Seaweed - My Guide and Protector
How iodine helps us combat stress induced inflammation
Seaweed - My Guide and Protector
We all need protection, a care-giver. At Lindor Curative Forest in Scotland, we learn that trees, plants can be our allies, our reliable care givers. This supports our personal boundaries, our capacity to say, simply...NO!
Look around you, your habitat. What gives you YOUR care...books, music, refrigerator...the medicine chest?
In these pandemic days, we cast around for reliability, support, truth. Hard to find? Many of us have an instinctive aversion to hierarchy, patriarchy...being told what to do. Personally, I’m on the compliant end of the spectrum, happy to support collective public health initiatives that designed and delivered by people I respect
This does not blind me to believe that our best form of protection is from the inside out, meaning diet. About which, of course, we are assailed by information, often contradictory
For many years I have been working with seaweed - attached marine macro-algae. We tend to have a disregard for these living organisms, with their complex life-cycles and their stench when rotting on the beach. Yet for diet, skin conditioning and soil enhancement seaweeds have much to offer
Imagine a hot day on the beach. The so-called “kelps” are lying tangled on the rocks. The onshore afternoon sea-breeze picks up its skirts, and we wander down to the water’s edge. We breathe, and are attracted by the unique aromas coming from the seaweeds. A bit fishy, a bit of a tang. There’ll be some iodine there, but mainly we smell the bromophenols which the seaweeds synthesise, and release into air and water (giving fin fish and shell fish their unique taste)
All very lovely, but the kelp is undergoing oxidative stress from the sun. And, after 500 million years, it has surely learnt a defence mechanism. Iodine, an element within the seaweed, is transported to the area of oxidative stress and reduces/eliminates any inflammation. Good old iodine!
Recent research suggests that we react to metabolically stressful situations by also calling on iodine. But, what is this word metabolism? We tend to chuck it around in day to day discourse. From the Ancient Greek word “metabole”, meaning change, we have created a descriptor for three essential physiological processes. First, converting food to energy, second the conversion of food to the building blocks of eg proteins, third the elimination of metabolic wastes. In various diseases such as cancer and metabolic syndrome (encompassing obesity, high bloods, high blood sugar for instance) normal metabolic processes are disrupted
Anyway, back to metabolic stress from, say, a car accident or biological/viral infection. The response of the body is to raise cells metabolic rates and increase their oxygen consumption. This is accompanied by inflammation and the release of damaging reactive oxygen species such as hydrogen peroxide
HYDROGEN PEROXIDE! But that’s what my daughter uses to bleach her hair! I’m not really at all sure why the body does this - perhaps file under teeth - but the body does have an efficient way of dealing with oxidative stress. Remember the seaweed?
Indeed! the body zaps out iodine from the thyroid hormones and off it goes to neutralise the hair bleach. And, forget you not, the thyroid hormones regulate our metabolism. (In point of fact, it’s iodide that is released)
This whole system only works if we have sufficient iodine in our diet
The role of iodine as a counter to human inflammation is still under research. And, the close interrelationships between stress, COVID-19 and metabolism are detaining many of our scientists
It is NOT controversial to state that we need an efficient metabolism and diverse gut microbiota to support our mental and physical health. We know as a matter of evidentiary fact that iodine deficiency/hypothyroidism diminishes cognitive capacity. We know that natural/chelated iodine is better then potassium iodide (the form of iodine for supplemental pills). We KNOW that iodine is essential for the efficient operation of our thyroid hormones
Why then do we ignore this? Particularly for non-fish diets, iodine is scarce
The data is clear: our recommended daily intake is 150 micrograms. This is a bit of haddock (called a fish supper in Scotland), or half a teaspoon of dulse seaweed flakes. As iodine is transdermal, a seaweed bath or brisk walk on the coast helps
Finally, seaweeds as an iodine source are wonderful in the kitchen BUT the brains trust at the British Dietetic Association and the Vegan Society recommend against. The question is, WHY?
Please DM me for details of supply of seaweeds. I’ll be writing a short overview of the retail market