23. Reading Between the Lines

When we’re reading to educate ourselves on issues of personal health, it’s important that we learn to read between the lines. I am finding that there are two distinct camps out there: one is the mainstream; the other is alternative. The former is generally fuelled and powered—and influenced in philosophy—by Big Pharma. It urges you to leave your health in the hands of the “professionals” and not ask too many questions. 

The latter encourages one to take responsibility for one’s own health, while the former seems continually to throw out fear tactics regarding natural supplements and remedies, trying to scare us “lost sheep” back into the prescription-medication fold. 

However, as we weigh out different opinions and listen to our hearts, we will find there is a sense of which voices to trust. When I sat down to write my last article, Burzynski’s Battle, I decided to first run a Google search on the man just to see what general information I would find. I ended up at Wikipedia, and what I read there about him really set me back on my heels. His so-called cure for cancer, antineoplastins, does not—according to the article—work; he currently has a patient suing him for charging her nearly $100,000 for a cure that failed; and he was convicted of insurance fraud in 2010 for billing a health insurance company for use of an unapproved drug. 

Sounds really bad, doesn’t it? When I first read this, I felt my heart shifting in my attitude toward this man, this medical maverick who has become a martyr of the system. Had I been wrong in my whole perception of the issue? Then I sat down to review the movie again. In light of what I had just read on Wikipedia, certain parts of the movie leapt out in significance. When people began coming from all over the States to try the cancer cure, emissaries from the Texas Medical Board chased down various patients, trying to talk them into filing complaints against Burzynski. Most of them told the TMB to get lost. However, given that with some of the most severe cancers, antineoplastins have only a 25% cure rate (which fact is clearly spelled out in the film—and which is still a great improvement over the conventional treatments in these cases), it’s not hard to imagine that after almost 30 years the TMB would eventually find one disgruntled patient whom they could incite to legal action.

Antineoplastins don’t work? Perhaps because, as Burzynski: The Movie spells out, when the FDA finally agreed to oversee clinical trials, they refused to use them as directed by Dr. Burzynski. As far back as the mid-eighties, the FDA made it clear that they were no longer trying to deny the efficacy of Dr. B's treatments. Their pitch was to take away his medical license because his treatments were not “approved.” With human lives hanging in the balance, if the antagonists can concede that the treatment is effective, why must they bicker about red tape? As Jesus said, “You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” 

The insurance fraud: no details are given. We’re not told that the treatment failed; only that it wasn’t approved. If the patient was treated, it seems reasonable for the doctor to make a claim for reimbursement. (I myself have had difficulty off and on with our extended health plan, as my prescriptions for bioidentical hormones often do not meet their criteria. Read: The drug companies that are in alliance with my benefit plan do not/cannot hold a patent on most bioidentical products. At least they didn’t sue me for insurance fraud for submitting the claim!)

The Wikipedia articles go on to criticize the documentary itself, calling it “one-sided,” saying that only those who are in support of Burzynski were interviewed. Hmm. The FDA refused to be interviewed on camera regarding their complaints against Burzynski. As I wrestled with trying to get a clear perspective on this whole subject, my son Ben pointed out that Wikipedia is, to a large extent, peer-written; that is, articles can be submitted by anyone, then information may be changed or expanded as contradictory or complementary material comes in. A good thing to remember. Like I said, we have to learn to read between the lines. 

By the way, my last article ended with mention of the TMB’s new court date (April 11) with Dr. Burzynski. News flash: April 5, the judges dismissed the majority of the case against Dr. B, causing the Texas Medical Board to seek indefinite postponement of the hearing as they scramble to regroup.

22. Burzynski’s Battle

Recently I watched a documentary, the story of a medical doctor and Ph.D. biochemist who has discovered the genetic mechanism that can cure most human cancers. The movie opens with a bereaved father giving testimony before a congressional subcommittee hearing, February 29, 1996. 

At the age of four, his daughter was diagnosed with a highly malignant brain tumour. The parents were given two options by mainstream medicine: massive radiation and chemotherapy or take her home to die. The radiation burnt her little skull so badly that she had second-degree burns on her scalp and her hair never grew back. Her urine was so toxic that her parents had to wear rubber gloves when they changed her diapers. 

She survived the awful treatment, but six months later the cancer was still there and the doctors said, sorry, they could do no more. The father and his wife, looking for alternatives, came across Dr. Burzynski’s work and were able to put their daughter under his care. The treatment was successful. A short while after being declared cancer-free, however, she died of “neurological necrosis”: her brain fell apart from the previous radiation. The autopsy confirmed the complete resolution of the tumour: out of 52 known cases of this particular cancer, this little girl was the only one to die cancer-free. 

Born in Poland in 1943, Stanislaw Burzynski graduated with an M.D. from the Medical Academy in Lublin in 1967, at the top of his class. A year later, at the age of 25, he received a Ph.D. in biochemistry. It was while doing research for his thesis that he made an amazing discovery: he found a strain of peptides in human blood and urine never before recorded. Then he discovered that people afflicted with cancer were lacking these peptides. Healthy people, by contrast, had an abundance. His theory was that if he could somehow extract these peptides from healthy donors and administer them to cancer patients, perhaps it would be helpful in treatment.

This is exactly, in a nutshell, what bore out. These antineoplastons, as Burzynski calls them, target the specific genes that allow cancer to grow and flourish. In 1976, he established the Burzynski Research Institute Inc. in Texas and began treating patients with these non-toxic compounds of proteins and amino acids, often with remarkable success. 

However, since the 1980s, Burzynski has been in a battle with the Texas Medical Board and the FDA. They haven’t been able to make stick their claims that the treatment is unsafe or ineffective: they cling instead to the complaint that there have been no FDA-approved clinical trials. 

At $25 million per trial, this is cost-prohibitive for this doctor and his small staff. Of the National Cancer Institute’s annual budget of $5,200,000,000, not a nickel has ever come Burzynski’s way. This makes no sense to the average person until the documentary takes us a little deeper. We see how “Big Pharma” has got the FDA neatly in their back pocket by having instituted an approval fee—of 1.4 million—for each new cancer drug they come up with. Pharmaceutical companies pay the FDA this fee “to assure a timely approval.” So we see that the FDA is essentially on the payroll of the very industry it regulates. Did someone say “conflict of interest”? 

The first court proceedings against Burzynski were at the state level with the plaintiff being the Texas Medical Board. The judge ruled in Burzynski’s favour, with the proviso that he not ship his medicine beyond the borders of Texas. However, when word spread regarding these cures, people came from all over the country. Some of these patients were approached by the Texas Board of Medical Examiners, trying to talk them into filing some form of complaint against Burzynski. 

Then the Board took Burzynski to a higher district court, fighting to suspend his medical license because his treatments had never been approved. They were no longer trying to question the effectiveness of his treatment: “The efficacy of antineoplastons in the treatment of human cancers is not of issue in these proceedings.” Dr. B won the round again. 

Now the FDA took it all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, trying to get Burzynski’s licence revoked. They, along with Big Pharma, realized that if Dr. B’s discovery was given a fair review process, chemotherapy and radiation treatment would dwindle into obscurity, financially crippling their industry; also those fat research monies might be diverted away from Pharma and into the lap of one scientist who holds exclusive patent rights. Declared Dr. Richard J. Crout, FDA Bureau of Drugs Director, “I never have and never will approve a new drug to an individual, but only to a large pharmaceutical firm.”

It was in 1983 that the FDA commenced civil action to try to close the clinic and stop patients from receiving the medicine. Before the judge announced her ruling, the FDA sent her a letter warning that if she ruled in Burzynski’s favour, they would be obliged to pursue other “less efficient remedies.” Nevertheless, Burzynski case won out. 

Frustrated, the FDA told Dr. B’s attorneys they had “other ways to get him.” In 1985 they convened a grand jury to try to indict him. In connection with that, they raided his clinic and home, seizing 200,000 pieces of paper including all his patients’ medical records, and mounted a propaganda campaign against his drugs, hoping to get the doctor thrown into jail. Result of the grand jury: no indictment. 

In 1986, another raid, another grand jury: no indictment. In 1990, another grand jury, no indictment. In 1994, another grand jury: no indictment. One wonders who was paying all these court costs. In 1995, yet another grand jury. The documentary goes on, mingling testimonials of stunning recoveries of cancer patients along with high intrigue, lies, and betrayal: a woman who teamed up for a while with Dr. B jumped ship and took all the info to a major pharmaceutical firm. 

The FDA finally agreed to clinical trials but a) insisted on having chemo and radiation done on patients first; b) took on patients with more extreme issues than the parameters agreed upon with Dr. B for a given protocol of the drug; and c) “watered down” the antineoplastons used. Perhaps this explains why some sources, including Wikipedia, say that antineoplastons don’t work. 

This documentary in many ways unfolds like a suspense-drama fiction, but the subject of the story is a real man, now 69 years old. One wonders how he has the stamina and financial resources to battle the powers that be and still continue to treat patients. This month, after a 15-year hiatus, the Texas Medical Board is again dragging him back into court, “attempting once again to strip Burzynski of his medical license for simply using ‘off-label’ medications on some of his cancer patients ..., despite outside oncologists hailing this therapy as the ‘wave of the future’ and countless calls to have the case dismissed.”

21. So You Think You Need Iodine — Part III

We continue here with questions from readers along with my responses:

Q: What would you take iodine with? I read somewhere that tap water should be avoided because the chlorine in the water would replace the iodine. 

A: Yes, absolutely avoid chlorinated water, along with ingestion of and exposure to bromine and fluoride (see previous article). Two of my kids just take their Lugol’s in our reverse osmosis water and don’t mind the taste, but I hate the taste and therefore take it in diluted juice. Just don’t take it undiluted, as it’s too strong for the tender mucous membranes of the mouth. 

Along with iodine, you must supplement with 200 mcg of selenium daily. It’s vital for keeping thyroid balance. It’s very new knowledge that the thyroid cannot convert T4 to T3 without sufficient selenium, so suddenly getting more iodine without the other can make things worse. You should be able to find selenium at any health food store. I buy NOW brand because it’s not derived from yeast (which I avoid). 

Also helpful is extra Vitamin C (1000-3000 mg daily), magnesium citrate (400 mg), and lots of water. It’s wise to start with a small dose of iodine. Whatever you start at, give it 2 or 3 weeks, then increase gradually. Make note of any strange symptoms, rashes, acne (anywhere), frontal headache, sinus stuffiness, metallic taste, excess salivation, sneezing. These do not mean you have a problem with iodine (in spite of what most doctors presume). 

Drs. Brownstein, Abraham, and Fletchas believe these symptoms can result when increased iodine dosage starts displacing bromine stores and the kidneys are struggling to expel these toxins. They recommend the following cleanse (which I have done on three different occasions with prompt success in relieving my symptoms): First thing in the morning, drink a solution of ¼ teaspoon unrefined (i.e. Celtic) sea salt in ½ cup warm water. Chase with 16 ounces pure water. Repeat these 2 steps after half an hour and again in another half hour. 

Q: I stopped taking Synthroid in October. Now (January), last couple of weeks, my hypo-t is beginning to act up. My father had the same hypo-thyroid and he died of cirrhosis of liver though he was a teetotaller. I always wonder if it had something to do with the thyroid medicine he was taking (harming the liver) though he was always under excellent conventional medical treatment. I have to go to a doc, get the current TSH level tested, and then I am starting on iodine (whether the doc agrees or not). 

Same fellow in a later email: I got the iodine and was searching the web for the right dosage. But I came across contradictory statements—saying iodine is good for [both] hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism. Now I am totally confused. Wondering if I should (be a good boy and) go back to Synthyroid? 

A: I think you’ll have to decide if you’re going to take the plunge, and be prepared to weather the storm a little, although I recall you said earlier that you’d quit your meds in the fall. That may make the transition easier. You know I have no credentials—just an inquisitive mind, some health challenges, a distrust of pharmaceuticals and what drives them ($$), as well as a sometimes-reckless courage! Just remember that even if you should throw something out of whack by trying this, things will go back to the status quo once you quit. But I really hope it works for you. 

Q: I am reading with interest your blog on iodine. I was wondering how it would interact with the thyroid meds that I have been on for over 30 years. 

A: Regarding your thyroid meds, it will probably mess them up, because likely, as your body starts to get the iodine it’s undoubtedly been lacking all these years, the response of the body is to say, “I’m getting too much Synthroid!” I think a response like this from your body would be a good thing, but if you tell your doctor you’re taking (or planning to take) iodine, he’ll probably try to dissuade you. It comes down to taking responsibility for our own health and being prepared to buck the mainstream once in a while. 

Q: Hey, I made a bit of a mistake today: in my zeal, I thought I read one teaspoon [Lugol’s] in juice. Luckily that’s all I took, but I have been burping like crazy tonight, so I’m drinking lots of water ... oops!

A: Holy crow, girl! One teaspoon equals 5 mls equals 100 drops, which is 625 mg of iodine. Yes, you’d better drink lots of water. That’s way over (more than 6 times over) any maximum therapeutic dose I’ve ever read about. Excess is supposed to flush out in the urine, so flush away. But monitor how you feel and go to the hospital if you think you need to. May God bless and keep you!

This last reader is a friend of mine, and we still laugh about this scenario sometimes. She has affirmed more than once that the extreme dose of iodine (amazingly) did her no harm. One of these times I reminded her, “But you said you were burping a lot.”

“Yes,” she said, “but I remembered afterwards that I had cabbage for lunch, and cabbage always makes me burp.”

20. So You Think You Need Iodine – Part II

In my last article, I left off talking about factors in our lives today that have increased our need of iodine. Most prominent is our exposure to and ingestion of three halogens other than iodine: bromine, fluorine, and chlorine. These other three are all toxic to the human body, and they displace what little iodine we do manage to take in from our diets. 

Bromine: Dr. David Brownstein, a well-known name in iodine research today in the U.S., now routinely tests every new patient for iodine deficiency and bromine toxicity. In 4000 tests, the results flag a staggering 96.5%. 

Want to avoid bromine? Avoid citrus-flavoured soft drinks, pesticides—especially those on Californian strawberries, and enriched flour. Bromine is banned in bakery products in Canada and the U.K. now, but not in the U.S. Some asthma inhalers contain bromine, which is pretty scary when you consider that bromine also aggravates asthma. Fire-retardants containing bromine are used in children’s clothing (how sad!), upholstered furniture, carpet and underlay, bedding, and vehicles. Fortunately, since 2005 there have been stricter guidelines regarding fire-retardants. 

The plastics used in electronics of all kinds contain bromine. Some companies are now pledging to move away from using this toxic substance, at least in some of their products. Ask questions! Bromine is also found in toys, cosmetics, swimming pool and hot tub chemicals, and hair permanents and colouring. 

Fluorine: Exposure to fluorine is something else to avoid in the interest of thyroid health and well-being in general. I now make sure the toothpaste I buy is fluoride-free and I forego fluoride treatments when I have my teeth cleaned. I’ve got rid of all non-stick cookware. Teflon is made from a fluorine compound. “In two to five minutes on a conventional stovetop, cookware coated with Teflon and other non-stick surfaces can exceed temperatures at which the coating breaks apart and emits toxic particles and gases linked to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pet bird deaths and an unknown number of human illnesses each year.” (http://tuberose.com/Teflon.html)

 Do you remember hearing stories of how they used to keep canaries in the mines as a kind of toxic-gas early-warning? If a canary died, the men would run for their lives. Well, there have been multitudes of pet birds die from haemorrhaged lungs in the heartland of our homes. Heed the warning! 

The full-scale fluoridation of municipal water supplies, not to mention chlorination, is scandalous. If you have no alternative but to drink town water, at least spend $20 on a Brita filter. Stop and think about beverages that you reconstitute with tap water: frozen juices, powdered juices (don’t even go there!), infant formula, tea and coffee. Iced tea mixes are already really high in fluoride; mixing them with tap water gives you a double whammy. Many soda pops, ready-to-drink juices, wines, commercial soups, and baby cereals come high in this toxic, iodine-banishing substance. 

Chlorine: Three major sources of chlorine exposure are municipal water supplies, cleaning products (avoid anything with the syllable “chlor” in the ingredients), and swimming pools. Inhalation of the fumes from pools is bad enough; the amount absorbed directly through the skin is worse. Competitive swimmers can take on toxic amounts of chlorine in just one training session. My naturopath tells me that he commonly finds thyroid dysfunction in people who have swum a lot in chlorinated pools. 

These three toxic halogens will take up receptor sites in the body intended for iodine, and they alone are reason enough to consider a hefty iodine supplement. Over time, sufficient iodine will help to bump these three foreign elements from our bodies and allow both subtle and profound healing.

Q. I am moved to follow up on your suggestion that an iodine supplement can be helpful ... and I am wondering what product you actually use, or would recommend. I surfed about a bit on the web and see that there are some choices, different types of iodine, and the drops you mention would not be normally taken internally. Can you advise further? Thank you for your blog. 

A. Lugol’s Solution, which I use and therefore recommend, has been used safely internally and with great efficacy for over 150 years. In the 1930s the first synthetic thyroxin medication hit the market and started the gradual marginalization of the use of iodine for thyroid issues. Most doctors do not even consider prescribing iodine when they diagnose thyroid problems, but the fact remains: iodine is absolutely vital for thyroid health and, as researchers are seeing now, is actually needed in every cell of the body.

19. So You Think You Need Iodine — Part I

I have received quite a number of responses to my iodine articles. I try to answer fully, but it’s difficult to address everything that might be pertinent in each individual case. Following is the first of three comprehensive articles combining some of these questions and answers. 

Q: What was the reason you started supplementing with iodine? In what form do you take iodine? Thank you for sharing what you have learned. 

A: If you read the first blog article, “Anxiety and the Iodine Intervention,” it will answer your first question. Also read articles 2, 3, & 7 for more on iodine in general. I use Lugol’s Solution, which is water-based and hence safe for oral use. It’s important that one not use an alcohol-based iodine internally. If you think you would benefit from iodine supplementation, phone a pharmacy and ask them to bring in Lugol’s for you, and ask them to find out the exact percentage of potassium iodide and iodine. There are different strengths of Lugol’s now (as well as other different kinds of iodine), so we need to know the concentration up front. If you find out the specifics on the strength of a solution, I can help you calculate how much to take to achieve a particular dosage. 

Q: When we went to the health food store and asked for Lugol’s, they did not stock it as she said that Naka vegetable iodine drops were much superior. As a result, that is what I bought. According to the bottle, each 20 drops contains 1 mg of potassium iodide and the recommended dosage for adults is 10 drops per day. I don’t know if this helps to convert or not. I have looked on the internet and can’t seem to figure it out. 

A: In order to get the same dosage that I am taking (which is equivalent to what the average Japanese gets in his diet daily), you would have to take 250 drops of this product per day! I’m guessing it’s a 30 ml bottle, so it won’t even last 3 days! Their recommended dose, ten drops daily, would give you 500 mcg, which is a little more than triple what the RDA is for iodine, so to some people that would seem generous. This product is, you say, potassium iodide, which is the form your thyroid wants. However, ovaries, breasts, prostate, and other organs utilize molecular iodine. Lugol’s contains both. Lugol’s is 125 times the strength of the product you bought. You will pay $11 or $12 for a 100 ml bottle. At 12.5 mg daily, that will last you for a thousand days at just over a penny a day. While you look for some Lugol’s, I would suggest that you get started with 20 drops daily (1 mg) of what you have. Do that for a couple of weeks and let me know if you feel any different in any way. 

Q: Iodine is really important—and salt has it in it. 

A: Yes, most table salt is iodized, but there are several problems with assuming you can get enough this way. First problem: Salt hasn’t got nearly enough iodine for our needs (based on current research). A little history: A hundred years ago, the region surrounding the Great Lakes was called “the goitre belt.” Soils in this area are so deficient in iodine that this condition of enlarged thyroid was wide-spread. In the 1920s however, the U.S. government began requiring that iodine be added to salt. It was determined that 150 mcg per day would prevent goitre, and so based on how much salt the average person then consumed daily, they calculated how much iodine to add. This plan almost entirely wiped out iodine deficiency in the U.S. “Deficiency” here might be defined as levels insufficient to prevent goitre. However—there are many functions of iodine within the body beyond the needs of the thyroid. Second: Even if the amount of iodine added to salt had been truly sufficient 90 years ago, for decades now doctors have been warning people to cut back on salt. Every time someone cuts down their salt intake, they cut into that already-minimal intake of iodine. Third: Current researchers say and Wikipedia echoes: “Iodide-treated table salt slowly loses its iodine content through the process of oxidation and iodine evaporation.” Fourth: The kind of salt that is iodized (refined) is not good for us. For more on that subject—and the benefits of unrefined salt, read Blog #6: “Salt of the Earth.” Fifth: There are complicating factors that have increased our need for iodine in recent decades. We’ll pick up there next time.

18. Yummy Partial-Wheat Bread

About ten years ago, I received a bread-maker as a Christmas present. Ever since I got into the habit of using it, our family has enjoyed the delight of fresh bread on a regular basis. Once I found that I could buy organic whole-wheat flour from a local mill, I had the added confidence that I was serving my family the healthiest bread on the face of the planet. Or so I believed. Friends always looked forward to bread at my house; and at church potlucks, it always went like proverbial hotcakes. 

Whole-wheat flour is notorious for rapidly going rancid. I buy it as fresh as possible and keep it in the freezer to preserve the oils in the highly nutritious wheat germ. But there was something that puzzled me: the mill mentioned one day that it didn’t need to be put in the freezer. I quietly wondered about that for a couple of years. 

At the Farmers’ Market on Wednesdays, I frequently have long conversations with some of the local Hutterites, whose table is a short distance from mine. I’ve been impressed with the agricultural knowledge and ethics of this particular colony, Pine Haven, located a few minutes southeast of Wetaskiwin. They seem to consider it their responsibility before God to carefully steward their land. And well they should. Although the colony does not call their produce organic (the certification process is a long and difficult one), their vegetables are grown without synthetic fertilizers and their meat and poultry are raised using things like oregano in the feed and water as well as probiotics to ward off disease before it starts. 

One market day last summer, I had a long chat with one of the Hutterite men who has taken an interest in growing original grains. He told me that he has been working with three different ancient or heritage grains, as they are called, and making some of the flour available for sale along with their other produce. I was keen to buy a bag of his flour and try it out. 

As I paid for it, he told me to make sure to keep it in the freezer. So I talked to him about the organic flour I had been buying and how confused I was that they’d told me it wouldn’t spoil. He promptly offered an answer to the riddle. Most wheat today, he said, has been genetically modified to one end or another, and one of the modifications they make is breeding the wheat germ right out of the kernel in order to improve the shelf-life. This leaves just the endosperm, which contains the gluten (a form of protein) and the wheat bran. So if this were true of my flour, it would mean that all this time I had been buying—not whole-wheat flour—but two-thirds-wheat flour. One very important, God-designed part would be missing. I was not impressed with this possibility. 

Since that day, I have done some reading on the whole GMO thing. I understand now that there are over 30,000 different strains of wheat. They have been developed to many different ends: to make them resistant to herbicides like Round-Up; to help them survive difficult climatic conditions; and to change the composition in different ways for various reasons, the remove-the-wheat-germ scheme being a case in point. Gluten contents have been manipulated to make them “perform” better in specific products. One of the concerns here is that the “super-glutens” created are difficult for us to digest properly, and one of the questions posed is whether this trend in part explains the burgeoning numbers of people being diagnosed with celiac disease. 

The health concerns of GMOs include “endocrine disruption, reproductive disorders and sterility, digestive problems, rapid aging, organ damage, autoimmune problems, insulin imbalances....” Every human currently consuming GMOs on a regular basis is actually an unwitting test subject in a giant biotechnology experiment.”¹

Even crazier is the news that human DNA is being used in some of these grains, now no longer technically called plants but rather “organisms.” All my reading was making me pretty paranoid, and I was ready to throw away my “organic whole-wheat flour” from the local mill on principle alone. But I decided to let them speak for themselves first. A phone call reassured me that my flour is not genetically modified. But neither does it contain wheat germ. It is mechanically removed so that the flour can sit on the shelf for six months without spoiling. 

“But,” I protested, “you call it whole wheat, and it’s really only two-thirds.” 

And he answered, “But we don’t call it 100% whole wheat.” ___________________________________________ 

1. http://www.naturalnews.com/033007_GM_wheat_experimental.html

17. Indispensable Iodine

Last week I was sitting at my table at the Farmers’ Market when a woman came up and commented on my colloidal silver, asking if I made my own. 

“Yes,” I told her, “I bought a good generator for my own purposes, and then, since I sit at the market anyway with my books and CDs, I decided to make the silver available at a low price.”

 As we talked it quickly became evident that she was a health enthusiast with a lot of knowledge. I was surprised when she said she was from St. Albert—I wondered what would bring her to our market. Well, she had a table at the market too; she comes here about once a month on a rotating schedule. When I inquired what her product was, she explained that she leases a machine—that actually won a Nobel Prize—that scans your skin and gives a read-out as to the level of antioxidants you have in your body. 

“How long does it take?” 

“About two minutes.” 

“How much does it cost?” 

“Ten dollars.” 

“I’ll be right there,” I told her as she left. 

I gathered up my valuables, deserting my table and all my stuff, and off I went. Found her and her friend, laid down my ten-spot, and stuck my hand in front of their machine. A minute and a half later, they looked at my printout, their eyes got big, and they said, “Congratulations! No one we’ve ever checked has had as high a score as you!” They showed me that my score was 91,000 on a scale of 10,000 to 100,000 (I’m not sure what the unit is) and told me that the average person falls between 20,000 and 29,000.

 “Wow!” I said, wondering why this was. Most of us know that our antioxidant level is usually proportional to the amount of fruit and vegetables we eat. This is one of the reasons why Health Canada is always urging us to get our five to ten per day. I try, but I don’t think I do any better that most people. I try to have a salad most evenings, and some cooked veggies with my meat and potatoes. I might have a piece of fruit in the course of a given day; maybe even two. I sometimes have some tomatoes or bell peppers with my eggs in the morning. But really, when all is said and done, I might only average five servings daily. 

When I saw my husband that evening and told him all about the scan, I pondered again why my antioxidants were so high. 

“Maybe it’s all the iodine you take,” Greg suggested. 

“Hmm. I wonder.” I went off to my office, googled “iodine antioxidants,” and quickly discovered that iodine does indeed act as a powerful antioxidant in the body most of the time—and can act also as an oxidant, “when it needs to,” whatever that means. 

I mentioned in my last article that the skin uptakes a lot of iodine when there is plenty to go around, and I speculated that perhaps this would give the skin a fighting chance against the oxidative damage of sun exposure. This brings to mind another snippet of information from my past reading: Although among Japanese men there is a very high percentage of heavy smokers, they have the lowest percentage of lung cancer. The theory is that with the Japanese population having the highest intake of iodine among people groups worldwide (13 mg. daily, approximately what I take), given that mucous membranes retain high levels of iodine when there is general body sufficiency, and given that iodine is known to kill abnormal cells … well, you get the picture. And this picture supports my hunch about iodine keeping the skin healthy.

This reminds me of a case I read about at www.health-science-spirit.com/iodine.html. Dr. Guy Abraham is “an endocrinologist who today is providing the backbone of the movement back toward the use of iodine as an essential, safe and effective medicine.” He says this: 

We placed an 83-year-old woman on ortho-iodo supplementation [all the iodine a body can possibly use] for six months at 50 mgs of elemental iodine daily. She experienced a tremendous increase in energy, endurance, well being, and memory.” 

But here is the part that astounded me, and the part that fits with the context of this article: 

At six months all her skin peeled off and was replaced by new, younger-looking skin. She was flabbergasted and amazed at her new appearance.

Yeah, I’m going to keep taking iodine.