It has been a long time since I put up a new Frank’s Column. I pretty much gave the website a pass for the last two months while I got my act together around the old homestead – lots of stuff falling behind in upkeep and only so much time and energy to do it. Actually, that’s part of the issue – Energy or the lack thereof. The workouts in prep for the contest are leaving me pretty hammered, and yet I don’t see enough progress to think I am ready for that in a month.(7/19/08). I see plenty of improvement, but not what I had planned for.

Along the way, I have taken some action to boost energy production. I suspected that my thyroid might be showing the strain, so did a basal temperature test to see where I was – I came up with an average over several days of 97.0 degrees upon awakening. That is on the low side, so I picked up some Pituitrophin PMG, Drenatrophin PMG and Thytrophin PMG from Standard Process, Inc. and took them on an empty stomach 3x a day for a month. These are specialized extracts (Protomorphogens) of those respective (pituitary, adrenal and thyroid) animal organs that many health practitioners use in clinical practice to rebuild patients glandular function. I also bought some Kelp tablets (an excellent source of iodine) and took enough to give me 1.5mg of iodine/day. After a month of that my basal temperature is up to 97.6, which clearly indicates better thyroid function, and have been feeling more energetic, and experiencing quicker recovery from workouts.

I signed up for an excellent newsletter, The Brownstein Report, and the first three installments focused generally on thyroid function and energy production. It seems I would do better to increase the iodine intake to more like 10 mg a day. Brownstein says: “My clinical experience has shown that the most effective doses of iodine vary between 6 ¼ milligrams and 50 milligrams a day. Generally, sicker patients — including those with cancer of the breast, prostate, uterus, ovaries and thyroid — require larger amounts of iodine. More information about iodine can be found in my book “Iodine: Why You Need it, Why You Can’t Live Without It, 3rd Edition” or my DVD on iodine (available at www.drbrownstein.com).”

The other interesting fact in this newsletter was that in the early 70s the baking industry started replacing iodine in flour and dough with bromine – with no objections by the FDA. Now bromine is a halide in the same family as chlorine and iodine, but competes with iodine wherever iodine is used in the body. It is highly toxic to the thyroid and the brain and a known carcinogen. If you are low on iodine in the first place, and a big pasta/bread lover, the odds are raised you will have an impaired thyroid, with a tendency toward hypothyroidism and reduced energy production. Isn’t that just swell!

Good Living – Frank