Iodine Excess May Lead to Low Exam Score in Children Aged 8–10 Years

Recent research has shown that iodine excess may damage children’s intelligence. Years of monitoring results in Shanghai show the iodine status has approached the upper limit of the appropriate range for children aged 8–10 years, indicating a risk of iodine excess. We used multi-stage random sampling to select children. Sixteen districts of Shanghai were divided into five units based on geographic location, and one primary school was randomly selected from each unit. In each selected school, about 40 children aged 8–10 years were randomly recruited to measure their urinary iodine concentration (UIC), household salt iodine concentration (SIC), the score of the final unified exam of the last semester, and school canteen salt iodine concentration. The median UIC of 3213 children aged 8–10 years in Shanghai was 195.4 (122.0, 285.8) µg/L and exceeded 200 µg/L in 48.8% of the population. Household and school canteen iodized salt coverage rates were 60.3% and 82.5% respectively, and mean household and school canteen SICs were 21.51 ± 9.30 mg/kg and 25.29 ± 3.40 mg/kg respectively. By correcting for potential confounding factors, logistic regression demonstrated that compared to the adequate iodine status group, students in the slight iodine excess group were less likely to get “A” (score > 90) in math, Chinese, and English exams (Math: OR = 0.775, 95% CI = 0.660–0.911, P = 0.002; Chinese: OR = 0.707, 95% CI = 0.543–0.842, P < 0.001; English: OR = 0.720, 95% CI = 0.610–0.849, P < 0.001). In Shanghai, the iodine status of 8–10-year-old children is approaching the upper limit of the adequate range. Iodine excess in Shanghai may lead to low exam scores for students.