I appreciate the interest and concern shown by Dr Kapil regarding the high
urinary iodine excretion in Delhi children from upper socioeconomic
strata. We have earlier also shown high UIE using the same method from
Delhi and other cities(1). Similar trend of high UIE has also been
reported from Delhi in another study(2). While we have not looked at the
patterns of food consumption, salt consumption or estimation of salt
iodine content, the sources of excess UIE remains speculative and this has
been accepted by us in our paper.
The number of samples studied (1000 approx) for
evaluating UIE in a sub group of USES children is by no means a small
number. I agree with Dr Kapil that different methodologies can report
different values of UIE, but we have used the same Wet Ashing method using
perchloric acid vanadate as in earlier studies.
References
1. Marwaha RK, Tandon N, Gupta N, Karak AK, Verma K,
Kochupillai N. Residual goitre in the postiodization phase: iodine status,
thiocyanate exposure and autoimmunity. Clin Endocrinol 2003; 59: 672-681.
2. Pandav CS, Mallik A, Anand K, Pandav S, Karmarkar
MG. Prevalence of iodine deficiency disorders among school children of
Delhi. Natl Med J India 1997; 10: 112-114.