Around 70 to 80 percent of iodine is found in the thyroid gland in the neck.

The rest is in the blood, the muscles, the ovaries, and other parts of the body.

Potassium iodide plays a crucial role in metabolism, hormone balance, immune system health, and mental health.

The greatest concentration of iodine is in your thyroid, but your muscles, brain, salivary glands, and skin also require it.

[1]

In the early 19th century, Potassium iodide was credited with saving the lives of those who otherwise would have died from common infectious diseases, such as cholera or typhoid.

[2] With the advent of “miracle drugs” practitioners began to overlook the vital role that iodine plays in just about every part of the human body – not just the thyroid gland.

Iodine is an important trace element for health.

This element is found in nature, mostly in the marine environment, where it accumulates in marine organisms.[3] An inadequate dietary intake of iodine leads to insufficient production of thyroid hormones, which affects many parts of the body, particularly muscle, heart, liver, kidney and the developing brain.

[4]

Older readers may remember mother putting iodine on cuts and scrapes.

It kept infection away as well as any “modern” antibiotic ointment, without inducing bacterial resistance.

But what is the difference between the dark orange liquid (iodine) and the small white tablet (Potassium iodide)?

Iodide is the ion form of iodine, occurring when iodine bonds with another element, such as potassium.

Dietary iodine also occurs naturally as an iodide, such as potassium iodide or sodium iodide, (the kind typically placed into salt).

Potassium iodide has long been used by doctors as an expectorant in cases of infectious diseases of the respiratory tract, or in pulmonary diseases in which anatomical changes impair expectoration, such as emphysema and cystic fibrosis.

[6] It acts as an “irritating” expectorant whose mechanism of action will occur by direct irritation of the glands of the respiratory mucosa.

[5]

When used as an antibiotic at doses of less than 50mg, iodine destroys pathogenic bacteria yet it leaves the valuable probiotic gut flora intact – another built-in advantage of iodine therapy as opposed to regular antibiotics.

[3] Iodine is also valuable for breaking down biofilms that cause antibiotic resistance in the first place.

[3]

Researchers have shown for the first time

that certain viruses are capable of forming complex biofilm-like assemblies, similar to bacterial biofilms.

[6] These extracellular infectious structures may protect viruses from the immune system and enable them to spread efficiently from cell to cell.

[6] “Viral biofilms” would appear to be a major mechanism of propagation for certain viruses.

They are therefore emerging as new and particularly attractive therapeutic targets.

[6]

According to FDA, potassium iodide may be used as food additive and can serve the following functions: [8]

• A nutrient in table salt as a source of iodine.
• A dietary supplement for human consumption and in animal feeds.
• A sanitizing agent for food processing equipment.

Functioning as a microbiocide, it is used in emergency drinking waater purification/disinfection, fresh food sanitization, food-contact surface sanitization, hospital surface disinfection, and commercial and industrial water cooling tower systems (EPA RED, Case 3080, 2006).

[8]

In addition, Potassium iodide can be used as an expectorant for treatment of chronic respiratory diseases, and iodine source in treatment of thyroid disorder.

[8]

Physicians caution against long-term use of  Potassium iodide.  We recommend consulting your health-care professional.