An upsetting number of Americans have an iron problem, it turns out. New research this week reveals that about one in three people have some sort of iron deficiency.
Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston led the research, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open. Iron is key to many bodily functions, particularly the production of red blood cells, so being low in iron can be bad for our overall health. The researchers wanted to better quantify how many people in the general population could potentially be suffering from either absolute iron deficiency—simply not having enough stored iron in their body— or functional iron deficiency—having adequate stored iron but not being able to use it well enough as intended for some reason.
The researchers analyzed recent data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative study of adult Americans’ dieting and lifestyle habits regularly run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They specifically looked at data from people who had their iron levels and other important markers measured via a blood test.
Overall, about 14% of people were estimated to have absolute iron deficiency and another 15% had functional iron deficiency. Iron deficiency is often tied to and can cause anemia, defined as not having enough healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin, the protein that transfers oxygen from red blood cells to the rest of the body (chronic blood loss can cause both iron deficiency and anemia). However, the researchers found that the condition was still relatively common even in people without anemia or other relevant health issues. Among those without anemia, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, or pregnancy, 11% still had absolute iron deficiency and 15% had functional iron deficiency.
“This cross-sectional study indicates that both absolute and functional iron deficiency affect a large proportion of adults in the US, especially among those without conditions often screened for iron deficiency,” the researchers wrote. “Absolute and functional iron deficiency may be a widespread, underrecognized public health problem.”
Anemia caused by a lack of iron is known to cause or raise the risk of various health problems such as hair loss, fatigue, and heart issues, especially the longer that it goes untreated. But the researchers note that iron deficiency has been linked to other problems without anemia in the picture, such as restless leg syndrome, impaired cognitive function, and possibly even an earlier death. They also found that people with iron deficiency are only infrequently taking iron supplements, suggesting that many people are in the dark about their low iron.
The researchers say that more work needs to be done to understand the risk factors behind iron deficiency (to their surprise, they failed to find a clear link between low iron and dietary iron intake, food security, or alcohol use among the study participants). We’re also still not sure exactly how functional iron deficiency can affect our health for the worse. But given their findings, they argue that current screening recommendations for low iron, which tend to focus on people at higher risk of iron deficiency, may need to be revised.
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