Dear all: My doctoral dissertation topic was supposed to be on interventions for iodine deficiency. So, given the recent post about increases in iodine deficiency I thought I'd put in my 0.02 ml. on the topic. First, most competitive inhibitors of iodine uptake can be overridden by increasing the intake of iodine. One of the worst was thiocyanate which was metabolized from eating a particular type of cassave in the Democratic Republic of Congo and other adjoining counries. This interfered with iodine uptake and exacerbated an existing problem of lack of iodine in the soil. The area in the north east was a basin where the natural content was low. The midwest also suffers from this problem. Essentially, if the iodine content of the soil had not been a problem, the thiocyanate would have had a very minimal impact on the extent of iodine deficiency. Ditto for most other competitive inhibitors. On a worldwide scale the more important problem regarding than the usually relatively minor impact of competiative inhibitors is the washing out of the iodine in the soil from environmental degradation. The more washing away of the soil, the more likely it is that the natural iodine content in the soil will be lost. And in some areas, the iodine content was too low to support healthy thyroid function in a proportion of the population even before the degradation occurred. Flood plains and mountains used to be the cites of deficiency. That has now expanded. I am not surprised that this is being paid attention to in Australia. Australia has a large group of endocrinologists who have studied iodine deficiency in sheep and also in Papua New Guinea and other nearby locales where it is endemic. Iodine in breast milk is fairly consistent with the iodine levels in mom. As has already been pointed out, you can have thyroid shutdown and iodine deficiency symptoms in those who have been subjected to an excess of iodine as well. The primary location where this occurs is Japan. The US currently has an overload of iodine in our diet even though soil content is low in the MidWest. Some of the endocrinologists in the US insisted this was due to the use of iodine to wash out dairy farm equipment. I read some pretty strange studies in my day about the absorption of iodine from vaginal douches. Best, Susan Burger *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html