[phkahler]

The RDA for iodine is 150 micrograms. I treated my asthma (lungs use iodine too) with about 1mg of iodine daily and 250mg of magnesium - YMMV of course. I was taking kelp supplements but needed 6 a day to get the amount I wanted. Another source is Lugol's solution - a few drops in a cup of water is several mg. I also use Lugol's for healing cuts, scrapes, and scars.

Iodine has also been suggested as a cancer cure for many different types - some strains of breast cancer in particular. This is because there are a couple pathways leading to apoptosis that require iodine to function - turns out your mitochondria need iodine too.

The funniest thing I ran across in all this was an article about the link between kelp and reduced breast cancer risk. At the end they said this should be investigated further because the author knew kelp had high iodine content and thought that would be bad for people. In other words, we need to isolate the anti-cancer agent and commercialize it so you don't kill yourself with too much iodine. Funny because the iodine is likely the anti-cancer agent, and is not bad for you in the slightest.