The thyroid is a large gland that sits in the throat, wrapped around wind pipe. It is one of the largest endocrine glands in the body. It releases unique hormones that control metabolism, body temperature, as well as the body’s sensitivity to other hormones. Proper balance and regulation of the activity of this gland is obviously quite important.

It is very likely that iodine was the very first nutrient to be recognized as essential to human life. In 3000 B.C., the Chinese used seaweed and burnt sponge, rich with iodine from the sea, as a treatment for goiter, a condition where the thyroid gland becomes very enlarged in the neck. Besides having the neck of a bullfrog, symptoms that often accompanied goiter were obesity, hair-loss, tough skin, and high cholesterol.