Young lack iodine to ward off goitre and retardation

Health Ministry officials are considering recommending iodine supplements for pregnant women to try to halt a return to the "bad old days" of widespread goitre and mental retardation problems.

Food Safety Authority policy director Carole Inkster said research would be published soon by the University of Otago that showed 30 per cent of children were consuming too little iodine in their diet.

A generation of children was at risk of the effects of iodine deficiency, including mental retardation, said Ms Inkster.

The present addition of iodine to table salt was falling short of dietary needs, partly because of trends for people to add less salt to their food, and partly because people no longer inadvertently received a small amount of iodine in their milk.

Chemicals called iodophors were once used to clean dairy equipment and left trace amounts of iodine in the national milk supply.

New Zealand has a low level of iodine in its soil in some regions and goitre - thyroid enlargement - used to be endemic, with 30 per cent of schoolchildren having significant thyroid enlargement and another third of them having some increase in the size of the gland.

"We're talking to the Ministry of Health about encouraging iodine for pregnant women," Ms Inkster said.

A form of iodine supplement was available in Australia.

- NZPA