Research Article Current Iodine Nutrition Status and Awareness of Iodine Deficiency in Tuguegarao, Philippines

Copyright © 2014 Bu Kyung Kim et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The Philippines is one of the countries where adequate iodine status has been achieved. However, iodine deficiency still remains an important public health problem in this country. In this study, we evaluated iodine nutrition status and investigated an awareness status of iodine deficiency targeting high school students of Tuguegarao, Philippines. A total of 260 students provided samples for urinary iodine analysis, among which 146 students completed thyroid volumemeasurement by ultrasonography and answering the questionnaires.Themedian urinary iodine level was 355.