A cluster of thyrotoxicosis associated with consumption of a soy milk product

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether a New Zealand cluster of thyrotoxicosis with low uptake on scintiscan was associated with soy milk consumption.Method: A case-control study was conducted, with controls matched by age, sex, and region. It also raises issues about public and health professional awareness of the potential health effects from food additives in some processed foods.

Iodine toxicity from soy milk and seaweed ingestion is associated with serious thyroid dysfunction

“…Between January and June 2010, 48 retrospective Australian cases of thyroid dysfunction associated with this brand of soy milk were also notified to local public health authorities (Katrina Knope, Coordinating Epidemiologist, OzFoodNet, Office of Health Protection, Department of Health and Ageing, June 2010, personal communication). A cluster of cases of thyrotoxicosis, linked to iodine toxicity from an unidentified soy milk, was also reported in New Zealand in 2005 11 …”

“…A cluster of cases of thyrotoxicosis, linked to iodine toxicity from an unidentified soy milk, was also reported in New Zealand in 2005. 11 The common practice by women from Japan and Korea of ingesting seaweed made into soup, sometimes in large quantities, to promote wellbeing in the mother and stimulate breast milk supply, does not appear to be widely known in the medical community. However, due to iodine transmission through breast milk, transient or even persistent hypothyroidism has been reported in neonates born to mothers who undertake this practice.…”

Adverse effects of plant food supplements and botanical preparations: a systematic review with critical evaluation of causality

“…Other case reports associated with G. max , with satisfactory demonstration of causality, are as follows: (i) gastrointestinal adverse effects, including enterocolitis, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhoea, gastric cancer and hepatitis ; (ii) thyroid dysfunction caused by the consumption of soybean ‘milk’ containing high levels of iodine ; (iii) bladder cancer ; and (iv) cases with different symptoms, such as hypophosphataemia in very‐low‐birthweight infants, fatal hypernatraemia, migraine, hypochloraemic alkalosis and transient methaemoglobinaemia .…”