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With the problems that the nuclear reactors in Japan have been experiencing following
the earthquake and tsunami last week, a lot of people here are concerned about the possibility
of radiation in nuclear fallout affecting us here. Even today, the L.A. Times ran an
article that showed that federal officials are considering the possibility of radiation
affecting livestock and agriculture. In the next little bit, I’m going to talk about
what we can do to protect ourselves and our loved ones if radiation does come our way.
We have four basic isotopes that we need to be concerned about. One is iodine-131, which
has been all over the news. The other three are uranium, cesium, and plutonium. The iodine-131
is fairly short-lived. It has a half-life of about eight days, and it really is something
that is far more of an issue, very local to the explosion itself. People living within
ten, fifteen, maybe twenty miles of the reactors do need to be taking potassium iodide. The
CDC talks about dosages of about 130 milligrams, but this isn’t necessary for those of us
here. That’s a whole different conversation, and we’ll get into that in a minute. The
uranium and the cesium and the plutonium have half-lives more in the order of about 30 years.
And when they get thrown up into the clouds and they get passed around the world in the
stratosphere, we do need to be concerned about those. Much of the conversation so far is
centered around iodine. So let’s look at iodine for a minute. Iodine is an essential
element for the thyroid, and most people in this country--maybe as many as 90 percent--are
iodine-deficient. That leaves them very vulnerable to radioactive iodine, which actually jumps
into the thyroid and takes up the receptor sites and can destroy the thyroid. So if you
are very close to a reactor meltdown--if you are within 10 or 20 miles--taking a very large
dose--the CDC would recommend 130 milligrams of iodine--would fill up all those receptors.
And then kind of like musical chairs, when the music stops, all the chairs would be filled
by non-radioactive iodine, and the radioactive iodine wouldn’t have anywhere to go. Now
we’re not that close to the meltdown. We may have some radiation from the meltdown.
Depending on what your iodine level is, you might or might not need some extra iodine.
If you need extra iodine, we’re talking about something on the order of 120, 150 micrograms
of iodine a day. That’s about 1,000th of the level of the iodine that we’re talking
about with an emergency--for somebody who’s right at ground zero, right within 10 or 20
miles of the reactor meltdown. So we can normally get our daily amount of iodine from sea vegetables,
fish, even iodine supplements. We don’t need, in most cases--in fact, in almost any
case relating to this emergency--to go with the emergency doses of 130 milligrams a day.
In fact, those dosages are only good for 24 hours, even at the ground zero level, and
we’re talking about a radiation background that may be a matter of weeks, months, years.
So that’s not a particularly effective strategy. Add onto that that if you have Hashimoto’s
thyroiditis, which is the most common autoimmune challenge in this country, taking that level
of iodine could really cause some serious health repercussions. What I am concerned
about is the release of uranium, cesium, possibly plutonium and other radioactive isotopes from
the reactors, which can have a much longer lifespan. Cesium and uranium have a half-life
of about 30 years, and they contribute to an increase in the already-growing background
radiation that we all face, which has broad cancer and leukemia and other aging and free
radical problems to a much larger and much younger group of people on this planet than
ever before. So let’s look at some of the solutions--some of the things we can do--to
protect ourselves from this. Two of the organs that are most susceptible to radiation poisoning
are the thyroid and the kidneys. Treating the thyroid is pretty tricky. There are only
a few things which will really protect it from radiation. The main one is an antioxidant
called glutathione. Actually, glutathione’s the most important antioxidant in the body,
followed right up by superoxide dismutase--it’s called SOD--and an enzyme called catalase.
So what we can do is to provide the body--provide the thyroid--with enough reduced glutathione
to be able to protect it on an ongoing basis to reduce the amount of free radical damage
to it and to give it the ability to keep working. One of the challenges with glutathione is
that we can't really just take it in the body; we can't just eat it as a whole substance
because it’s a really big molecule. It’s made of three amino acids called cystine,
glycine, and glutamine. But we can take those, and there are a number of products on the
market that make those very much available so that we can take those, we can make the
glutathione on the inside, and we can protect the thyroid. There are also a number of creams
out there, which we can apply to the body and which will pass the glutathione across
the skin into the bloodstream, or we can apply it directly over the thyroid so it contributes
it directly into the thyroid and we can protect ourselves that way. The other thing that we
might want to look at, particularly with glutathione, is that there are some things that make the
glutathione work. One of them is called selenium cysteine, and it’s a very special salt of
the mineral selenium. We don’t use very much of it; we use a couple hundred micrograms
a day. Remember when we were talking about micrograms with the iodine also? Very small
amounts, but very important amounts. Actually using much more than that--using four or five
times that--can actually be toxic, so we want to be careful that we use the right amount
of anything. We can also use creams that contain not only glutathione, but also catalase and
SOD so that we get that maximum antioxidant effect from the cream as well as the protective
effect of the glutathione directed to the thyroid. The other area that we have to be
concerned about is the kidneys. The kidneys are big filters, which remove all the water
soluble toxins and make it possible to pass them into the bladder and then to excrete
them. The kidneys are also very sensitive to uranium and cesium, which causes significant
damage to them, and if they get damaged enough, they can’t filter properly and we end up
in dialysis or dead. One of the best solutions is actually a time-tested old remedy that’s
been used by the military for quite a while, and that is baking soda. Good old-fashioned
baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate. The way that it works is that it converts
the cesium ions or the uranium ions into things that are less toxic and that are safer for
us to get rid of. So the way to take baking soda is to take about a half a teaspoon in
water twice a day between meals. Be sure to take it between meals because if you take
it with meals, it can neutralize stomach acid and really cause havoc with your digestion.
Great food sources for iodine include kelp and most of the sea vegetables. In fact, there
are three types of iodine, and the nice thing about the sea vegetables is they have all
three types. Also fish--most seafood, in fact will have various levels of iodine, and most
have more than we need on a daily basis so that we can use and/or store and/or release
the excess. Good sources of glutathione include barley and watercress. In fact, glutathione
is part of what gives watercress its snap. An old remedy is to take a cup of pure barley,
put it in a quart of water, stick in the fridge overnight, and the following day, decant off
the liquid and drink the liquid. The liquid’s very high in glutathione, and in fact, has
been used over years and years--over centuries, really--to keep people healthy through the
winter and prevent colds and flus and that sort of thing. Super oxide dismutase, or SOD,
is another free radical quencher like glutathione. In fact, they work together very well, and
it will help as an antioxidant, and it will also help protect the thyroid and the rest
of the body. One of the best sources of SOD is horseradish. In conclusion, I think we
can all see why we don’t really need high-dose iodine in the 130 milligram range and why
it could be dangerous for some of us. If you do want iodine, you should be able to get
everything that you need really from food at this point, especially from sea vegetables
and kelp. In terms of glutathione, we can get that from food; we can get it from supplements;
we can get it in creams. And superoxide dismutase will work very closely with the glutathione,
as will selenium cysteine. Finally, when we’re looking at protecting the kidneys, a little
bit of baking soda goes a long way, even if you're not trying to protect them from cesium
and uranium. And I hope that having this information will help you feel more empowered and less
panicked during the crisis in Japan.