When I talk to people about toxins, most assume that I’m referring to mysterious substances that are involved in manufacturing. But the home is also a source of many toxins that can negatively impact a person’s liver.

Bromide is a compound made from an ion of bromine along with other elements. Bromine is in the same chemical family as iodine. Bromide is a very toxic substance. In the periodic table of elements, both bromine and iodine are found in Group 7, a number of chemically similar elements called halogens. When halogens combine with other elements, they form compounds called halides.

The problem is that one halogen can competitively inhibit another. That means if a person is exposed to excess bromine, the body can accumulate that element at the expense of iodine.

Fluorine and chlorine are also halogens. Of these four, two are essential — chlorine (as chloride compounds) and iodine (iodides) — meaning that we can’t live without them. Fluorine and bromine (as fluorides and bromides) are nonessential. There’s no known therapeutic function for bromine for the human body.

In fact, the medical community has long understood that it is a goitrogen, which means that accumulation in the thyroid gland can cause a swelling, or goiter. Researchers have also found elevated bromide levels in patients with thyroid cancer.