JanineCretinism, salt and bread - what do they have in common?
July 29th 2008 13:46
Eat iodised salt! (photo: UNSW Embryology
Definitions range from the slightly unhelpful "idiot: a person of subnormal intelligence" to the more precise "a person who fails to develop mentally and physically due to a congenital deficiency of thyroid hormones".
This stunting of physical and particularly mental development is caused by iodine deficiency in expectant mothers and is the leading cuse of preventable mental retardation in the world
(UNSW has a great summary of what it is and why it happens). It's common in mountainous countries such as Nepal, Pakistan and Ecuador. Its prevention, however, is trivially simple: eating iodised salt.
Nepal in particular has tackled cretinism by an aggressive campaign of providing iodised salt to even the remotest regions of the country. As this article from the Nepali Times says, goitres (indications of iodine deficiency) in Nepalese people are the lowest the author has ever seen and as consequence, fewer children are being born with cretinism than ever before.
This in itself is not news - I remember seeing a doumentary on this issue years ago and UNICEF and other organisations have been working with the Nepalese for 25 years. But what was shocking, even then, was that iodine deficiency is becoming common in places such as Australia.
It's so common that our rates of children born with preventable mental retardation and brain damage are rising alarmingly. Even mild iodine deficiency results in reduction of average IQ and fewer gifted children.
Apparently one recent study into iodine levels of school children in mainland Australia showed that about 50% are classified as mildly or moderately iodine deficient and other studies have shown that 50% of pregnant women in NSW and Victoria are iodine deficient to various degrees.
It takes only 150 micrograms of iodine a day to prevent these conditions and the simplest way to get that iodine is to do what the Nepalese did - use iodised salt. But the rise of the use of rock salt and the like by celebrity chefs means that humble iodised salt isn't chic anymore...
So the Australian Academy of Science recently held a meeting of experts to discuss this issue and is backing the mandated use of iodised salt in all breads but is still concerned that pregnant women may still not be getting enough. They also want to see to see a government-funded monitoring program on the iodine status of Australians, and an education program for pregnant women.
It's incredible to me that for a developed country, we are seeing rising rates of preventable mental retardation, all for the sake of eating one salt over another. If Nepal can get it right, why can't we?
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