Hearing that it is 10% of a daily dose released has me considering other pathways, other than too much iodine being directly released... I want to share some thoughts.
Mostly, I'm pondering the effects of other halides in the body (fluorine, bromine especially), which substitute for iodine in the body in a detrimental way, including in thyroid function (I've spent the evening looking at research abstracts on the subject on the internet and will post some snippets below...) Fluorine, of course being in tap water and toothpaste. Bromides being in flame retardants (almost all sofas, airplanes, hotel furniture & carpet), most commercial wheat flour, etc. And, apparently, human exposure to bromine and fluorine being much lower back in pre-modern times.
The percentage of the hormone & enzyme molecules in the body containing iodine, versus being replaced with bromine or fluoride would theoretically be dependent on the concentration of each element. So without a supplement, my environmental exposure to bromine and fluoride could be higher than my intake of iodine. Thus, thyroid function could essentially be shut down by a proportional lack of iodine. In that instance, taking an iodine supplement would increase the proportion of iodine atoms, increasing thyroid function and hormonal balance?
What's missing is tying that to what happens at ejaculation. In this bromide-fluoride toxicity theory, ejaculation would probably need to be tied to some strain on the thyroid (for example, creating new hormone molecules after ejaculation such as T3, T4, LH ? (related to testosterone?), but having those new hormones be deformed or the thyroid itself struggle due to low iodine concentration). And this strain would need to be specific to a subgroup of us with POIS, perhaps even a genetically-based sensitivity to bromides or fluorides. I'm not sure what the thyroid's role is after ejaculation, so that's where I am right now in my thinking.
I want to attach a few interesting research snippets related to how bromide and fluoride interact with iodine in the body, here:
I'll include proper bibliographical info in case you want to look it up:
a)
Biol Trace Elem Res. 1996 Sep;54(3):207-12. Interaction of bromine with iodine in the rat thyroid gland at enhanced bromide intake. Vobeck? M1, Babick? A, Lener J, Svandov? E.
"Abstract
In experiments with rats, we have found that at enhanced intake of bromide, bromine does not replace chlorine in the thyroid; it replaces iodine. Under our experimental conditions, more than one-third of the iodine content in the thyroid was replaced by bromine. In the thyroid, bromine probably remained in the form of bromide and, in proportional to its increased concentration, the production of iodinated thyronines decreased, with the sum of the iodine and bromine concentrations being constant at the value of 20.51 +/- 1.16 mumol/g dry wt of the thyroid. In contrast to other organs, the biological behavior of bromine in the thyroid is not similar to the biological behavior of chlorine but resembles more that of iodine."
b)
Springerplus. 2014; 3: 7. Published online 2014 Jan 3. doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-3-7 PMCID: PMC3890436
A comparative study of fluoride ingestion levels, serum thyroid hormone & TSH level derangements, dental fluorosis status among school children from endemic and non-endemic fluorosis areas
Navneet Singh,corresponding author Kanika Gupta Verma,corresponding author Pradhuman Verma,corresponding author Gagandeep Kaur Sidhu,corresponding author and Suresh Sachdevacorresponding author
"Discussion
Fluoride and iodine are both halogens. The fluoride, the negative ion of the element fluorine easily displaces iodine in the body because it is much lighter and therefore more reactive. In fact the activity of any one of the halogens is inversely proportion to its atomic weight. In other words, one halogen can displace another one of a higher atomic weight but cannot displace one of lower weight thereby, results fluoride- thyroid-iodine antagonism which in turn lead to interference with iodine uptake."
c)
Iodine supplementation markedly increases urinary excretion of fluoride and bromide -- Letters to the Editor. Published online: http:// www . wachters . com/printarticle.php?newsID=109
(Remove the spaces to access the link)
This is a research review letter, with several interesting quotes:
"There was a progressive increase in urinary levels of fluoride and bromide with increasing intake of the preparation. The highest urinary levels were observed following 3 tablets. These high levels persisted even after one month on 3 tablets. The table presents the results obtained in a male subject following a single dose of one, two and three tablets; and after one month on 3 tablets of this preparation. He did not reach iodine sufficiency even after one month on 3 tablets/day. Based on the results of the loading test, the body is considered iodine sufficient when at least 90% of the oral amount is excreted in the 24h urine collection. Urinary iodine levels in this subject were 149.6 uM/24h or 19 mg/24h representing only 51% of the dose."
"These high levels persisted even after one month of supplementation at 3 tablets/day, being 15 times baseline level for fluoride, and 16 times for bromide. After one month, the estimated total amount of halide excreted was 24 mg fluoride and 8700mg bromide. It is unlikely that such large amounts of halides came from the thyroid gland. It would seem that the whole body is being detoxified. Orthoiodo-supplementation could be used under medical supervision to detoxify the body from unwanted halides in a manner similar to the use of EDTA for the detoxification of heavy metals."
In other words, three months into taking an iodine supplement, the person's body was still flushing accumulated bromine and fluorine, and had not yet reached a sufficient level of iodine absorption.
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While none of this screams ?POIS is now solved!?, it does seem like this could be a useful direction to explore. All I know is that my iodine supplement appears to be helping very significantly, and I'm not quite sure why that might be the case...
