Followers of the Undoctored and Wheat Belly books and lifestyle understand a basic truth in logic: Just because something is less bad does not necessarily make it good.
Low-tar cigarettes have less of the toxic compounds that leave the brown residue–“tar”–after tobacco is burned, but smoking low-tar cigarettes does not reduce risk for lung cancer, mouth/throat cancer, or cardiovascular disease.
From Stanford.edu on the impact of tobacco advertising:
Claims of low ‘tar,’ less ‘tar,’ or even lowest ‘tar’ have been circulating in cigarette advertisements for decades. This theme features ads which revolve around deceptive low tar claims which try to out-do each other, some going as far as to claim less than 1 mg of tar per cigarette. By ‘tar,’ tobacco companies are referring to the brown, sticky accumulation of chemicals amassed when tobacco is burned. This residue is considered to be one of the most damaging components of smoking, as it contains a multitude of identified carcinogens and causes harmful build-up in the lungs. It is therefore no surprise that, early on, tobacco companies began to make their cigarettes appear less harmful by advertising reduced tar levels. Low tar cigarettes are intended to keep concerned smokers from quitting by providing these smokers with what appears to be a healthy alternative. Unfortunately, lower tar ratings have no bearing on the safety of the brand in question. As internal tobacco documents have revealed, tobacco companies have been fully knowledgeable that lower tar cigarettes were not actually safer or healthier.
Something might be less bad, or contain less of an undesirable ingredient, but that does not necessarily mean that the product in question is therefore good.
Low-fat yogurt may have most or all the fat removed (the one truly healthy component of dairy products, by the way), but is typically loaded with sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and has the whey protein that stimulates weight gain or blocks weight loss via insulin provocation. Low-fat yogurt is not a health food, but has the appearanceof being less bad.
Likewise, 14 epidemiological studies that graded consumption of white flour products (bad) versus whole grain products (less bad because of greater B vitamin and fiber content) demonstrated reduced weight gain, less type 2 diabetes, less heart disease, and less colorectal cancer with greater whole grain consumption–that is indeed true. But those studies did notdemonstrate that such conditions are less likely compared to NO grain consumption: less bad is not necessarily good. There are indeed many studies that compare grain consumption with no grain consumption, even if they haven’t received the sort of press given to, say, some new robotic surgical procedure or cancer treatment. But such studies demonstrate dramatic health benefits when no grains are included in diet, the sorts of benefits we see play out every day in the Wheat Belly community. (References can be found in Undoctored, Wheat Belly and Wheat Belly Total Health.) By removing grains entirely, we remove the appetite-stimulating, inflammatory, autoimmunity triggering, blood sugar raising, and hormonally disruptive effects grains exert on humans.
The Naturopath I saw said that iodine is toxic to the thyroid when not supplementing selenium along with it. Is this something Dr. Davis has looked into or is she just talking out her ass?
DLM wrote: «The Naturopath I saw said that iodine is toxic to the thyroid when not supplementing selenium along with it.»
At what dose?
And in the context of what thyroid condition(s)?
Did she warn you about eating fish?
I haven’t surveyed the websphere on this, but it wouldn’t surprise me if many advocates of actual iodine supplementation (such as Brownstein) are promoting megadose (over 1 mg per day, perhaps over 10 mg per day). The view of this program is that megadose is eventually toxic, and probably with or without selenium. The apparent shot-term benefits are real, but aren’t due to processes that the advocates necessarily understand.
Iodine intake of 500-100µg/day, as the WB/Undoctored program suggests, is probably not very common.
Iodine supplementation above RDA (150µg) does need to be carefully considered where an autoimmune thyroid condition is active.
You can also tell a lot about care providers who opine about iodine if they neglect to ask how much seafood you eat. Food-sourced iodine intake can vary substantially based on dietary preferences and even geographic location.
re: «Is this something Dr. Davis has looked into…»
It has come up in the subscription forum, but is not yet part of any protocol, nor the mainstream program. It looks like a daily intake of 200 mcg(µg) might be ideal, and have particular value in AI thyroid cases. There are several challenges:
Overdose (Se toxicity) needs to be avoided, and that might mean avoiding routinely getting more than 400µg/day.
Food sources can bias intake substantially. A few brazil nuts might provide hundreds of mcgs (or none, depending on the plantation), and I doubt NF panels can be trusted to be accurately informative here.
Because we’re talking about micrograms, an isolated Se supplement is going to be mostly something else, with lots of opportunities for adverse fillers: grains, calcium, ω6 oils, sugars, etc. An interesting product in this regard is LifeExtension’s Two-Per-Day multi-vitamin, which provides 200µg Se.
________
Blog Associate (click my user name for details)
“At what dose?
And in the context of what thyroid condition(s)?
Did she warn you about eating fish?”
Thanks for commenting. She didn’t say anything specific about dose, context, and didn’t warn about eating fish. She just made more of a general statement, saying “it’s toxic to the thyroid if not supplemented with selenium as well”