Iodine

I don’t think many of you take this seriously …I don’t blame you… in school we learnt that iodine deficiency is endemic (restricted to a local region) to the non coastal areas where the soil is iodine deficient…..and that people in coastal areas need not worry that much about their iodine status…. But the current scenario is an eye opener….why else would people from all kinds of geographical and cultural backgrounds suffer from even mild forms of hypothyroidism….sure the people who eat sea foods are better off….but how often do we actually eat sea foods?

We recently had a health camp…and many students turned out to be suffering from hypothyroidism…hormonal problems could just be one cause of it…since young women nowadays have hormonal imbalances (which can also be attributed to improper dietary and lifestyle patterns…see how all problems are linked?) But dietary intake of iodine being less right from the beginning…iodine deficient infants grow into iodine deficient children and iodine deficient adolescents…then adults…pregnant women and these give birth to iodine deficient toddlers and so on…. The cycle is difficult to break! But we can try right??

South East Asia (including India, Bangladesh and Indonesia) and Western pacific (which includes China) constitute more than 50% of the world’s total population at risk of the broad spectrum of Iodine deficiency disorders (IDD). Goitre is only the visible and most obvious form of IDD. Iodine deficient pregnant women can give birth to still births, have abortions, or give rise to irreversible brain damage in the developing fetus. Young infants and children can also become victims of mental retardation, psychomotor and intellectual malfunctioning. Cretinism, deaf-mutism, spastic paralysis of lower limbs, muscular atrophy, and growth failure are the severe manifestations of iodine deficiency, especially if in the initial stages of life.

So why do I say that u mustn’t be taking all this seriously? Because you all have iodized salt, which is one of the Public Health initiatives of governments world over, to fight this public health problem. But many developing countries and specifically the deprived and uneducated areas within these countries are yet unaware of the threat this deficiency poses and utilization and awareness about iodized salt is less. We need to spread the word that though it may cost a bit more than the non iodized salt but isn’t one’s health on topmost priority? (the good thing is that governments have made mandatory for all salt to be iodized, but some parts of the country still have non iodized salt, some unethical manufacturers may also mention that their salt is iodized but it might not, a simple test for this is to take some salt u have at home and put a drop of starch solution…appearance of blue color indicates presence of iodine, and darker the color, more the iodine)

Some countries have introduced iodized oil supplementation to overcome the looming iodine deficiency situation!!

Iodised salt is easy to recognize as such, because the packets in India have the smiling sun logo, which you would have seen by now

What adds to the situation is that though we do consume iodized salt, not many of us take the following measures to ensure that the iodine of the iodized salt at our homes, doesn’t get destroyed….even I didn’t but I will from now on…try to follow these simple effective measures:

1. Store your salt in dark, air tight bottles
2. Store your salt bottles away from light
3. Its convenient yes, to store salt in a common masala box, but don’t….exposed salt will have lesser iodine in it…which will keep decreasing
4. Never dip a wet spoon into your salt container, keep this in mind when you’re in a hurry while cooking and use the same spoon used for cooking and stirring, to take some salt out.
5. Don’t overcook your food and try adding salt towards the end.

With efforts like mandatory salt iodization, the severity of IDD has indeed been arrested to some extent, but a lot of efforts are needed to conquer such public health problems and a few simple measures like the ones mentioned, also contribute bit by bit…. Apart from of course, consuming iodine rich foods like sea foods, eggs, milk, root vegetables like potato. Also how about planting more trees to prevent washing away of iodine from soils…and doing environment a favour too?? )

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