June 2010 | Page 4 of 5 | Natural Health with Merrilyn Hope

Dietary Iodine

Consider your dietary intake of IODINE:
Iodine is ESSENTIAL for the healthy functioning of the thyroid gland, and for a healthy immune system. A lack of iodine causes many problems with the health, as we shall see: it even affects your body temperature and your emotions, as well as your weight.
Iodine helps to produce thyroxine, which is an important thyroid hormone.
Long term iodine deficiency results in goitre, the symptoms of which, generally, are a swollen throat with protruding eyes and a husky, low-toned voice.
Iodine is needed in the body to regulate energy levels: people who get tired easily and/or who are cold, even in warm weather, usually lack iodine.
Iodine helps control cholesterol levels, so a lack of iodine can make you more prone to heart attack and stroke.
Obesity can result from long term iodine deficiency. Lack of iodine in the diet can cause all sorts of food obsessions.
Insufficient iodine during pregnancy can result in deformities and retardation of infants.

Iodine is needed to protect against disease. It is essential for the strengthening of the immune system.
Iodine deficiency is a factor in polio.
Iodine deficiency is a factor in most cancers.
Iodine is important for the health of the hair, scalp and skin.

Lack of iodine can cause senility.

Table salt is iodised so that people do not become iodine deficient. However, natural, unrefined sea salt is far better alternative to table salt: Sea salt does not have chemical additives which regular table salt has. Table salt contains free flowing agents like aluminium, which are very bad for your health, especially the heart and the arteries.
While it is much lower in iodine than iodised table salt, sea salt is also rich in other trace elements. These valuable trace elements are not to be found in refined table salt, but are also found in kelp, which is an ocean food.You can mix 50/50 of sea salt with kelp to use as a table salt.
Kelp powder and sea water are good sources of natural iodine.

Swimming in sea water (no-where near the BP oil spillage in America, though), and taking regular walks barefoot along the wet sand at the beach, are natural ways to increase your iodine intake, and your intake of other trace minerals.

Iodine is good for the eyes, as well as the general health. People who have lived near the ocean for much of their life, and sailors, generally have good eyesight, well into their advanced years.

Liquid iodine can be dabbed onto the scalp to up your iodine intake. Iodine is absorbed through the skin. If it is
applied directly to the scalp, then your hair roots benefit immediately from the application as well as your blood.
Just two or three drops can be applied once or twice times a week, depending on how often you wash your hair.
Iodine is absorbed through the pores of the skin anywhere on the body: if you wish, you can apply a dab or two of iodine to the soles of the feet instead of to the scalp. It can be used as an antiseptic, and applied to a scratch or a graze to aid healing and prevent infection.

The recommended daily allowance is 150 mcg NOTE: More than this amount of iodine can cause damage to thyroid hormones.
If your intake is purely from food sources, then you will not absorb too much iodine.
Half a teaspoon of kelp powder daily more than takes care of this requirement: it has 1700 mcg of iodine.
100 gms of cooked fish contains 200 mcg
Half a teaspoon of iodised salt contains 100 mcg
Half a teaspoon of sea salt has 4 mcg.

Iodine is rich in all sea foods. Kelp, shell-fish, and ocean fish are all good sources of Iodine.

See merrilyn’s posts on “Foods rich in Iodine’ and ‘Iodine Scalp Hair’ remedy for more information on how to use iodine in the diet, and as an external application.

Importance of Copper

COPPER is important in the daily diet. The importance of Copper cannot be underestimated, as copper has many functions. Some of the functions of copper are discussed below, to give some idea about the effect of copper on the body and the brain.

Copper is essential for the absorption of iron in the body. Copper also helps to form strong red blood cells which prevent you from becoming anaemic.
Healthy blood cells prevent fatigue.
Copper helps in the formation of bone and muscle tissue.
It helps build strong cartilage which aids the smooth functioning of the joints.

Copper helps to prevent osteoarthritis.
It helps to prevent osteoporosis, because it is instrumental in building good cartilage around the vertebrae along the spine.

Copper plays an important part in keeping the connective tissue healthy in the arteries, capilliaries and veins, hence it helps keep the heart healthy and also helps to prevent varicose veins.
Copper, along with Vitamin C, is needed to combine collagen and elastin which form the connective tissue: these tissues are also used to form the brain, so keeping your copper levels maintained helps keep the brain healthy. It is important, therefore, for expectant mothers to ensure that they have plenty of carrots in the diet, or some other food which is plentiful in copper.

Copper helps to regulate brain impulses. Good brain impulses are important for your memory function, and for the discernment and judgement faculties of the brain.
It helps to keep the hair healthy and assists in maintaining your natural hair color.
It helps keep skin healthy and unblemished, as it aids in the pigmentation of the skin.
It helps keep the nervous system healthy and strong.

During pregnancy it is usual for Copper levels to increase within the body so that the new born child will have a plentiful supply through the mother’s milk.

In some women, the body continues to behave as if it is still nurturing an unborn child, and this can lead to excess copper levels, which can cause post-natal depression. Hormones in food and toxins in the environment can cause this deception. Plenty of non-acidic Vitamin C – say 1000 mg morning and night for a few days, then cutting back to one 1000 mg dose in the evening, should help the problem. Extra zinc and magnesium are needed also, to counteract post-natal depression.

Taking the contraceptive pill can cause the body to mimick a pregnancy:
Escess copper: The birth control pill can cause a build up of Copper in women in amounts which are far in excess of normal. Symptoms can be erratic behaviour which mimic mental conditions such as schizophrenia and depression.
Extra Vitamin C, Zinc and Magnesium are needed to counteract an excess of Copper in the body.

If you take the contraceptive pill, then you need to take supplements of Vitamin C, and zinc and magnesium..
If you are pregnant, than Vitamin C rich fruits and vegetables, and those which contain Zinc and Magnesium should be included as part of the daily diet. Onions and garlic and Vitamin C foods help to balance out excesses of minerals and help to negate the effect of, and eliminate, toxins from the blood.

A good free-range diet is best for expectant mothers. Taking vitamin and mineral supplements can be helpful, but you should try to get your nourishment from eating good food.

Pre menstrual women can become deficient in copper. This can cause sleeping problems, with insomnia, or broken sleep
Deficiency of copper can result in fatigue: since copper is needed to assimilate iron, then anaemia can result if copper levels are low, and this contributes to mental and body fatigue. It is recommended that two milligrams of copper be taken each day to help prevent these problems during the menopausal and post-menopausal times of life.
If you are taking extra zinc supplements, then you probably need to take extra copper daily as well, as
zinc tends to rob the body of some copper. One milligram of copper to 10 milligrams of zinc is recommended.

SMOKERS NEED MORE COPPER;
Smokers and alcohol users may need to improve their copper intake: copper helps to repair the damage done by smoking. Smoking causes the endothelial cells which line the inside of the blood vessels to become damaged. When these become damaged, which happens because of smoking or having high blood cholesterol, these damaged areas can build up cholesterol plaque and form blood clots. Copper helps to heal this damage, along with Vitamins B6, B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and Folic acid.
If you are a beer drinker, then your copper intake should be adequate, as one pint of beer apparently contains about 600 mcg.

As discussed above, regarding post-natal depression, too much copper in the body can be just as harmful to the health as insufficient copper. Sometimes abnormally high levels of copper in the blood can result by drinking water which has come from copper pipes, or by drinking bore water which is unusually high in copper. This can happen if you live near a copper mine.
Too much copper can cause arthritis, high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke.

Excess copper in the body gives poor mental and emotional health:

Insomnia and anxiety can be symptoms of insufficient copper, and also of
excess copper in the body.
The contraceptive pill interferes with copper levels, and other mineral absorption.
People with an inherited condition called Wilson’s disease absorb too much copper into the liver.
Too much copper can also make children hyper-active and limit their attention span.
Supplementing the diet with foods rich in Vitamin C, Zinc and Magnesium helps to balance out copper excesses.

COPPER – RDA 2-3 milligramms daily, or 2000-3000 mcg

Foods with Copper:

Lobster, crayfish, shrimps and oysters are naturally high in copper.

Avocado, and milk, are extremely rich in copper.
Sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, almonds, nuts, mushrooms, the pulses:

beans and peas, the outer bran part of grains, egg yolk and red meats are all good sources of copper. Carrots are very high in copper.

Cocoa is also a good source or copper.

One cup of whole milk contains 500 mcg of copper
One cup of non-fat milk contains less copper than whole milk, with only 100 mcg
One egg contains 150 mcg
One tablespoonful of butter contains 70 mcg
25 grammes of cheese contains 200 mcg
One cup of apple juice contains 500 mcg of copper
One avocado contains 800 mcg
One pear contains 300 mcg
An apple or a banana or a peach will give you 200 mcg – 600 mcg if you eat one of each
One cup of pure orange juice gives about 200 mcg
Half a cup of cooked prunes gives 200 mcg
About two cups of watermelon or rockmelon will give you about 200 mcg
One slice of wholemeal bread contains about 50 mcg
Half a cup of cooked brown rice gives about 200 mcg
Half a cup of peanuts gives about 220 mcg
Half a cup of cooked yams contain 600 mcg
One large mushroom has 125 mcg
One potato, cooked and eaten with its skin gives 150 mcg
1 kumara, also with the skin on, gives 200 mcg
100 gms of cooked liver gives 3000 mcg of copper
One tablespoon of wheatgerm has 180 mcg
One tablespoon of Brewer’s Yeast has 300 mcg
One tablespoon of Molasses has 300 mcg

Herbal Treatments for the Hair

Herbal Hair treatments

Organic Hair Conditioner

This is rich in nutrients which will encourage hair growth, and help your scalp and hair to remain healthy. The combination of oils in this recipe are particularly beneficial to the hair roots, as well as to the hair follicles.
Mix together: 20 ml almond oil, 20 ml of wheatgerm oil, 20 ml of glycerine, 10 ml apple cider vinegar, 3 drops of rosemary oil, 3 drops of carrot oils,
plus 2 eggs. Apply to hair after shampooing. Leave on for half an hour. Rinse off with warm water.

Rosemary Hair Rinse
This helps darken the hair and helps keep the scalp free from dandruff.
It also puts a wonderful shine to the hair, and will stimulate hair growth when used regularly. Simmer a cup of fresh rosemary, stalks and all, in a litre of water for half an hour. Cool. Apply about a half cup to the scalp as a final rinse after washing the hair. Massage well into the scalp.
Keep in the fridge for a week, then make up a fresh lot.

Chamomile Hair Rinse This is a good rinse for people who have fair hair, as it helps to lighten the hair coloring. The chamomile hair rinse will give your hair shine and provide some nutrients to your scalp, which will benefir your hair roots. There is a certain amount of silica in chamomile. It has a soothing effect on the nerves. Using chamomile as a tea to drink, and as hair rinse will give you a slow-release of those soothing nutrients to your hair roots and your nervous system.

To Make Chamomile Hair Rinse: You can make up a tea as for drinking, and use this on the hair. However, you will get the best benefits, as seen in a great shine to the hair, by using a double strength mixture of the tea and applying this externally, after washing the hair.

Oat-Straw Hair Rinse: Drinking oat-straw tea is very good for the hair, as oat-straw is especially high in silica. You can also use oat-straw tea as a herbal rinse to use on the hair after washing. To Make Oat Straw Tea: Put two teaspoons of dried oat-straw in a small saucepan. Add two cups of water and simmer for 10 minutes. Add honey to drink as a tea. Let the mixture cool if you are going to use it as a hair rinse.

See merrilyn’s other posts about hair health, entitled Regrow Hair; Iodine Scalp Hair Remedy; Best Vitamins for Hair Growth

to be continued tomorrow

Herbs for Hair Growth

Apple Cider Vinegar

Photo taken by Merrilyn on Holly’s camera, 25th December, 2012.

Herbs which have a high silica content are extremely beneficial for the hair, skin, teeth, bones and nails.
Silica-rich herbs can be taken internally as a tea, which will help your general health. They can also be applied directly to the scalp to good effect, as minerals from these tea solutions are absorbed into the hair tissues so that your hair roots will benefit.
Silica-rich herbs also have the effect of making the hair shiny when used as a final rinse after shampooing. This is because a fine layer of silica is imparted to the hair which thus evenly covers the scalp and all hair strands. The effect of having this silica remaining on the hair and head is very strengthening, not only to the hair, but to the cells of the whole physical body and also to the auric body.

Silica-rich herbs for hair growth are:

Yarrow
Other herbs which are good for the re-growth of hair are: calendula or marigold, juniper, lavender, maidenhair, nasturtium, onion, sage, soapwort, sweet flag, watercress, white birch, and white willow.

Oat- Straw Tea.
This is one of the highest herbal sources of silica, which means it is very beneficial to the health of your hair, bones, teeth, skin and nails. It will also put a shine to your hair. The tea is very palatable, and soothing to the nervous system.
To make oat straw tea: Boil up a heaped tablespoon of oat straw in a pint of water for ten minutes. Apply the cold tea to the scalp and hair after washing, and drink some oat straw tea every day for good health. Keep the tea in the fridge for up to two days, and then make some fresh brew up.

Nettle, Urtica dioica, or stinging nettle.
Nettles used to grow naturally in New Zealand. You would often find patches of nettle in the bush, and they were always to be found growing around the edges of a chicken coup.They are great at finding nutritious, lime-rich soil to make a home in, which is why their calcium/silica content is exceptionally high. Unfortunately, nettles are rare these days, and this is because we are too keen as a nation to spray out, with toxic chemicals, anything which looks like a weed. Also, the small allotments of land which allowed people to keep chickens and grow vegetables have almost become a thing of the past: Land is nowadays very expensive to buy, or rent, and if you are lucky enough to have a plot of land, it is likely the local council will prohibit you from the keeping of farmyard animals if you live in or near a town. So bang- there goes your manure-rich, enhanced soil where your nettles might have grown.
Nettles have been regarded simply as weeds by most people, and their true medicinal and nutritive value has been largely ignored. Nettles, like oat straw, rank very high in their silica content, iron and other minerals.

To make a nourishing hair and scalp rinse:

This recipe uses apple cider vinegar, which is a good tonic to use on its own to aid hair-growth. Here, it is combined with nettles, which gives a highly nutritious result. It is very beneficial for the hair:

Boil 4 oz of nettle leaves in 2 cups each of cider vinegar and water for ten minutes. Leave the leaves in the liquid for 24 hours. Bottle and keep in the fridge. Use after washing the hair. Rub some into the scalp each day, massaging well into the roots. Don’t wash it off, but leave on so that your scalp can absorb the nutrients. This tonic will put a shine to your hair.

See merrilyn’s other posts on hair health entitled Regrow Hair; Best Vitamins for Hair Growth; Iodine Scalp Remedy

Foods Rich in Iodine

Foods High in Iodine
It is important to eat plentiful amounts of iodine-rich foods in your diet.

Iodine is one of the six most important minerals for body health, along with calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous, and zinc. Of course, traces of the remaining dozen minerals are also necessary for the optimum function of body organs and for the maintenance of cellular tissue. However, Iodine is the mineral featured in this article: iodine is so often deficient in people’s diets.

Why Iodine is Important:
Iodine is essential for healthy hair, nails, skin and teeth. A deficiency in iodine will affect your hair growth for sure. Poor mental function, poor eye-sight, lack of energy, and slow growth in children are other symptoms likely to be suffered by people who are deficient in iodine.
Because two thirds of the body’s iodine is stored in the thyroid gland, a deficiency of iodine directly affects the thyroid function, and this disturbance can result in your putting on a lot of weight.It can also lead to goitre and hypothyroidism.
Adults need somewhere between 80-150mcg daily, the guideline being 1 mcg for every kilogram of your body weight. Pregnant women and breast-feeding mums need to keep their intake on the high side of average.

You can over-do iodine if you take supplements, however, you cannot over-dose on iodine if you rely on food to give you your daily requirement of the mineral. It pays to remember, also, that iodine is often destroyed in the processing of foods which would normally hold iodine, and that over-worked soils are often deficient themselves in iodine, so that foods produced on these soils are also deficient in iodine and other minerals, like zinc.
Liquid iodine can be used on the scalp to supplement your iodine intake, and help your hair to regrow: see my posts on ‘Iodine Hair Growth’, ‘Iodine Scalp Hair Remedy’, ‘Regrow Hair’ and ‘Iodine’.

Foods rich in iodine are all those which come from the sea. Sea-water has high amounts of iodine in it, and this is absorbed by all sea life – all sea-water fish, shellfish, and sea-weeds. You absorb a little iodine as you swim in sea-water, and lie on the sand at the beach.

Living by the sea will increase your iodine levels minimally, as the salt spray will be breathed in and settle on the skin where it will be absorbed: this is one reason why sailors generally have excellent eye-sight.
Lobster, shrimp, crayfish, crab,oysters, mussels, abalone, sardines, mackerel and tuna are foods which are all extremely high in iodine.
Sea-salt also contains iodine. This is a more preferable way to take iodine than using iodized salt, which has sodium iodide added to it. The iodine in sea-salt is natural, elemental iodine, and is more easily assimilated than sodium iodide. There is much written on the subject of iodized salt which suggests this could actually be harmful, compounded by the fact that free-flowing agents, like aluminium, are also added to iodized table salt.
Kelp is a valuable source of iodine. Kelp could be substituted for table salt. It should be added to meals to ensure that enough iodine is acquired for the body, especially considering that many vegetables do not have the expected amount of iodine due to being grown on impoverished soils.
Onions, garlic, leeks, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts are normally good sources of iodine, however their iodine content depends on how much iodine is in the soils where they were grown.
Root vegetables such as beetroot and carrots, turnips, swede, parsnips, dandelions and salsify, and other vegetables which are deep-rooted, like comfrey, and jerusalem artichokes, are normally high in iodine. The globe artichoke, which belongs to the thistle family, is a rich source of iodine and other minerals and vitamins. The common nettle, which can be boiled as a vegetable or made into a tea, also contains reasonable amounts of iodine.
Milk, butter, yogurt and eggs all contain some iodine.
But kelp is the king of all iodine providers. Just half a teaspoonful of kelp powder provides you with about 1700 mcg of iodine, which well exceeds the dietary standard.