Most accounts of iodine stop where the hormone is finished. Quite a lot happens after that. A thyroid hormone does not circulate forever, and once it is broken down, a question comes up that textbooks usually answer in half a clause: what becomes of the iodine atoms sitting firmly on that molecule?
The short answer is that part of it is lost and another part returns to the pool the body draws on for its resupply. The way there does not run through the kidney alone. It runs through the liver cell, through the bile and through the large intestine — three places where something is either hung onto the molecule or taken off it again.
That route is the subject of the sections below. It comes from the scientific literature and stays cleanly apart from what may lawfully be said about a food: a single wording, printed further down without a change.
Datolithium follows the iodine of a thyroid hormone from the liver cell through the bile and into the large intestine — and puts at the end of that route the wording the European register holds for this element.
On to the full accountA thyroid hormone is fat-soluble. In that state it is neither easy to push into the bile nor easy to flush out with urine. Before it can leave the body it has to become friendlier to water, and for that it is fitted with an add-on.
Enzymes of the sulfotransferase family set a sulfate group on the one oxygen atom of the molecule that still carries a hydrogen. The group brings a negative charge with it, and the behavior of the whole molecule changes: it goes into water more readily and is held less tightly by the proteins of the plasma.
A second set of enzymes hangs on a whole sugar group instead of the small sulfate group. The result is a markedly larger molecule that is charged as well. Both routes stand open side by side; which one prevails depends on the tissue and on which enzyme variants are made there.
What the liver cell releases into the bile ends up in the gut. Bacteria live there that bring along exactly the enzymes for taking the sulfate group and the sugar group off again. What is left is a molecule that can cross the gut wall a second time. Part of it takes that way, part stays in the gut contents.
| Add-on | Enzyme family | Mostly described for |
|---|---|---|
| Sulfate group | Sulfotransferases | Liver cell, gut wall, kidney tissue |
| Glucuronic acid | Glucuronosyltransferases | Liver cell |
| Removal of either group | Bacterial sulfatases and glucuronidases | Large intestine |
Compiled from papers on how the body reworks molecules of its own and molecules from outside; the assignment is simplified. None of these names turns up in the legal text reproduced further down.
Everything up to here comes from the scientific literature. It explains why this element was looked at in the first place, but it does not serve as a statement about a food. For that, exactly one line exists, and it reads:
“Iodine contributes to the normal production of thyroid hormones and normal thyroid function”
EU-authorized wording · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012 · listed in the register under the IDs 274 and 1237
Bile is watery, urine is too. A molecule that would rather sit in fat than in water is hard to carry off by either route. The attached charge clears that obstacle out of the way: a molecule that stays stuck on membranes and plasma proteins becomes one that travels with the flow of fluid. Chemically this is no breakdown at all, but a refitting for transport.
Not everything that reaches the gut finds its way back. Part is taken up again by the gut wall, part leaves the body with the stool. How large the two shares turn out to be swings considerably from one study to the next — among other reasons because the make-up of the gut population and the time the gut contents spend on the way differ from person to person. There is no one figure here that holds for everybody.
None of that stands in the legal text. The authorized wording names one element and two states, nothing else: no enzyme family, no organ, no amount, no span of time. It holds out no gain either, it describes an ordinary process. The register keeps nothing more than this one line: “Iodine contributes to the normal production of thyroid hormones and normal thyroid function”. EU-authorized wording · Regulation (EU) No 432/2012.
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This page covers the route in broad steps. The reading sheet takes the same subject apart more slowly: the spot on the molecule where the add-ons sit, the pump on the bile side of the liver cell, two tables and the legal text in the original.
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