Low Iodine Diet & Thyroid Cancer

The thyroid gland operates properly largely due to the presence of sufficient quantities of iodine in your diet. While keeping your iodine intake normalized is a sound goal for most normal diets, a diet designed to combat thyroid cancer will require you to reduce your intake of iodine for specific periods to amplify the effects of cancer treatment.

Thyroid Cancer and Diet

• Adherence to a low-iodine diet is necessary for a short time while fighting thyroid cancer. This is because one of the primary ways to combat thyroid cancer is to deprive the thyroid gland of iodine (by following the diet), followed by injection of radioactive iodine which will then be taken up by the cells of the thyroid, hopefully destroying the cancer.

Thyroid Cancer

• Thyroid cancer originates in the thyroid gland, a small gland in your neck that is responsible for releasing hormones to regulate metabolism. Risk factors for thyroid cancer include experience radiation therapy in the past or a family history of the disease. While surgery is the usual course of action for dealing with thyroid cancer, a low-iodine diet followed by targeted radiation therapy is another measure which is often used to fight thyroid cancer at the source.

Prohibited Low-Iodine Foods

• Your treating physician will tell you when to begin following a low-iodine diet, but it should not be for a period much longer than two weeks. During this time, you should eliminate consumption of the following items: iodized salt, seafood, agar-agar (an additive used in items like ice cream and canned fish), nori (a wrapping agent for sushi rolls), alginate (a thickening agent used in many products, including dairy beverages and cream), carrageenan, algin, dairy, egg yolks, commercial breads, soy, beans, red dye #3, and iodine-containing vitamins. Many of these items are common additives, so read labels carefully if you are on a low-iodine diet.

Restricted Low-Iodine Foods

• While you need not eliminate consumption of foods that have traces of iodine, you should abstain from eating them in gross amounts. Consume no more than five ounces of meats per day, no more than four servings of grains (including pastas, breads and cereals), and only small quantities of rice.

Considerations

• After your scheduled radiation treatment, you can return to a normal anti-cancer diet rich in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables with minimal consumption of saturated fats and wholesale abstention from trans fats. This is the approach generally recommended by the American Cancer Society for patients diagnosed with cancer, and it offers you the best chance of winning your fight.