The Concept of Orthoiodosupplementation and Its Clinical Implications

In that year, 1989, the Executive Director of the International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (that is a very impressive title to say the least), Basil S. Hetzel, published a book entitled The Story of Iodine Deficiency. In that book, goiter and cretinism were the only two aspects of iodine deficiency discussed. One would assume that the experts on human requirements for iodine have already figured out the amounts of iodine needed for sufficiency of the human body (i.e., the daily amount of iodine needed for the prevention and control of cretinism and endemic goiter). However, the 1930 statement of Thompson, et al, is still valid today: “The normal daily requirement of the body for iodine has never been determined.” In the ninth edition of the classic textbook of nutrition, Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, edited by Shils, et al, and published in 1999, the section on iodine was written by no less than Basil S. Hetzel and coauthored with Graeme A. Clugston. They reported the latest recommended intakes of iodine established in 1996 by the World Health Organization (WHO), based on age and physiological conditions. The highest recommended daily intakes are for pregnant and lactating women — 200 mcg or 0.2 mg. In a subsection entitled “Iodine toxicity,” the authors stated: “Wolff has suggested that human intakes of 2,000 mcg I/day should be regarded as excessive or potentially harmful.” Please note, the unit mcg is used instead of 2 mg in order to make the amount appear really “excessive.” For example, if they used the unit ng, that amount would be 2,000,000 ng, a number that would scare just about anybody. Reference 39 in this citation was authored in 1969 by the world famous thyroidologist, I. Wolff, coauthor of the world famous Wolff-Chaikoff effect published in 1948. There was a fly in the WolffChaikoff ointment, however.