The Study on the Urinary Iodine Excretion of Koreans Living in Rural Areas

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

More accurate evaluation of iodine consumption of Koreans can be made by measuring the urinary iodine excretion of people living in representative areas. The data about average iodine excretions by region, sex and age were gathered in order to suggest as a factor the criteria on the progress or prognosis of thyroid disease patients. This study was conducted on 3,000 subjects (2,000 Younggwang-gun residents and 1,000 Muan-gun residents) between July 2004 and August 2005. The data sampling was done based on stratified random sampling and the data were analyzed according to age (the subjects were divided into age groups, five years each) and sex of the subjects. Of the 3,000 subjects, a total of 1,592 people (1,174 in Younggwang-gun and 418 in Muan-gun) participated in this study, which used ISE (iodine ion selective electrode) to measure the concentration of iodine in urine. The 1,592 subjects are composed of 732 males and 860 females. The average urinary iodine excretion was $3.10{\pm}1.75mg/L$ (0.31~15.2 mg/L). The average iodine excretion of males was $3.09{\pm}1.61mg/L$ (0.42~15.2 mg/L) while it was $3.11{\pm}1.86mg/L$ (0.31~12.5 mg/L) among females, which represents no significant difference between males and females. However, the values were significantly higher than those of Europeans and Americans. There were statistically significant differences among the regions. When the data were analyzed according to age, females in their 40s were found to have a little less urinary iodine excretion and males had less and less iodine excretion as they get older. These results are deemed to have a statistically significant difference. This study was conducted on a large number of people (N=1,592) for the first time in Korea. If the data collected through this study can be regarded as the average urinary iodine excretion of Koreans, it is possible to conclude that the average iodine consumptions of Koreans are a lot more than Europeans and Americans. Thus, the effect of much iodine consumption should be studied further.