Iron Deficiency Anemia: From Historical Background to Management—A Review

Abstract

The word anemia comes from the ancient Greek word άναιμία, anaimia, meaning ‘lack of blood’. Simply, anemia means a decrease in the total amount of hemoglobin (Hb) or the number of red blood cells (RBCs). Anemia remains a widespread public health problem with major consequences on human health as well as social and economic development. Globally, the most significant contributor to the onset of anemia is iron deficiency (ID) so that iron deficiency anemia (IDA) and anemia are used synonymously, and the prevalence of anemia has often been used as a proxy for IDA. The prevalence of IDA is such that it is considered as the most widespread micronutrient deficiency affecting all age groups irrespective of gender, cast, creed and religion. Though IDA can be caused by many factors but in most of the cases it is due to imbalance between iron demands and iron absorption in the body, irrespective of the causes responsible for the same. Approximately 50% of all cases attributed to a lack of iron in the diet. Anemia has a wide spectrum of symptoms ranging from fatigue to angina pectoris in elderly. A major health consequence of anemia includes impaired cognitive and physical development in children. It is estimated that about 20–40% of maternal deaths in India are due to anemia. The basic approaches to the prevention of IDA are nutritional counseling, iron supplementation therapy, fortification of food, and infection control; also breastfeeding should be encouraged. Since 50% cases of IDA is attributed to lack of dietary iron therefore, most important way of prevention will be nutritional counseling.

Keywords: Etiology, anemia, hemoglobin (Hb), iron deficiency (ID), public health problem

Cite this Article

Mazharul Islam, Atiya Khan, Asima Bashir. Iron Deficiency Anemia: From Historical Background to Management—A Review. Research & Reviews: Journal of Oncology and Hematology. 2020; 9(1):
29–40p.