Summary of an NIH Workshop to Identify Research Needs to Improve the Monitoring of Iodine Status in the United States and to Inform the DRI

Abstract

The Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) at the NIH sponsored a workshop on May 12-13, 2011, to bring together representatives from various NIH institutes and centers as a first step in developing an NIH iodine research initiative. The workshop also provided an opportunity to identify research needs that would inform the dietary reference intakes for iodine, which were last revised in 2001. Iodine is required throughout the life cycle, but pregnant women and infants are the populations most at risk of deficiency, because iodine is required for normal brain development and growth. The CDC monitors iodine status of the population on a regular basis, but the status of the most vulnerable populations remains uncertain. The NIH funds very little investigator-initiated research relevant to iodine and human nutrition, but the ODS has worked for several years with a number of other U.S. government agencies to develop many of the resources needed to conduct iodine research of high quality (e.g., validated analytical methods and reference materials for multiple types of samples). Iodine experts, scientists from several U.S. government agencies, and NIH representatives met for 2 d to identify iodine research needs appropriate to the NIH mission.

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“…Iodine is ingested from a variety of sources and its intake is currently assessed by urinary concentration. Urinary iodine values of 100-199 lg/L (150-249 in pregnancy) are considered indicative of adequate iodine intake (32). There are no U.S. population data on urinary iodine before 1970, but landmark studies by David Marine during the World War I period showed a high prevalence of goiter in the Great Lakes area and the serious consequences of iodine deficiency (33,34), marking de facto the beginning of iodine supplementation in this country.…”

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“…30 The IOM recommends an iodine intake from dietary and supplement sources of 150 mcg per day pre-conception, and 220 mcg per day for pregnant women. 31 …”

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“…In contrast, high thyroid volume is an indicator of longterm iodine deficiency that may persist for years after iodine repletion (Zimmermann et al, 2006). Serum thyroglobulin (Tg), a thyroid protein that facilitates the uptake and storage of iodine in the thyroid gland, has been proposed as a biomarker of intermediate-term population iodine nutrition status (weeks to months) based on associations with UIC (Knudsen et al, 2001;Krejbjerg et al, 2016;Swanson et al, 2012;Vejbjerg et al, 2009), and sensitivity to changes in iodine status following iodine supplementation (Gordon et al, 2009;Ma and Skeaff, 2014;Skeaff and Lonsdale-Cooper, 2013;Vejbjerg et al, 2009;Zimmermann et al, 2006).…”