Endemic goiter in Greece: nutritional status, growth, and skeletal development of goitrous and nongoitrous populations

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Abstract
The height, weight, skin-fold thickness, and bone age were measured in 395 goitrous and 314 nongoitrous children living in four villages with endemic goiter comparatively with 493 nongoitrous children living in three goiter-free villages. There was no significant difference between the goitrous and nongoitrous children living in the endemic areas, but all these children as a group presented a lower body height, a smaller body weight, a thinner skin fold, and delayed bone maturation, comparatively, than the children living in the goiter-free villages. Similarly, 81 goitrous and 198 nongoitrous men more than 40 years old and living in six villages with endemic goiter were compared with 119 nongoitrous men from two goiter-free villages. The control subjects were shorter but heavier and with a larger skin fold than the men living in the endemic areas and had a higher level of serum cholesterol, triglyceride, vitamin A, and carotenes. There was no significant difference in the serum folate, except for the higher values in the nongoitrous men from the endemic areas. We concluded that 1) endemic goiter is associated with evidence of generalized malnutrition, 2) nongoitrous persons living in the endemic areas cannot be considered as metabolically normal controls, and 3) more research is required to define the role, if any, of generalized undernutrition in the pathogenesis of iodine deficiency goiter.

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