https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(13)60937-X.pdf

Maternal and child undernutrition and overweight in low-income and middle-income countries

Sustainable Development Goals

This 11th edition of the book Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, featuring the work of more than 190 expert authors and divided into five parts, fully explains and encapsulates the fundamentals of nutrition and its role in contemporary society, from mastering the basic science of nutrient metabolism and function to applying nutritional concepts to combat human disease. Part I comprehensively covers specific dietary components, including major dietary constituents, minerals, vitamins and other Other CABI sites 

Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease

Compare your culture to one of the cultures discussed in this unit. On a sheet of paper, list the cultures you are comparing and make one column titled “similarities,” and a second column titled “differences.” Now, list as many similarities and differences between the two as you can think of. Are there more similarities or differences between the two cultures you selected? Have you ever met anyone from this culture? How can you use this information to build greater respect between cultures?

Similarities and Differences

by J. Biggs and C. Tang, Maidenhead, England,
Open University Press, 2007, 360 pp., £29.99, ISBN-13: 978-0-335-22126-4

Teaching for quality learning at university

Iodine supplementation improves cognition in mildly iodine-deficient children

Iodine is an integral part of the thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and tri-iodothyronine (T3), necessary for normal growth and development. An adequate supply of cerebral T3, generated in the fetal brain from maternal free T4 (fT4), is needed by the fetus for thyroid hormone dependent neurodevelopment, which begins in the second half of the first trimester of pregnancy. Around the beginning of the second trimester the fetal thyroid also begins to produce hormones but the reserves of the fetal gland are low, thus maternal thyroid hormones contribute to total fetal thyroid hormone concentrations until birth. In order for pregnant women to produce enough thyroid hormones to meet both her own and her baby’s requirements, a 50% increase in iodine intake is recommended. A lack of iodine in the diet may result in the mother becoming iodine deficient, and subsequently the fetus. In iodine deficiency, hypothyroxinemia (i.e., low maternal fT4) results in damage to the developing brain, which is further aggravated by hypothyroidism in the fetus. The most serious consequence of iodine deficiency is cretinism, characterised by profound mental retardation. There is unequivocal evidence that severe iodine deficiency in pregnancy impairs brain development in the child. However, only two intervention trials have assessed neurodevelopment in children of moderately iodine deficient mothers finding improved neurodevelopment in children of mothers supplemented earlier rather than later in pregnancy; both studies were not randomised and were uncontrolled. Thus, there is a need for well-designed trials to determine the effect of iodine supplementation in moderate to mildly iodine deficient pregnant women on neurodevelopment in the child.

/pdf/iodine-deficiency-in-pregnancy-the-effect-on-rciprdduq3.pdf

Iodine deficiency in pregnancy: the effect on neurodevelopment in the child.

Background: Thyroglobulin, produced exclusively by the thyroid gland, has been proposed to be a more sensitive biomarker of iodine status than thyrotropin or the thyroid hormones triiodothyronine and thyroxine. However, evidence on the usefulness of thyroglobulin (Tg) to assess iodine status has not been extensively reviewed, particularly in pregnant women and adults. Summary: An electronic literature search was conducted using the Cochrane CENTRAL, Web of Science, PubMed, and Medline to locate relevant studies on Tg as a biomarker of iodine status. Since urinary iodine concentration (UIC) is the recommended method to assess iodine status in populations, only studies that clearly reported both Tg and UIC were included. For the purpose of this review, a median Tg <13 μg/L and a median UIC ≥100 μg/L (UIC ≥150 μg/L for pregnant women) were used to indicate adequate iodine status. We excluded studies conducted in subjects with either known thyroid disease or those with thyroglobulin antibodies. The search str...

/pdf/thyroglobulin-as-a-biomarker-of-iodine-deficiency-a-review-4fwxcxcl1m.pdf

Thyroglobulin as a Biomarker of Iodine Deficiency: A Review

Breast-milk iodine concentration declines over the first 6 mo postpartum in iodine-deficient women

Objective: To assess the iodine status of New Zealand schoolchildren. Design: A proportionate to population size school-based cluster survey was used to randomly select children from two cities. The indicators used to assess iodine status were urinary iodine, as determined in a casual urine sample, and thyroid volume, as measured by ultrasonography. A qualitative food frequency questionnaire designed to ascertain frequency of consumption over the previous 3 months of foods or food groups that are good sources of dietary iodine, including iodized salt, was administered to each child. Setting: Dunedin and Wellington, New Zealand. Participants: Three-hundred children aged 8–10 y from 30 schools. Results: The median urinary iodine concentration of the children was 6.6 µg/dl (interquartile range, 4.5–9.1). The percentage of children who had urinary iodine levels less than 5 µg/dl was 31.4 (95% confidence interval (CI), 24.2–38.6). Comparison of thyroid volume with 2001 World Health Organization age/sex-specific and age/BSA-specific cut-off values resulted in a goitre prevalence of 11.3% (95% CI, 7.6–15.1) and 12.0% (95% CI, 7.9–16.1), respectively. Almost 30% of the children's caregivers did not use iodized salt in cooking and 51% of the children did not use iodized salt at the table. Conclusions: Mild iodine deficiency was found in this sample of children. Iodized table salt may no longer be making a significant contribution to the iodine intakes of New Zealand children. Sponsorship: This research was funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Ministry of Health in New Zealand.

Sheila Skeaff

Papers

Iodine supplementation improves cognition in mildly iodine-deficient children

Iodine deficiency in pregnancy: the effect on neurodevelopment in the child.

Thyroglobulin as a Biomarker of Iodine Deficiency: A Review

Breast-milk iodine concentration declines over the first 6 mo postpartum in iodine-deficient women

Mild iodine deficiency in a sample of New Zealand schoolchildren.