Iodine deficiency can lead to more than just goiter. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research , iodine deficiency is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation in the world today. In fact, it was found that iodization actually raises IQ levels. News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism.
Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Vegans and vegetarians are also at a greater risk. Iodine deficiency is a major problem around the world. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, those on a vegan or vegetarian diet and those who live in certain areas of the world are at a greater risk of deficiency. A deficiency in iodine can cause a long list of symptoms that range from mildly uncomfortable to severe to even dangerous.
Your thyroid gland uses iodine to produce thyroid hormones. This causes the cells in your thyroid to rapidly multiply and grow, resulting in a goiter A decrease in thyroid hormones can also lead to other adverse effects, such as hair loss, fatigue, weight gain, dry skin and increased sensitivity to cold Iodine deficiency may cause serious issues in children and pregnant women as well.
Low levels of iodine can cause brain damage and severe problems with mental development in children 8. Iodine deficiency can impair the production of thyroid hormones, resulting in symptoms like swelling in the neck, fatigue and weight gain. It may also cause problems in children and pregnant women. In , physician David Marine began conducting experiments demonstrating that taking iodine supplements was effective at reducing the incidence of goiters.
Soon after in , many countries around the globe began fortifying table salt with iodine in an effort to prevent iodine deficiency. The introduction of iodized salt was incredibly effective at eliminating the deficiency in many parts of the world. Just a half teaspoon 3 grams of iodized salt per day is enough to meet your daily iodine requirement This makes using iodized salt one of the easiest ways to prevent iodine deficiency without having to make other major modifications to your diet.
In the s, health authorities began adding iodine to table salt in an effort to prevent iodine deficiency. Just a half teaspoon 3 grams of iodized salt can meet your daily needs for this mineral. In fact, the upper limit of iodine is 1, micrograms, which is the equivalent to 6 teaspoons 24 grams of iodized salt when each teaspoon contains 4 grams of salt However, excessive intake of salt, iodized or not, is not advised. Therefore, you will exceed the safe level of salt intake long before you exceed your daily recommended dose of iodine.
A high intake of iodine may increase the risk of thyroid dysfunction in certain groups of people, including fetuses, newborn babies, the elderly and those with preexisting thyroid disease. Excess iodine intake can be a result of dietary sources, iodine-containing vitamins and medications and taking iodine supplements That said, multiple studies have reported that iodized salt is safe with minimal risk of adverse side effects for the general population, even at doses nearly seven times the daily recommended value 18 , 19 , Studies show iodized salt is safe to consume with minimal risk of side effects.
The safe upper limit of iodine is nearly 4 teaspoons 23 grams of iodized salt per day. This was confirmed by Eugen Baumann, who, in , reported the discovery of iodine within the thyroid gland [ 4 ].
Iodine atomic weight The effects of glaciation, flooding, and leaching into soil during the Ice Age have led to the variable geographic distribution of iodine. As a result of these natural forces, iodine accumulation is found mostly in coastal areas, and the most common sources of dietary iodine are seaweed and other seafood.
The fortification of salt with iodine is an effective, inexpensive, and stable route of ensuring adequate iodine intake. The stability of iodine in salt may depend on various environmental and storage conditions [ 5 ]. In some regions of the world where salt iodization is impractical, iodization of other common foods bread and others is targeted, or individuals receive administered oral or intramuscular iodized oil supplements.
Other sources of intermittent iodine exposure may include the use of iodine-rich medications such as amiodarone and iodine-enriched cough medications , topical antiseptics, iodine-containing multivitamins and supplements, radiographic contrast agents, and water purification tablets.
In the U. Seafood is another excellent source of dietary iodine. The Total Diet Study by the U. Food and Drug Administration FDA in — reported that the important sources of dietary iodine were dairy and grain products [ 7 ], as was confirmed by a recent survey of these foods in the Boston area [ 8 ]. The iodine content of plant foods depends on the iodine levels in soil and in groundwater used in irrigation, in crop fertilizers, and in livestock feed. The results of early studies were the basis for advocating iodine supplementation to decrease goiter.
In the s, the French nutritional chemist, Jean Baptiste Boussingault, observed that the prevalence of goiter was increased in areas where naturally-occurring iodized salt was infrequently consumed and recommended the distribution of naturally iodized salt for public consumption [ 2 ].
However, although there were attempts to implement iodine prophylaxis in the U. Iodine supplementation, primarily through the fortification of table salt, did not begin until the early s and occurred initially in Switzerland and the U. Prior to the s, endemic iodine deficiency was prevalent in the Great Lakes, Appalachians, and Northwestern regions of the U.
Selective Service regulations [ 12 ]. Subsequent surveillance studies in the following year by Levin and R. Olin, Commissioner of the Michigan State Department of Public Health, demonstrated that the prevalence of goiter reached as high as David Marine, a U. Over the next few years, he and colleagues published a series of papers reporting a significantly decreased frequency of goiter in children treated with iodine 0.
His work with the Society over the next few years, through the development of the Iodized Salt Committee, was instrumental in the history of the U. The region had largely been severely iodine deficient, and Hartsock in described an outbreak of thyrotoxicosis in adults who took iodized salt living in the Great Lakes region of the goiter belt [ 15 ].
However, many individuals in other states continued to resist efforts to make iodized salt freely available for the next several decades. Although a bill by the U.
Endemic Goiter Committee in proposing the mandatory introduction of iodized salt in all states was defeated [ 13 ], the proportion of U. Salt iodization is a useful approach toward decreasing iodine deficiency in populations. It is a universal foodstuff, intake is seasonally consistent, costs are relatively small, and it is easily distributed [ 18 ].
Approximately countries, including Canada and some parts of Mexico, have adopted mandatory iodization of all food-grade salt [ 5 ], although the extent of implementation efforts in individual countries is unknown.
In contrast, fortification of salt with iodine in the U. Furthermore, it is assumed that the majority of salt consumption in the U. Although iodized salt in the U. Iodine is required for normal brain myelination in utero and during the early post-partum period.
As such, the developing fetus and infant are particularly vulnerable to the effects of inadequate iodine nutrition. Prenatal and other multivitamins marketed in the U.
Data from the U. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey — demonstrated that only A recent survey of prenatal multivitamins available in the U. Levels of urinary iodine cannot be used to determine iodine status in an individual, given the day-to-day variation in dietary iodine intake. Median urinary iodine levels are used instead and reflect dietary iodine sufficiency across populations [ 5 ]. Subsequent studies have shown that this decrease has stabilized [ 25 , 26 , 27 ], although some subsets of the population, in particular pregnant women and women of childbearing age, may be at risk for mild to moderate iodine deficiency.
Iodine deficiency remains one of the most important public health issues globally, and an estimated 2. In , the United Nations World Summit for Children set forth the goal of eliminating iodine deficiency worldwide [ 29 ], and considerable progress has since been achieved.
Other groups which have been instrumental in advocating for improved iodine nutrition have been Kiwanis International and the U. Center for Disease Control [ 16 ].
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