Abstract
In the 1950’s, Brazil adopted the iodination of the cooking salt to defeat chronic iodine deficiency diseases. The Federal government has been performing national inquiries periodically about the occurrence of endemic goiter in schools, adopting the urinary excretion of iodine and the thyroid volume as result indicators. The determination of the iodine concentration in the cooking salt has also been used as a determinant factor in these results analysis. This bibliographic review aims to present the actions taken by the Brazilian government in relation to iodine deficiency since the beginning of iodization policy of culinary salt in the 50’s decade, the results achieved and the situation of excess iodine found in the Brazilian population at the present time. These measures systematically adopted by the Brazilian government, supported in laws, ordinances and ministry resolutions, have shown to be efficient instruments in the reduction of endemic goiter. Nowadays, the prevalence of goiter in the Brazilian population is between the parameters established by the World Health Organization, which means less than 5% of the population affected. Nevertheless, the last survey made by the Health Ministry highlighted an excessive ingestion of iodine, exposing the population to other health risks associated to this excess.
Highlights
Iodine is an element essential to health, directly related to thyroid gland functioning, to adequate nervous system development and to general body growth [1]
Inadequate iodine ingestion is associated to several diseases identified as Iodine Chronic Deficiency Diseases (ICDD): Neonatal and adult hypothyroidism, multinodular goiter, iodine-induced hyperthyroidism, fertility decrease, fetal malformation, perinatal mortality, deaf-mutism and clinical variants of endemic cretinism [2,3]
Iodized salt for human consumption is considered the most effective measure to achieve appropriate iodine levels for populations. It is the universal strategy adopted in public health, without iodized salt some two billion people would have iodine deficiency, while the actual number is 700 million [4]
Summary
Iodine is an element essential to health, directly related to thyroid gland functioning, to adequate nervous system development and to general body growth [1]. Inadequate iodine ingestion is associated to several diseases identified as Iodine Chronic Deficiency Diseases (ICDD): Neonatal and adult hypothyroidism, multinodular goiter, iodine-induced hyperthyroidism, fertility decrease, fetal malformation, perinatal mortality, deaf-mutism and clinical variants of endemic cretinism [2,3]. Iodized salt for human consumption is considered the most effective measure to achieve appropriate iodine levels for populations. It is the universal strategy adopted in public health, without iodized salt some two billion people would have iodine deficiency, while the actual number is 700 million [4]. Populational programs of iodination of salt in every continent have significantly limited illnesses related to chronic iodine deficiency. There are still 266 million children and two billion adults living in the world with insufficient ingestion of iodine [5]
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