Human milk iodine content

Hemken, R. W. 1980. Milk and meat iodine content Relation to human health. J. Am. Vet. Med. Assoc. 176, 1119-1121. 

In 1985, to combat iodine deficiency in the former state of East Germany, salt for human consumption was iodized and iodine was added to animal feed (Anke et al., 1993). Eliminating iodine deficiency in farm animals improved the iodine content of milk and eggs. This further increased the dietary iodine intake of East Germans (see section The Effect of Iodine Intake on the Iodine Gontent of Eggs, Meat and Milk ). The program successfully reduced iodine deficiency in both humans and farm animals, and could be used as a model for iodine supplementation in other countries. 

The iodine content in cows milk constitutes a considerable part of the iodine intake in humans. It is important to consult nutritionists and others working with human health if a change in the iodine supplement to cows is being considered. 

Approximately 80% of iodine in human milk is present as L, while, mainly, another six high molecular weight iodine containing molecules (Braetter et al., 1998) account for the remaining 20%. European breast milk samples have been determined to contain 95 + 60 pg/l total iodine. The total iodine content varied depending on the lactation state, and iodine was associated with fat at approximately 30% and 70% of the low molecular weight fraction (Michalke, 2006). A study of iodine species in milk samples obtained from humans from several different European countries and in infant formulas from different manufacturers was carried out by Femandez-Sanchez and Szpunar (Fernandez-Sanchez Szpunar, 1999). The authors also developed a method to determine iodine in human milk and infant formulas using ICP-MS. In the human milk the values found were between 144 + 93.2 pg/ kg, whereas in the infant formulas the values were 53.3 + 19.5 (Fernandez-Sanchez et al., 2007). 

Hemkin, R. W., "Milk and Meat Iodine Content Relation to Human Health," Journal of the American Veterinary Medicine Association, Vol. 176, No. 10, pp. 1119-1121. 

In order to use your procedure, that is the TSH values obtained from the screening of congenital hypothyroidism, how important is it to standardize the conditions For instance, does the variability of iodine in human colostrum play a role Is there a difference in relation to the time of initiation of breastfeeding Is it different if the newborn gets its iodine supplement from maternal milk or from formula milk How do you control for the differences in the iodine content of formula milk, since we saw during this meeting that 100 % differences may be found between various types of formula milk. 

No studies of humans have demonstrated inhibition of iodide transport into breast milk of mothers from thiocyanate in diet. In many countries the most important determinant of thiocyanate levels in blood is tobacco smoking, as discussed above, and smoking is associated with similar increases in thiocyanate in blood as may be found from diets with high cyanide content. We therefore investigated the effect of maternal smoking on iodine transfer to the breast-fed neonate. 

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