What's In YOUR Salt?

What if you had to name the top 10 inventions or discoveries that benefit your life every day? Would iodized salt be on your list? It should!

Morton Salt Company's label when it introduced iodized salt in 1924.

It has been estimated that one-third to one-half of the world's people do not get enough iodine, an essential mineral, from food and water. Perhaps you learned in school that iodine helps prevent goiters. But iodine (a Greek term originally meaning "violet") provides many other benefits. It can combat:

• Bacteria


• Viruses


• Parasites


• And even some cancers.

It can also prevent mental slowness. One report suggests that iodine deficiency causes an unnecessary loss of over 1 billion IQ points worldwide. Even in the U.S., many pregnant women are iodine deficient.

Iodine deficiency is a significant issue throughout the world. It can cause or contribute to:

• Mental retardation
  
• Infertility


• Infections


• Muscle constriction


• Fatigue


• Chronic sinus infection

In the U.S., iodine became a major part of our diet in the mid 1920s. That's when iodized salt became commonly available thanks to pioneering work by two physicians, one in Michigan and one in Ohio (location of a large salt mine--Cleveland). Morton Salt Company and Diamond Crystal Salt Company (now part of Cargill) endorsed their work. Now we rarely hear about people getting goiters. But we often overlook iodine's other benefits.

There is an effort underway to spread the good word throughout the world about the benefits of iodized salt. It's not a glamorous campaign, so it doesn't inspire many bold headlines. But a panel of global economists, called the Copenhagen Consensus, has studied the most cost-effective solutions to the world's problems. They determined that iodine and other so called micronutrients (vitamin A, iron, zinc and folic acid) should be at the top of foreign aid spending priorities.

Quick Vue: These are two very brief videos (about 1.5 minutes each). The first takes you to Nepal for a look at efforts to educate people about the benefits of iodized salt. In the second video Wener Schultinic, Associate Director of Nutrition at UNICEF, tells how UNICEF's efforts have been very successful particularly since it stopped seeing iodine deficiency as a public health issue. It now sees iodized salt as a developmental opportunity, enabling UNICEF to partner with governments and businesses.











Sources for this article included The New York Times, "Raising the World's IQ," by Nicholas D. Kristof (12/4/2008) and the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders.