Study Evaluates Iodine Deficiency Around The World

Study Evaluates Iodine Deficiency Around The World

Nutrition researchers at the ETH Zurich have conducted a global study regarding iodine intake in school children and revealed the benefits of salt iodization. The world's dietary iodine intake is at the highest level so far which is a tremendous accomplishment in terms goiter prevention, except from South Asia and Africa where the population is still getting too little iodine intake. The study was conducted by Michael Zimmermann and Maria Andersson, from the ETH Laboratory of Human Nutrition, in collaboration with the ICCIDD (International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders) and the World Health Organisation.

Salt

The World Health Organisation has shown that in the last eight years there was a decrease in the number of countries with low iodine intake (from 54 countries in 2003 to 32 countries in 2011). With this study, the iodine consumption data from 148 countries was evaluated by  researchers at ETH, and then compared the results made public by the World Health Organisation in 2003 and 2011. The number of countries with sufficient dietary iodine intake increased to 105 (in comparison to 67 countries in 2003), therefore the prevalence of symptoms related to iodine deficiency like goiter and impaired mental development dropped, all due to iodized salt.

For example Switzerland was found by ETH to be one of the 105 countries without low levels of dietary iodine intake in the overall population – a fact also confirmed by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. In Switzerland there are only two population groups that have a borderline low iodine intake, namely infants and lactating women. The countries in which the iodine deficiency persists are represented by South Asia and Africa: 76 million children in South Asia and 58 million children in Africa do not get enough iodine from their diets. In these regions, one in three school children still has a low iodine intake.

On the other hand, the study also identified countries in which the dietary iodine intake has decreased over the past years from a level that was assumed to be adequate to a level that exposes the population to symptoms related to iodine deficiency. This happens especially in industrialized countries like United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and many others. In Russia the iodine intakes was higher during the Soviet Union than it is now, the population having too little iodine in their diets for their normal metabolic needs.