Voila, in Dr. David Williams' Feb. newsletter "Alternatives", he has an article about the thyroid, homocysteine, and heart disease....and iodine. Here in a nutshell is what I got from it:

Background:

Homocysteine, as we all know, is a marker for heart disease, heart attack, etc. It is elevated in PWP for some reason as well as those as higher risk for heart issues. Heretofore, most folks take a cocktail of B6, B12, and folic acid to lower the homosyteine level and reduce their risk of heart attack, stroke, etc. But now, thanks to research from the Cleveland Clinic, it appears that this cocktail actually masks the symptoms of the real underlying problem: an underactive thyroid! No kidding.

They discovered that when they "normalized" the thyroid, it automatically self-corrected the homocysteine levels. No B6, B12, or folic acid needed. How did they do that? IODINE, pure and simple. Now a brief history of iodine in our country.

Plants pull iodine out of the soil, so if the soil has no or low iodine, the food doesn't either. Land around the oceans is naturally rich in iodine, because the wind blows sea water, rich in iodine, across the land and it deposits the minerals there. But the wind can only blow so hard, even in hurricane weather, and so the soil in middle America, which cannot be reached by the ocean breezes and storms, is naturally low in sea minerals including iodine. I read recently that middle America used to be called the "goiter belt" for this reason. Who knew?

Furthermore, iodine used to be added to bread, but then for some reason, bromide was put in its place...a naturopath told me that bromide blocks iodine absorption. Still further, the levels our powers that be set for iodine are woefully low, just like they are for Vitamin D3. A sorry state of affairs. Even though we Americans love our salty food, I would wager that many of us are deficient in iodine. The Japanese eat about six times more iodine daily than we do, in case anyone was wondering about how much iodine one can take.

So back to iodine supplementing. You only need to supplement if you don't have enough, and you can get a good idea if you do or not by taking your temperature. To get an accurate read, take your temperature first thing in the morning with a rectal thermometer-the kind that has mercury in it- (shaken down to below 96 degrees) under the arm for ten minutes every morning. Just lay there and relax for the ten minutes the thermometer is under your arm. When done, record the temperature. A reading between 97.2 and 98.2 is normal: outside of this range indicates a thyroid issue. We all know how unreliable blood thyroid tests can be: this one you can do at home and know right away what's going on.

You can get the thyroid normalized if it's still at least partially working. Dr. Williams recommends iodine supplements, and they're everywhere, but his newsletter listed Iosol by TPCS Distributors (www.tpcsdirect.com or 1-800-838-8727). I ordered some yesterday, and we'll take four drops a day for two weeks, then two drops a day. I have no connection to TPCS Distributors, but I will mention the bottle of iodine drops was quite pricey. But considering how much we've spent on five hour energy drinks, sleep aids, etc., it's worth the gamble that it might help.

If the drops don't normalize things, there are tablets you can chew three times a day, they are a glandular product called Thytrophin and you can order that online as well or maybe able to get from a health food store or doc.

I should mention that correcting the thyroid won't reverse heart disease, or PD, obviously, but we're going to give it a try, and I'll report back after we've taken the drops for a week or are feeling better, whichever happens first.

The citation Dr. Williams provides for the Cleveland Clinic work is: Ann Intern Med 99;131:348-351, in case anyone wants to read the article.