Bromide Dominance – A National Health Crisis Part 2of2
Potassium Bromate in Bread
Potassium bromate, an additive included in many commercial bread and baked goods, provides the most devastating contribution to bromide overload in Western cultures. Bromated flour is a product “enriched” with potassium bromate.
Many commercial bakers use bromated flour because it yields dependable results, and because it makes more elastic dough, which can stand up to bread hooks and other commercial baking tools.
In the 1960′s, a single slice of bread in the USA contained the full RDA of 0.15 mg iodine. The risk for breast cancer was then 1 in 20. Over the last several decades, iodine was largely replaced by bromine in the form of potassium bromate in the bread making process.
Bromine blocks thyroid function and interferes with the anticancer effect of iodine. Today, the risk for breast cancer is 1 in 8 and increasing by one percent each year.
Bromide in Bread Banned in UK and Canada
In 1990 the UK banned bromate in bread. Canada followed suite in 1994. The United States has yet to take a similar action in this important matter.
Bromide in Drinking Water
When drinking water containing bromide is exposed to ozone, bromate ion, a powerful oxidizing agent, is formed. Two significant recalls of drinking water involving bromate have occurred: 1) Wegmann’s Food You Feel Good About Spring Water in 2006; and 2) Coca-Cola’s Dasani in 2004.
Toothpaste and Mouthwash
Potassium bromate is used as an antiseptic and astringent in toothpaste and mouthwash. This highly toxic substance may cause bleeding and inflammation of gums.
Flame Retardants
Bromated flame retardants reduce the flammability of a wide variety of commercial and household products. Unfortunately the bromide used in some home retardants does not stay put. Instead, it finds its way into the environment and into the human body.
Personal Care Products and Cosmetics
Sodium bromate is ubiquitous in permanent wave neutralizers, hair dyes and textile dyes, and many other cosmetic and home care products.
Effects of Elevated Bromide Levels
Elevated bromide levels have a deleterious effect on human organs, specifically the thyroid and kidneys, and skin. Bromide exposure is also related to renal failure and, perhaps most tragically, to mental aberrations.
Thyroid
Elevated bromide levels have been implicated in every thyroid disease, from simple hypothyroidism to auto-immune diseases to thyroid cancer.
Kidneys
The ability of bromate to cause cancer, especially kidney cancer, is a significant health concern.
Skin
Prolonged exposure to bromide or bromide related products may cause lesions on the face and scalp, as well as open sores on the trunk and extremities.
Hearing Loss
Potassium bromate, the popular bread additive, is known to cause renal damage and permanent deafness in animals and man. The lower frequency range is most often affected.
Mental Aberrations
Psychiatry literature abounds with cases of elevated bromide levels implicated in mental conditions ranging from depression to schizophrenia.
Serious Questions
If iodine deficiency is the underlying cause of many diseases, is bromide “the underlying cause of the underlying cause?”
Because iodine was not supplemented much before the last three years, few physicians have had a chance to look closely at the occasional symptoms which arise from iodine supplementation (still called “iodism”) and raise questions.
Might the historical observation of iodism be due principally to massive amounts of stored bromine leaving the tissues and entering the bloodstream?
Is it possible that the apparent adverse effects of iodine are due almost exclusively due to bromide excretion, and that consequently not enough iodine-alone effects can be documented to qualify as an “ism”?
And finally, might the iodism phenomenon be more appropriately called “bromism”?
FDA’s Evasive Answer
Back in 1999, the Center for Science in the Public Interest petitioned the FDA to prohibit the use of potassium bromate, charging that the FDA has known for years that bromate causes cancer in lab animals, but has failed to ban it. In September, 2007, the US FDA responded to Breast Cancer Choices inquiry with the statement, “Potassium Bromate is still listed as a safe additive.”
References
1) Ghent, W., et al, Can. J. Surg., 36:453-460,1993.
2) Eskin, B., et al, Biological Trace Element Research, 49:9-19, 1995.
3) Marine, D., Atl. Med. J., 26:437-442, 1923.
4) Abraham,G.E., The Original Internist, 11:17-36, 2004.
5) Gennaro A.R., Remington: 19th Edition, 1995, Mack Publishing Co, 1267.
6) Abraham, G.E., Flechas, J.D., Hakala, J.C., The Original Internist, 9:30-41, 2002.
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February 13th, 2011 at 7:51 am
as a layman, thank you for your insightful and informative articles. i appreciate your courage to publish them for the benefit of the public. please continue to provide your quality service.
March 11th, 2011 at 7:45 am
Thank you for continuing to provide Dr. Clark’s products & information from around the world. I will always recommend Dr. Clark’s products for purity & I remember with love the kindness she expressed when I broke my rib climbing up on a saddle in Mexico. She gave me a task to collect the stories of the people who were coming down to her for help, and to listen to their stories again when they were going home. She gave me access to some of her patients and we learned a lot about the sensitivities of some of them to the thallium in toilet paper and I’ll never forget when I slept on the floor of 2 patients & the next day tested positive for arsenic & we found that there was arsenic in the rug. They jerked the rug out of the room, & the patients began to have less symptoms. I’m glad I could be used as a guinea pig to help out! One other time, I was helping with a young man who had AIDS & was getting well & I learned a lot about chlorophyll & wheatgrass juice & how that helped him. Having worked with Dr. Wigmore for over 22 years, that was no news to me, but it was good to see a meeting of the minds. I take the parasite kit twice a year & am very grateful because it works when I don’t have access to my wheatgrass juice for implants!