Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Excessive iodine intake can cause iodine overnutrition, goiter and other thyroid disease. This study is to probe the determinants of children’s iodine nutrition and their goitrous and nodular prevalence in areas with excessive iodine in drinking water in Hebei province of China. Methods Three townships were selected by simple random sampling among the 8 townships with median water iodine being 200–300 μg/l in Hengshui prefecture of Hebei province. No less than 200 children aged 8–10 years old were randomly selected in each of the 3 townships to measure their thyroid volume by ultrasound, and to detect the urinary iodine of half of them. Drinking water samples were also collected by systematic sampling in the villages where these children lived to measure the iodine content. Results The median urinary iodine of 326 children aged 8–10 years in these 3 townships ranged from 478.4 to 571.3 μg/l, and the portions of urinary samples with iodine content over 300 μg/l varied from 77.9% to 86.6%. Children’s median urinary iodine had a linear correlation with median water iodine in 12 villages of these 3 townships(R=0.83, F=22.0, P=0.001), and the linear regression equation was as followed: urinary iodine=318.1+0.829*water iodine. A total of 452 children aged 8–10 years was measured by ultrasound in these 3 townships, identifying 37 cases of goiter with goiter rate being 8.2%. There was no significant difference in goiter rates across gender and age groups. In 2 out of the 3 townships, 15 cases of nodules were detected with average detection rate being 5.6%. The detection rates across gender and age groups were not significantly different. Conclusions Children’s urinary iodine in these areas was excessive which mainly derived from iodine excess in drinking water. Goiter prevailed in these areas, and a high detection rate of thyroid nodules was also identified.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This work was supported, however funding details unavailable.