Iodine status during pregnancy in India and related neonatal and infant outcomes

Objective: To document iodine status in Indian pregnancies, associations with maternal diet and demographics, and offspring developmental measures. Design: Longitudinal study following mothers through pregnancy and offspring up to 24 months. Setting: Rural health-care centre (Vadu) and urban antenatal clinic (Pune) in the Maharashtra region of India. Subjects: Pregnant mothers at 17 (n 132) and 34 weeks’ (n 151) gestation and their infants from birth to the age of 24 months. Results: Median urinary iodine concentration (UIC) was 203 and 211 μg/l at 17 and 34 weeks of pregnancy, respectively (range 26–800 μg/l). Using the UIC distribution adjusted for within-person variation, extreme UIC quartiles were compared for predictors and outcomes. There was no correlation between UIC at 17 and 34 weeks, but 24 % of those with UIC in the lowest quartile at 17 weeks had UIC in the same lowest quartile at 34 weeks. Maternal educational, socio-economic status and milk products consumption (frequency) were different between the lowest and highest quartile of UIC at 34 weeks. Selected offspring developmental outcomes differed between the lowest and highest UIC quartiles (abdominal circumference at 24 months, subscapular and triceps skinfolds at 12 and 24 months). However, UIC was only a weak predictor of subscapular skinfold at 12 months and of triceps skinfold at 24 months. Conclusions: Median UIC in this pregnant population suggested adequate dietary provision at both gestational stages studied. Occasional high results found in spot samples may indicate intermittent consumption of iodine-rich foods. Maternal UIC had limited influence on offspring developmental outcomes

Investigation of structural and magnetic properties of thermal plasma-synthesized Fe_1-xNi_x alloy nanoparticles

Structural and magnetic properties of thermal plasma synthesized Fe1-xNix (x = 0.25, 0.33, 0.50, 0.67 and 0.75) alloy nanoparticles have been investigated using x-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, dc magnetization, and Mössbauer spectroscopy techniques. High temperature gas phase nucleation and growth environment inside thermal plasma reactor facilitate stabilization of the disordered γ-FeNi (fcc) phase throughout (except for x = 0.25) the composition range under investigation. For x = 0.25 composition, a small (∼8%) amount of the disordered bcc phase along with prominent fcc (∼92%) phase is present, as inferred from the neutron diffraction data analysis. The spherical shaped nanoparticles possess high crystallinity. The average crystallite size (in 30–40 nm range) as well as particle size distribution show insignificant change as a function of composition. The observed value of the saturation magnetic moment for these nanoparticles are very close to that for their bulk counterparts, indicate highly crystalline nature of the thermal plasma synthesized nanoparticles. Room temperature Mössbauer spectroscopic data reveals that the alloy nanoparticles contain two different sites for Fe corresponding to high moment/low moment states. The neutron diffraction data indicates ferromagnetic ordering for all the compositions of the series. The average magnetic moments/f.u., derived from neutron diffraction and dc magnetization, are found to match with each other as well as with the values reported in the literature for bulk Fe1-xNix alloys. The highest ordered magnetic moment was found to be 1.4 μB per f.u. for Fe0.50Ni0.50 composition. Overall, thermal plasma based synthesis is found to be an excellent route to produce high-quality nanoparticles of the binary metallic alloys