Posted by kathryn in Nutrition

Another question, this time about the use of seaweed to counter-balance radiation during cancer treatment

“I read Anne Marie Colbin’s book called ‘Food and Healing’ recently and I recall her saying that when she has x-rays, she goes home and makes a meal with a seaweed like arame or hijiki as a way of counter-balancing the radiation.”

Seaweed contains the mineral iodine. It’s an important mineral to our health but, certainly here in Australia, it’s one of the ones we’re often deficient in.

Iodine is used by your thyroid gland, which is located in your neck. It’s important for the production of the thyroid hormones, which regulate your basal metabilic rate.

We’ve all seen the cold-war films where the spies are dosed up with iodine, to counter-act any nuclear radiation they come into contact with. Radioiodine is released in nuclear weapons testing and it was also released during the Chernobyl reactor disaster.

Radioiodine is absorbed into the body and taken up by the thyroid gland, where it can cause terrible damage. This can be counter-acted, to some extent, by dosing people up with iodine supplements. This floods the thyroid gland, preventing the uptake of the radioiodine and its concentration in the gland.

Unless you have thyroid cancer, radiation therapy does not use radioiodine. The targeted cells are elsewhere in the body and different types of radiation delivery mechanisms are used to reach those cells. Taking iodine, therefore, is not counter-balancing the effects of the radiation therapy.

The most important thing is to be eating a good diet. To be getting the maximum amount of nutrients, enabling your body to function as best it can during this intensive treatment. Given that iodine is a common mineral deficiency here in Australia, eating small amounts of seaweed and fish are a good idea in general.

21 June, 2007