iodine deficiency dietary problem from the past is coming back, Doctor reveals

[gurusforum]

BOOK INTERNATIONAL FLIGHTS TICKETS LOCAL FLIGHTS HOTELS BOOKINGS WORLDWIDE AND MORE AT CHEAPEST RATE EVER! CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR FLIGHT AND RECEIVE YOUR FLIGHT TICKET INSTANTLY

The 13-year-old boy came to the clinic with a rapidly ballooning neck. Doctors were puzzled.

Testing ruled out their first suspicion. But further tests pinpointed what they — and the boy — had been missing: iodine.

A century ago, iodine deficiency affected kids across large swaths of the country. It essentially disappeared after some food makers started adding it to table salt, bread and some other foods, in one of the great public health success stories of the 20th century.

But today, people are getting less iodine because of changes in diet and food manufacturing.

Although most people are still getting enough, researchers have increasingly been reporting low levels of iodine in pregnant women and other people, raising concerns about an impact on their newborns. And there is also a very small, but growing, number of reports of iodine deficiency in kids.

"This needs to be on people's radar," said Dr. Monica Serrano-Gonzalez, a Brown University doctor who treated the boy in 2021 in Providence, Rhode Island.