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Iodine status and associated dietary factors among preschool children in Shanghai

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Abstract

Children aged 3–6 years undergo a critical stage of growth and development and are irreversibly affected by their iodine status. In order to reveal iodine status in preschool children, we detected iodine concentrations in urine samples from 1382 children aged 3–6 years based on a cross-sectional study. The median urinary iodine concentration (UIC) of children was 193.36 μg/L and was 336.96 μg/g·Cr corrected for creatinine. The study developed a link between dietary habits and iodine status, revealing that regular calcium supplement (OR: 1.79, (95% CI: 1.03, 3.12)) increased deficiency risk, while moderate seafood consumption (OR: 0.60, (95% CI: 0.38, 0.95)) decreased it. Additionally, modest intake of shellfish (OR: 0.58, (95% CI: 0.33, 1.00)), vegetables (OR: 0.61, (95% CI: 0.38, 0.97)), and eggs (OR: 0.53, (95% CI: 0.30, 0.95)) was found to protect against excess iodine. The findings underline the importance of balanced diets and various nutrients’ roles in preschoolers’ iodine status.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are not openly available due to the inclusion of information that could compromise the subject’s privacy, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This study received financial support from the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFC1600500) and the National Basic Research Program of China (“973” Program; Grant No. 2012CB525001). The sponsor had no role in the study design, data analysis and interpretation, manuscript preparation, review, or approval.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200025, China

    Jing Li & Yu-Qing Wang

  2. Ministry of Education-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, Xinhua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, No. 1665, Kongjiang Road, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Jun-Xia Liu, An-Xin Lu, Yi-Hong Wang, Yin Lin & Chong-Huai Yan

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  1. Jing Li
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Contributions

JL: conceptualization, formal analysis, writing original draft and editing. JL: methodology and software. YW: investigation, formal analysis, and visualization. AL: investigation and visualization. YW: formal analysis and software. YL: methodology and data curation. CY: conceptualization, supervised the study, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Chong-Huai Yan.

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This research was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Xinhua Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and was performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from children’s parents recruited in the study.

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Li, ., Liu, JX., Wang, YQ. et al. Iodine status and associated dietary factors among preschool children in Shanghai. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 121823–121833 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-30942-6

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