Does your diet contain iodine? [Archives:2006/974/Health]
Lita Mathews
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Salt is best known as a flavoring for food. In traditional medicine, it commonly was used in water to induce vomiting in cases such as poisoning. Such saline solution also was used as a purgative and as an enema to rid children of threadworms.
Sea salt, a salt obtained by evaporating seawater, is used in cooking and in products such as cosmetics. Its mineral content gives it a different taste from table salt, which mostly is sodium chloride. Sea salt typically doesn't contain as much of the essential nutrient iodine as does iodized table salt.
Iodine can be found naturally in air, water and soil. The most important source of natural iodine is the ocean. Approximately 400,000 tons of iodine escape from oceans every year as iodide in sea spray or as methyl iodide, produced by marine organisms. Iodine in air can combine with water particles and precipitate into water or soil. Iodine in soil combines with organic matter and remains in the same place for a long time. Plants growing in this soil may absorb iodine and then cattle and other animals will absorb iodine when they eat the plants, which help introduce the element into the food chain.
Iodine deficiency occurs in areas where there's little iodine in the diet – typically in remote inland areas, semi-arid equatorial climates and above sea level mountain plateaus. Although such lands are fertile enough, they lack significant iodides. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends 150 micrograms of iodine per day for both men and women, as it's an essential trace element necessary for proper production of thyroid hormones thyroxine and triiodothyronine.
Thyroid hormones play a very basic role in biology and iodine is the building material of these hormones, which are essential for growth, metabolism and the nervous system. Iodine deficiency gives rise to goiter, so-called endemic goiter and also is the leading cause of preventable mental retardation, which is caused by lack of thyroid hormone in an infant.
Iodine promotes healthy hair, nails, skin and teeth. Natural sources of iodine include seaweed, such as kelp and seafood. Salt for human consumption often is enriched with iodine. Iodine deficiency is combated by adding small amounts of iodine to table salt in the form of sodium iodide, potassium iodide and potassium iodate, which product is known as iodized salt. So next time, ask your grocer for iodized table salt.
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