 2021

> **Ray Peat:** No. Dr. Abraham.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** And he's a fellow that sold an iodine product, and that's where this all came from?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, yeah. His website, although he worked in the same lab before I did doing hamster aging research. After that, I think his whole thing was to sell his products. His website had totally insane stuff about radiation and iodine. after I ridiculed it, the worst of it disappeared.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** But didn't Edgar Cayce, wasn't he claimed that he helped the body cure from some, what was it with iodine? Was it some kind of plague thing? Do you know what I mean?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, it was used to, scrofula was the original thing, but it was a traditional thing anti-inflammatory antiseptic drug and generally what Edgar Casey said was pretty well founded but I think you have to interpret the iodine stuff very carefully.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Oh so I didn't quite get that so He was on to something with the iodine? What was it for? What disease was I'm thinking of that he used it for? It was somebody in India. Do you know what I'm talking about?

### Source 6 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — January 17, 2022

Ray Peat · Interview · Jan 17, 2022

> **Ray Peat:** Just getting very sick, headaches. headaches, constipation or diarrhea, arthritis pains. And the studies, I've seen about 70 different studies of the addition of iodine to salt. And if you have three or four times more than the daily requirement of iodine, taken in through iodized salt over the years at the risk of hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer greatly increase so on a population basis the iodized salt has been harmful to public health
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** wow and that's all pretty much most everybody eats right the the iodized salt from the blue container
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, most of the salt in the store, I think, is iodized. And if you're in an iodine deficient area, there are areas in the Andes and Mexico and around the Great Lakes that have traditionally been deficient in iodine. And so it's okay in those regions to But some studies found that when iodide was being used as a dough conditioner, the average American was getting about 10 times more iodine than desirable if they ate bread. I see.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** There's a gentleman that emailed earlier that he had an Achilles heel problem and they had to operate and they loaded him up with antibiotics. He did, let's see, ANICEF IVs for three weeks. And he wanted me to ask you how he can kind of repopulate everything down there. Repopulate the microbiome thing.

### Source 7 — Iodine, Supplement Reactions, Hormones and More KMUD - Ask Your Herb Doctor - 2016

Ray Peat · Interview · Feb 19, 2016 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huW5IRBJKiY

> **Andrew Murray:** But maybe not bring the product to the market.
>
> **Sarah Johannesen Murray:** So iodine supplementation is very risky and basically you should get your trace minerals from seafood sources, rather than from isolated iodine supplements and especially not in combination with any kind of vegetable polyunsaturated oils.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah I think that’s true.
>
> **Andrew Murray:** So, just to quickly wrap up this nascent iodine, I think the reason that it caught my attention was that the media spin on was that it because it didn’t have, any chemistry people hearing this will understand what I’m saying and can go and elaborate it more simply perhaps, but it doesn’t have a stable octet so its outer electron shell isn’t filled. And they were saying that because of this, it was much more suitable in some way to occupying these sites in the thyroid to produce thyroid hormone, but its very reactivity is counterproductive, because surely, if you keep it as unreactive as that in a bottle waiting for to be ingested, wouldn’t it surely react with one of the first things it came into contact with when you ingested it - just to fill its octet and become stable again?

### Source 8 — Ray Peat Email Advice Depository — Post 849

Ray Peat · Email · Dec 3, 2022

> **Ray Peat:** The treatments generally involve local injection of large amounts into the tumor. Iodine is the oxidized form, iodide is the ionized form that appears in the presence of cysteine, vitamin C , and other reductants.
>
> **Question:** I'm very interested in it's uses in atherosclerosis You've said " **The only publications I have seen that presented clear evidence of the disappearance of arteriosclerosis involved treatment with iodides* ."* Is there any way that you can remember how it was used and what was the doses for that specific problem? Also, would you say that increasing thyroid hormone while using potassium iodide would reduce the possible damaging effect? Much love
>
> **Ray Peat:** Correcting elevated TSH lowers cholesterol and reduces vascular deterioration. [references]

### Source 9 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — January 17, 2022

Ray Peat · Interview · Jan 17, 2022

> **Ray Peat:** You can theoretically at least make it yourself. If you, for example, boil milk, with oysters in it or seaweed, a source of iodine and trace minerals. The prolonged boiling will create iodinized casein, which in effect works like thyroid hormone. You can make it right in your kitchen. If If it happens that you weren't able to biocerate in a pharmacological form.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Wow, that's fascinating. So you're actually cooking oysters in milk, is what you're saying? Oysters in milk?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, the reaction between trace minerals, casein, and iodine will produce an active thyroid-like substance.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Fascinating. Now that's, if I understand though, you're not a fan of just taking, no matter what kind, just iodine, right?
>
> **Ray Peat:** No, it's so easy to overdose, and lots of people have a strange allergy-like reaction to added iodine or iodide. No one really understands what is going on. It's some peculiarity of the immune system, but it's fairly common.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** What would those reactions present themselves as with too much iodine?

### Source 10 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — December 20, 2021

Ray Peat · Interview · Dec 20, 2021

> **Ray Peat:** It has been successfully used for a lot of things. Heart disease, hardening of the arteries, breast tumors even.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Wow. But we don't need it now, you argue.
>
> **Ray Peat:** No, we've been oversupplied with dietary iodine now. For example, bread and baked goods, for a long time we're using an iodine dough conditioner to make the dough produce lighter bread, just using, for a physical effect, an iodine compound. And that alone... was giving the American population for decades a toxic overdose of iodine.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Do we get iodine when we eat fresh fish as well?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, having a serving of fish from the ocean once a week will pretty much guarantee our adequate iodine.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** And any seaweed kind of stuff too would give us plenty of iodine, right?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, but you can overdose. A lot of people overdose by using an iodine-rich seaweed.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** And what would the symptoms be of an overdose?
>
> **Ray Peat:** I think it contributes to the high incidence of nearsightedness in the Japanese.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Really?

### Source 11 — Iodine, Supplement Reactions, Hormones and More KMUD - Ask Your Herb Doctor - 2016

Ray Peat · Interview · Feb 19, 2016 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huW5IRBJKiY

> **Ray Peat:** Oh yeah. The whole idea of a “newly born” nascent molecule, when I was in junior high, in high school, the chemistry people talked about nascent oxygen which for a few seconds after it’s formed in a certain way is highly reactive but that’s because the electrons are simply in an excited state, like it had been sitting in the sunlight too long. That’s an electronic excitation which quickly passes as it gives off a little bit of energy but in certain short term situations a few seconds, that kind of excited electron state can make a molecule useful for certain reactions but isn’t something you’d want to put your body through.
>
> **Andrew Murray:** So, not for in vivo use, but maybe in vitro experimentations, it might have some kind of a use?
>
> **Sarah Johannesen Murray:** So it’s basically a more dangerous form of iodine that can cause a free radical reaction?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, that’s what they are talking about but I don’t think it even exists in the product?

### Source 12 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — January 18, 2021

Ray Peat · Interview · Jan 18, 2021

> **Ray Peat:** In the 1970s in the U.S., there was a study of a large population, and they found that almost all Americans were getting too much iodine from iodized salt and the use of iodized salt in preparing foods and so on. And that would indicate an excess of iodine nowadays for most people. is the problem.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** An excess, wow.
>
> **Ray Peat:** I've got about 70 some references showing on big population studies that as little as half a milligram a day of added iodine or dietary iodine total was enough to cause long-range cumulative deterioration of the thyroid gland.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Ooh. But all these people out there recommending iodine for hypothyroid people, right? I mean, there's a lot of that going around.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Wow. Yeah.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** So if we're using like a Celtic or, you know, those sea salt, like Celtic or one of those, there's enough iodine in there that's all we need?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah. Possibly more than enough. I haven't seen the exact amount, but definitely iodized salt, because of the other foods which now have added iodized salt, is in the United States, in Europe at least, it's creating an excess. There are still places in central China and the Andes that are very deficient in iodine.

_Generated 2026-07-20 from the Bioenergetic Oracle corpus._