Nutrition, Vitamins and Deficiency Diseases — Punjab Police previous year questions

Both goitre and cretinism are faces of the same disorder — iodine deficiency. Iodine is needed to make the thyroid hormones T3 and T4; when the diet lacks it the pituitary pours out TSH, the thyroid gland enlarges and the visible swelling of the neck is called goitre. In an adult the deficiency shows up chiefly as that swelling and as hypothyroidism, but if the mother is deficient during pregnancy or the child in infancy, the same deficiency stunts the growing brain and skeleton and appears as cretinism — severe mental retardation, deaf-mutism, squint and dwarfism. This is why India runs the National Iodine Deficiency Disorders Control Programme and has made the sale of iodised salt universal. Lethargy (option 2) is only a symptom, anaemia (option 3) is caused mainly by iron, folate or B12 deficiency, and shortness of breath (option 4) is a symptom of anaemia or heart and lung disease, not of iodine deficiency. Correct option: 1.