POTASSIUM IODIDE IS NOT WHAT YOU NEED TO PROTECT YOURSELF
CATEGORY: 2: Inflammation
RECOMMENDED SUPPLEMENT: Beta Carotene
In speaking to parliament recently, the Prime Minister of Japan said that his country’s biggest crises in decades was the combination of the quake, tsunami, and nuclear accident.
You can rebuild after a quake brings down a bridge. You can clean up, dry out, and rebuild after a tsunami. But a nuclear accident is harder to “fix,” and has the potential to greatly endanger areas far away from the original accident. Time magazine reported that trace radioactive elements from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant traveled over 6,500 miles to show up in rainwater that fell on Boston. Since global winds move from the west toward the east, those radioactive traces had to cross a lot of America before they got to Boston, and kept going.
The planet is smaller than we want to think. And we are all sharing it with each other, despite our claims to sovereignty. International borders didn’t stop the trace elements from crossing America to rain down on Boston. We share the same sun, the same water, and the same air, ultimately. It is entirely legitimate, then, that people on the other side of the world from the accident are worried about radiation poisoning.
The biggest concern associated with radiation poisoning seems to be cancer of the thyroid, which people think can be prevented by taking potassium iodide. Directly after the reactor explosions, sales of potassium iodide soared, and many online websites sold out. Unfortunately, potassium iodide cannot be relied on to protect against thyroid cancer, especially not in the dosages available without a prescription. And you’re fooling yourself if you think there aren’t 20 to 30 other easy spots in your body, besides the thyroid, where radiation poisoning can and will cause inflammation and cancer.
Apparently, the association in the public consciousness between the thyroid and potassium iodide stems from the use of radioactive iodine to treat goiters, a disorder of the thyroid.
| Definition: Goiter: This is an enlargement of the thyroid gland that looks like a round lump that continues to grow if not treated. It is usually caused by a lack of iodine, which is necessary to produce thyroid hormone. The great lakes and Midwest areas of the United States were once called the “goiter belt,” because of the high number of cases reported there that were attributable to iodine poor soil. A goiter grows because the thyroid gland is trying harder and harder to extract iodine from your body. As it works harder, it continues to grow bigger. A goiter usually indicates a simple Kelp deficiency, as Kelp is a great source of natural iodine. A friend was scheduled for radioactive iodine treatment to reduce a goiter. I convinced him to postpone treatment and try Kelp. A month later the goiter was gone. |
To protect yourself from radiation poisoning you have to understand what’s happening in your body, your whole body not just your thyroid. Every part of you is composed of cells. High radiation exposure destroys cellular integrity everywhere on a gargantuan scale, breaking apart electrons, and setting loose a cataclysmic amount of free radicals. It is free radicals that harm the thyroid and other parts of your body after radiation exposure. And potassium iodide does nothing to prevent or neutralize free radicals. Nothing.
Too many free radicals are what lead first to inflammation and then cause cancer—in the thyroid, yes, but also in the breasts, liver, lungs, prostate, stomach, kidney, uterus—in short, anywhere and everywhere in your body. Not just your thyroid is at risk when you are exposed to radiation; your entire body is put at risk. Take potassium iodide if you wish, but it’s more important to focus on antioxidants, the most potent and effective of which is Beta Carotene.
| Tips: Please take the time to read Blog 3: The Danger of Inflammation, for a discussion of how free radicals are created, and why antioxidants work so well to neutralize them. I went into great detail that I don’t want to repeat every time I discuss inflammation. There is also a list of foods high in antioxidants that you should add to your diet, immediately, if you can. Please also read Blog 4, Cancer, to learn how that same inflammation therapy stops cancer’s growth anywhere in the body. Even after you have been diagnosed. If you get the bad news, just buck up and get busy with Beta Carotene. This is a fight you can win. |
RADIATION EXPOSURE FROM A LONG DISTANCE
I was on the west coast of America at the time of Japan’s nuclear accident. Up and down the coast everyone was worried about possible radiation exposure, despite assurances from officials that trace radiation couldn’t travel as far as the United States. After checking the umbrellas in Boston however, we now know that wasn’t true.
Since the core issue here is the creation of excess free radicals from radiation exposure, the focus should be on consumption of enough antioxidants to counter those free radicals, one on one. Each free radical electron needs an antioxidant electron to neutralize it and return it to healthy cell status. There is no better antioxidant for this purpose than Beta Carotene.
| PROTECTING YOURSELF FROM RADIATION EXPOSURE AT A LONG DISTANCE Quick Glance Chart | ||||
| Take daily for one to three months after exposure | ||||
| Supplement | Breakfast | Dinner | Brand | Strength |
| Beta Carotene (softgels only) | 25 softgels | 25 softgels | Puritan’s Pride #1223 | 25,000 IU (equivalent to 15 mg) |
| Vitamin D3 (softgels only) | 2 softgels | 2 softgels | Puritan’s Pride #15605 | 1000 IU |
UP CLOSE AND EXTENSIVE RADIATION EXPOSURE
If you were close to the explosion, meaning anywhere in Japan, you need to do more internal repair than those at a long distance. But regardless of the size or magnitude of your exposure, even if you’re one of the workers who had to go inside the reactor to contain the matter, large quantities of Beta Carotene will protect you and prevent cancer and ultimate organ failure.
Free radicals are what you have to worry about from radiation exposure, no matter the amount. But free radicals are all you really have to worry about. If you can handle and control the free radical production in your body, you can handle radiation exposure. But the greater the exposure to radiation, the higher will be the number of free radicals created, and the more antioxidants that will be needed.
Let’s look at the situation for what it is, a battle between your troops (antioxidants), and the enemy troops (free radicals). (My father was career Army so expect of lot of battle references in my blogs.) Pretend that the day of retribution has come. Your troops are about to enter the battlefield to wage war against your biggest enemy—the slayer of your family, friends, and future—high level, radiation-based cancer.
You have good intelligence that there are 1000 free radical troops on the field awaiting you, and another 1000 in a fallback position, ready to back them up. But for now, you are facing only 2000 free radical enemy troops, because they haven’t had a chance to increase their numbers yet. You are tasked with eradicating them before they can multiply and get strong enough to do real harm. You aren’t worried, because you have over 5000 antioxidant troops under your command ready to deploy. And you know that for every enemy free radical, you have to deploy an opponent antioxidant warrior, because it will always boil down mathematically to a one on one fight. Antioxidant electron against free radical electron.
Given these facts, what do you do tactically? Do you decide to just lay down and not fight back at all? Probably not. Knowing it’s a one on one fight, do you send in 50 of your antioxidant warriors to face 2000 free radical troops? What about 500? Again, probably not. With 5000 antioxidant troops at your disposal, you might not even send in an equal number of 2000 troops to match the enemy’s numbers. To ensure success in such an important battle you might try to outnumber the enemy; you might send in all 5000 antioxidant troops and make it a slaughter. With your superior numbers, the options are all yours to exercise.
If you were in Japan at the time of the exposure, or worse, close to the point of origin, there are tens of thousands of free radicals ganging up inside you and starting the inflammation process, which will be followed eventually by cancer, or some other inflammatory based disease. The minute you were hit with radiation, your cells began to die and mutate into free radicals—throughout your entire body not just in your thyroid. Since there are so many free radical troops wreaking havoc inside, you need an equal or higher number of antioxidant troops to fight them off, to neutralize them. Beta Carotene is the best free radical fighting antioxidant available, if you take enough of it.
I prescribe large doses of Beta Carotene for an extended period to give the body time to neutralize enough free radicals to prevent serious long-term harm from occurring. Don’t let the following dose levels scare you. The doses have to be large enough to counter the large number of free radicals loosed in your system. Beta Carotene will not harm you, and could save your life.
| PROTECTING YOURSELF AFTER CLOSE UP AND EXTENSIVE RADIATION EXPOSURE Quick Glance Chart | |||||
| Take daily for three months to one year or more after exposure | |||||
| Supplement | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner | Brand | Strength |
| Beta Carotene (softgels only) | 50 softgels | 50 softgels | 50 softgels | Puritan’s Pride #1223 | 25,000 IU (equivalent to 15 mg) |
| Vitamin D3 (softgels only) | 4 softgels | 4 softgels | 4 softgels | Puritan’s Pride, #15605 | 1000 IU |
NOTES
► If you take Beta Carotene without also taking Vitamin D, you will deplete your stores of Vitamin D and develop a Vitamin D deficiency. It usually manifests as sores on the inside of the mouth. Always take Vitamin D when you take Beta Carotene.
► Do not use mixed carotenoid products. They are only a marketing gimmick and will not work the way Beta Carotene will, not the way I have described here.
► Vitamin D3 is recommended because it more closely replicates the Vitamin D made naturally on your skin from contact with the sun. But if you can’t find D3, take straight Vitamin D.
Please be nice to each other, and look for my next post: Blog 13: Adult Onset Diabetes, where I tell you how to get it under control within two weeks, and never suffer again.
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