Does Iodine Deficiency Affect Fertility and Conception? (Episode 454)

Full Transcript: Episode 454

This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 454.

Welcome to the Fertility Friday Podcast, your source for information about the Fertility Awareness Method and all things fertility. I’m your host, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack. I’m the author of The Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Training Workbook. I’m a certified Fertility Awareness Educator and Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner with over 20 years of experience teaching women to connect to their fifth vital sign through menstrual cycle charting, balancing hormone health, and optimizing the menstrual cycle without hormones. I have been consistently outspoken about hormonal birth control over the past two decades and its impact on fertility and overall health because you have the right to know how your body works and how artificial hormones disrupt that natural process. I teach women’s health professionals how to utilize the menstrual cycle as a vital sign in their practices. And I host live coaching programs to help you achieve optimal fertility and health because it’s important to have healthy menstrual cycles regardless of whether or not you want to have babies. I’m also a wife and mother of two beautiful boys and a brand new baby girl. This podcast is designed to empower you to take full control of your cycles, your fertility, and your overall health. And I’m so excited that you’re here with me today.

Today I’m sharing a brand new episode in my FAMM Research Series. The topic of today’s episode is iodine and fertility. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump right in.

Today I will be talking about a research study entitled Delayed Conception in Women with Low Urinary Iodine Concentrations. This research study explores the link between iodine and fertility and conception and gives us some important insights into how important iodine is for overall reproductive function. The one thing that’s interesting about iodine, I often refer to it as one of the most, if not the most, controversial nutrients out there. And if you research iodine and if you were to speak to numerous practitioners about iodine or take a look at what different health professionals are saying about iodine, you would find that the advice and suggestions and information on iodine between practitioners is wildly, wildly different.

So iodine is one of the most controversial nutrients, and we can talk a little bit about why that is, but a little bit of basics if you’re not that familiar. Iodine is best known for its role in thyroid hormone production. And for that reason, a lot of the controversy is tied up specifically related to iodine’s role in thyroid issues, thyroid disease. And so a lot of the controversy then is around women who have thyroid disorders, whether or not they should take iodine. And what’s interesting about this discussion is it does omit the additional roles that iodine plays in our body.

So a couple of interesting tidbits and facts about iodine. Iodine is found in all of the cells in our body and it is not only necessary for producing thyroid hormone, it is also involved and responsible for the production of all the other hormones in our body. And although iodine is highly concentrated in the thyroid gland, in the female body, iodine concentrates heavily in the breasts and ovaries and therefore does have implications for overall reproductive health. Iodine deficiency is linked to the formation of cystic tissue. So women with fibrocystic breasts or who have been told they have dense breasts or if you have cysts, breast cysts and potentially also cysts on the ovaries, those types of cystic tissue formation are associated with iodine deficiency. So if a person has those types of symptoms, they are more likely to be iodine deficient.

So now let’s get into the study. A little bit of background about the study. The participants, there were 501 couples and these couples were chosen because they were planning to stop using contraception and to start trying to become pregnant, or they had done so within a two-month period. So you had a sample population of just over 500 couples who were actively trying to conceive. The women in the study were between 18 and 40 years of age.

And what was also interesting about the study is that the participants were given specific instruction for how to track their cycles. So they were instructed to keep a daily journal of what they’re doing when they’re having sex, but they were also provided with a Clear Blue fertility monitor, which if you’re not familiar with that device, it measures urinary estrogen metabolites. And so it allows people to identify the fertile window using actual metabolites. Whereas in fertility awareness, the primary way to identify that fertile window is typically cervical mucus. But either way from the way that the study was designed, the participants were instructed for in terms of being able to time sex correctly based on their menstrual cycles. So from that perspective it does give us a good insight into how long it took to conceive independent of other issues, like if a person doesn’t know when to have sex in order to conceive, that would be kind of a separate issue that could be a confounding factor in terms of measuring the time it takes a couple to get pregnant.

So to put simply, you have a group of couples who are trying to get pregnant, who’ve been given instruction for when to time sex correctly, and then the study basically involves tracking that process and finding out how long it took these couples to conceive. In the midst of this, they’re measuring the women for their iodine levels by a urinary test. So they’re measuring their iodine levels and then determining if the iodine levels of the women in the group has any relationship to how long it took the participants to get pregnant.

The results of the study basically were that the women who were iodine deficient were much more likely to take a longer period of time to conceive. So iodine deficiency was associated with a longer time to pregnancy. And what they found was that the women who were iodine deficient were 46% less likely to conceive per cycle compared to those women who were actually measuring at sufficient levels of iodine.

What’s also interesting is that only about 55% of the study participants were found to be sufficient, and the rest of the population, so the remaining 45% was either mildly, moderately, or severely deficient. About 20% of the participants were found to be severely deficient. That is interesting in and of itself because that aligns with other population studies regarding iodine levels. So when they just look at general populations and do spot iodine testing, they do tend to find a pretty significant number of women who are deficient, particularly women of reproductive age and it’s most pronounced in women who are pregnant or lactating, which would indicate that as women we may need more iodine than what we’re actually getting. So definitely something to consider.

So anyone who’s familiar with research or statistics would know that these results are showing us a correlation. So iodine deficiency is correlated with an increased time to pregnancy. Does that mean that iodine deficiency is causing it? Well, not necessarily, but it does give us some interesting information and should give pause to at least ask the question of why is that and does that show us how important iodine is to pregnancy. Obviously iodine is not the only nutrient that we need, but today we’re focusing on this particular study which highlighted this result. And I think that it’s safe to say that any nutrient that could delay the chances of conception or reduce the chances of conception by 46% per cycle or significantly increase the time it takes to conceive, we should be looking at when we’re thinking about optimizing fertility.

The researchers noted that iodine deficiency is not rare and also noted that approximately one-third of American women of childbearing age have deficient iodine levels per population studies. We’re often told, or at least given the impression that because we have iodized salt, that iodine deficiency is not something that we need to worry about. And though iodized salt has been an effective measure to reduce the incidence of goiter, which is an enlargement of the thyroid gland due to iodine deficiency, it’s clear that additional effort has not been made to identify what would be an optimal amount for women of reproductive age, especially if this is the population that tends to have the lowest levels. And especially if we consider the results of this study where there’s a clear relationship between deficiency in iodine and delayed childbearing, delayed pregnancy.

So what can we learn from this study? I think that one of the key takeaways to this study and in general on the topic of iodine is that iodine is not only important for thyroid function. When we’re looking at women’s reproductive health, when we’re looking at fertility and pregnancy and overall health in general, I think that it’s helpful to realize that iodine plays a role in much more than just thyroid function. So we should be expanding our view and understanding of the role of iodine beyond simply the thyroid gland and looking at the role it plays in fertility, in ovulatory function, in the reduction and prevention of the development of cystic tissue. We should be looking at the role iodine plays in breast tenderness and soreness, in fibrocystic breast disease, the formation of breast cysts, ovarian cysts, potentially polycystic ovarian syndrome because it’s often associated with the development of ovarian cysts. So just the first thing in terms of what this study could be showing us is that we should be looking at the role of iodine beyond just the thyroid gland.

And I suppose another point to consider is that we should be considering screening women for iodine deficiency when they’re showing those signs of deficiencies. So when we’ve identified certain specific health conditions or certain situations where iodine deficiency is more likely, we should be seriously considering screening women for iodine deficiency when they have those signs. So the same signs that I just mentioned, whether it’s fibrocystic breasts, lumpy, sore breasts, formation of breast cysts and tissue, other types of cystic tissue formation, and potentially fertility challenges. We should be looking at screening women for iodine deficiencies so we can at least identify if a person is deficient or not and then work towards addressing that.

One thing I think is really interesting about iodine, as I mentioned, it’s one of the most controversial nutrients. Because of that controversy and because we link it only to thyroid health and all the warnings associated with should we be giving women iodine when they have issues with thyroid. Again taking away the conversation from the roles it may play in overall reproduction. One of the things I think that this study shows us is that we should be looking at iodine in the same way or at least a similar way that we look at other nutrients.

So if we’re looking at nutrients like vitamin B12, or iron, or vitamin D, or folate, or choline, or I could go on. Often with these types of nutrients — zinc or a variety — we’re fully open to testing levels for those and seeing where a person is at, and then supplementing accordingly. And if a person is profoundly deficient in vitamin D, we’re aware that we have to increase the dosage beyond the recommended daily allowance for someone who is actually deficient so that we can actually address that deficiency. And so in those types of situations, the best case scenario is to have your practitioner screen you for deficiency. And then if you are deficient, dosing accordingly, like I said, a higher amount than the recommended daily allowance for a period of time so that we can rectify that deficiency and then retest at some point in the future so that we can make sure that the amount that you were taking, the level that you were taking is actually working. And then eventually we can get those levels to a more optimal result.

And so I find it to be really interesting and ironic that when it comes to iodine, a lot of practitioners have a whole lot to say about it, about who shouldn’t take it and how women should never take it. But they often don’t talk about testing to even find out if the person is at a sufficient level. So if you pay attention to a lot of the kind of comments and information out there about iodine, there’s a whole lot of stuff out there. But very few practitioners are suggesting that their clients and patients get tested to determine if they could possibly be deficient, which especially for fertility patients or fertility clients, as shown in the study, deficiency in iodine can lead to a significant delay in conception. So I think that’s a blind spot for a lot of people.

So again, when you’re looking at research studies and you’re looking at single nutrients, you can really go down a rabbit hole and start to take it too far and look at a certain nutrient as being the be-all and end-all and this one nutrient is going to solve everything. So that’s obviously not where we’re going with this. I’m just discussing this research paper in this series because I find these types of studies interesting and I think you may find them interesting also. It teaches us something new and we learn more and we’re able to increase our overall knowledge base and then try to seek the support we need if we’re having certain challenges.

So obviously that’s not the message, the message isn’t like iodine is going to fix everything, but going back to the point that we should be looking at iodine in a similar way that we’re looking at other nutrients. In order for us to maintain optimal hormone health and to achieve optimal fertility and to have everything balanced in our menstrual cycle, it does require a good combination of nutrients to be sufficient and we don’t want to be deficient in any one area over another. And why is it that we can’t look at iodine like we would look at other nutrients? Why is it that it’s in its own category and so few women are ever tested or screened for it? To even identify if there could be a problem. So that is really, I think, a really key point and key takeaway from this study.

So if you yourself are showing some of these signs of deficiency, it would make sense to consider testing. You can talk to your practitioner about it. With iodine, it’s a little bit different than some of the other nutrients. Often we can do blood work, although you can do blood work for iodine. My understanding about iodine is that the blood work is not necessarily as effective at confirming deficiency or testing levels. So urinary iodine concentrations are often what we’re looking at, whether that’s a spot urine test, a 24-hour urine where they collect your urine for 24 hours, or an iodine loading test where they would give you a high dose of iodine and collect your urine for 24 hours to determine how much of it you excrete and that’s how they determine if you’re deficient.

So if this is a topic that interests you, you can head over to the show notes page for this episode at fertilityfriday.com/454 and I will link on this page some previous episodes covering iodine as well as the study that we talked about today and the book Iodine, Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It by Dr. Brownstein. So those are a good place to start, some resources to start learning more about iodine and the role it plays in female reproductive health.

So with that said, I hope you have a wonderful weekend whenever you are tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.