Urinary iodide excretion in adults in Germany 2005 meets WHO target

Rainer Hampel; Gundolf Bennohr; Ansgar Gordalla; Harald Below

P785

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Endocrine Abstracts (2010) 22 P785

ECE2010 Poster Presentations Thyroid (122 abstracts)

Urinary iodide excretion in adults in Germany 2005 meets WHO target

Rainer Hampel ¹ , Gundolf Bennöhr ¹ , Ansgar Gordalla ¹ & Harald Below ²

Err

Author affiliations

¹Universitätsklinik für Innere Medizin, Abteilung für Endokrinologie und Stoffwechselkrankheiten, Rostock, Germany; ²Institut für Hygiene und Umweltmedizin, Universität, Greifswald, Germany.

Background: Recent regional and German wide investigations have shown that the abolition of the requirement to declare iodine in foodstuffs and the greater emphasis on information about goitre prevention led to an increase in urinary iodine excretion in German schoolchildren. There was also a decrease in thyroid size and goitre prevalence in children. No up to date results in adults for the whole of Germany are available.

Methods: In 2005, we examined the urinary iodine excretion in the spontaneous morning urine of 1538 healthy adults in 357 places from all over Germany. The iodine was measured by the Cer-arsenit method.

Results: The median iodine excretion amounted to 132 μg/l. There were no significant differences between age groups, sexes or regions. 64% had no iodine deficiency (>100 μg/l). In 23% the deficiency was slight (50–99 μg/l), in 10% moderate (20–49 μg/l) and in 3% there was severe iodine deficiency (<20 μg/l). 29% excreted >200 μg iodide per litre urine.

Conclusion: According to the WHO guidelines, there is no longer an iodine deficiency in German adults.