IRON-DEFICIENCY ANEMIA

most frequent type of anemia, which may develop when the body's iron loss is high and its iron stores are depleted (e.g., during periods of rapid growth, pregnancy, or menstruation or other sources of chronic blood loss) or when a person's dietary iron intake is low or his assimilation of iron is inefficient (e.g., starvation, intestinal parasite infestation, removal of part or all of stomach). It is estimated that, in the United States, up to 20 percent of small children and 510 percent of women ages 1545 suffer from iron-deficiency anemia. Symptoms include weakness, fatigue, and sometimes pallor, shortness of breath, coldness of extremities, changeable appetite, sore tongue, loss of hair, brittle fingernails, or dry skin. In advanced cases, the red blood cells are small and pale with a low hemoglobin content, body iron stores are depleted, free iron in the blood plasma is decreased, the iron-binding capacity of the plasma increased, and the ability of the intestines to assimilate iron from the diet increased. Treatment consists of the administration of iron; quick improvement is common.