OBJECTIVETo know about content of iodine in foods sold in Tianjing markets presently, and the iodine nutrition conditions in college students. It was also aimed to probe the functions of the iodized salt complement with the dietary iodine intake, and whether the urine iodine could reflect dietary iodine intake.

METHODS278 food samples in markets were collected by a randomly stratified sampling method, while the arsenic-cerium catalytic contact method was used to determine the content in food. The dietary information of students for seven days was recorded, and the urine iodine was determined through the arsenic-cerium catalytic spectrophotometry.

RESULTSThe determination of 47 kinds and 278 food samples indicated that the content of iodine within animal foods (7.8 microg/100 g - 30.8 microg/100 g) was higher than that within plant foods (1.8 microg/100 g - 16.1 microg/100 g). The investigation also showed that students who regarded vegetarian food as principle accounted for 70. 19%. The amount of dietary iodine intake among those students, based on the dietary survey, was (111.67 +/- 53.18) microg/d, while supplementary iodine from iodized salt was about (230.27 +/- 45.55) microg/d. Therefore, the total iodine provided from diet would be (341.95 +/- 89.58) microg/d. Modified by urine creatinine, the median of urine iodine was 271.28 microg/gCr, and the urine iodine and dietary iodine intake was found positively related (r(s) = 0.463, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONSRegarding the vegetarian food as the principle, most of students investigated are not rich. The dietary iodine intake is lower than RDA (150 microg), but it can be obtained the iodized salt by 230. 27 microg, which is the possible supplement to the shortage from foods.