Daily physiological consumption of iron
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The system loses about 1-2 mg of iron daily and the same amounts of this element should be absorbed from the daily diet. The loss of this bioelement due to its natural physiological wear occurs through the digestive tract, skin, mucous membranes, urine and menstrual blood. If the loss of iron significantly exceeds its daily absorption from food - symptoms of anemia, commonly known as anemia, appear. [1]
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What does iron deficiency mean for the body?
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Iron deficiency prevents the production of red blood cells in the bone marrow. The result is anemia. Not enough red blood cells - it is a deficiency of hemoglobin and at the same time oxygen in the blood. Anemia reduces the supply of oxygen to the cells and disturbs intracellular breathing that provides the body with energy. It also disturbs venous blood from the metabolites of cellular metabolism - carbon dioxide, urea, etc. As a consequence, it disturbs the physical fitness and physiological efficiency of the whole system. Various symptoms are associated with the deficiency of energy substances and poisoning of blood and tissues with cellular metabolic products.
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Who is the most common threat to anemia?
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It is estimated that globally the risk of iron deficiency anemia covers up to 25% of the entire human population! One of the primary causes of this condition is malnutrition and hunger. In developed countries, which are civilized and not subject to the scourge of malnutrition - the threat of iron deficiency concerns mainly women (up to 10% of women in Europe) and partly of infants.
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Iron deficiency anemia
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Iron deficiency anemia (Latin: anemia sideropenica) occurs most frequently in infants between 6-18 months of age. The reason is the inadequate supply of the body to this element with increased demand. The most common causes of deficiency are reduced iron stores in fetal life, malabsorption and rapid development.
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The most important causes of iron deficiency are:
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- too low-iron diet (diet with a predominance of dairy foods - too alkaline, vegetarian diet, appetite disorders, defective weight loss (anorexia, bulimia) and
- malnutrition
- an excess in foods that impair the absorption of iron
- impaired iron absorption (conditions after gastrointestinal operations, diarrhea
malabsorption syndromes)
- digestive-secretory dysfunction of the gastrointestinal tract (e.g. acid-free gastric juice)
- cancers of the digestive system
- drug abuse (mainly deacidifying gastric juice, ie alkalizing
- impaired iron transport through blood
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Anemia often affects a woman
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A particular risk for women is iron deficiency during pregnancy. In pregnancy, iron plays a special role as it stimulates the hematopoietic activity of the bone marrow targeted at the fetus. Another relatively frequent and typical cause of anemia in women are prolonged and heavy menstrual bleeding.
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Dietary mistakes, physical effort
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Vegetarian diet and irrational weight loss drastically reduce the spare iron pool in the body, which may cause anemia. Iron deficiency also threatens athletes practicing the so-called endurance sports (long runs, gait, cycling, etc.), especially for elderly people doing such sports.
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The risk of anemia increases
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- pregnancy and breast-feeding in women
- heavy menstruation
- intensive growth in children
- exhaustive physical effort (in sportsmen)
- drastic weight loss, vegetarian diet
- debilitating diseases
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Other causes of deficient anemia
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We should know that anemia due to iron belongs to the so-called pernicious anemia. These are situations in which impaired production of red blood cells (erythrocytes) occurs due to a deficiency of folic acid, vitamin B12 or copper deficiency.
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Diseases and iron deficiency
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A significant iron deficiency can be caused
- bleeding from various organs (from the uterus, from the gastrointestinal tract);
- chronic inflammatory and infectious diseases,
- bone marrow cancer;
- impaired absorption in the digestive system;
- congenital and acquired deficiency of transferrin - a specific oxygen transporting protein.
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Anemia in the elderly
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In postmenopausal women and men in the fifth decade of life and older, the cause of chronic bleeding may be dysplastic changes within the digestive system - colon polyps, colorectal cancer. Another area of bleeding are ulcers in the stomach and duodenum. Also in this case, the presence of neoplastic lesions should be excluded.
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Diagnosis of anemia in blood laboratory analysis
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Anemia is mainly due to a shortage of red blood pigment - hemoglobin. Another cause and at the same time the picture of the diagnosis is the abnormal ratio of the volume of red blood cells to the volume of whole blood dry matter - the so-called wrong hematocrit and too few normal red blood cells - erythrocytes. Most often, anemia is diagnosed in the popular measurement of hemoglobin in the blood - if the concentration of this red dye drops below 13.5 gdl (gram per deciliter) in men and below 12.0 gdl in women.
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red
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Literature
1. Small encyclopedia of medicine PWN 1999.
2. BIOPARTICATES, OR MICRO AND MACRO ELEMENTS; prof. dr hab. med. Andrzej Danysz published,
3. LEKI.
4. VITAMINS, MINERAL INGREDIENTS, E-NUMBERS, U.Unger-Gobel, ed. MUZA SA, 1997
5. Harper's biochemistry - PZWL 2004.
6. httpportalwiedzy.onet. ,,, hemoglobin - based on the WIEM Encyclopedia developed by based on the Popular Encyclopedia of Fogra Universal Publishing
7. wikipedia
8. Blood, blood, life, Zofia Kuratowska - Universal Knowledge 1981
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More
The role of iron as an oxygen carrier
Diseases and toxic marrow damage as a cause of anemia
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