In vivo assessment about the effects of a diet containing iodine-enriched foodstuffs. A pilot study in 30 volunteers

Background: Iodine deficiency (ID) still now represents one of the major worldwide health problems. ID is the result of insufficient dietary iodine intake. Iodine is an essential micronutrient but scarcely present in nature. The main strategy for the correction of ID is the fortification of table salt with iodide/iodine but Italy is far from reaching an iodized salt use higher 90% of population. Also because of the evidence for the risk on blood pressure, it is recommended to decrease the daily salt intake to less than 5 g/d. An opportunity to increase the iodine intake is the possibility to introduce iodine fortification in the industrial processing of foods. Aim: The aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of a diet containing iodized foods enriched during industry processing with protected iodized salt (Presal((R))). Subjects and methods: The evaluation of increasing of iodine intake was assessed by measuring the urinary iodine excretion (UIE) in 30 healthy volunteers who added to their alimentary habits a basket of iodine-enriched foodstuffs. Results: Median UIE at baseline was 105 mu g/l, 156 mu g/l during the enriched diet and 90.5 mu g/l a week after withdrawal of enriched diet. Conclusions: Stable iodized salt (Presal((R)) ) represents a good way to introduce iodine with the normal diet without increasing the normal consumption of salt for the healthy problems related to the blood pressure. The availability of stable iodized salt (Presal((R))) allows the preservation of iodine after cooking. (C) 2013, Editrice Kurtis