What is iron-deficiency anemia?
Iron-deficiency anemia is a common and easily treated condition that occurs when there is not enough
iron in the body. It is the most common type of
anemia. A lack of iron in the body can come from bleeding, not eating enough foods that contain iron, or not absorbing enough iron from food that is eaten.
Anemia
The term "
anemia" is used for a group of conditions in which the number of red blood cells in the blood is lower than normal, or the red blood cells don’t have enough
hemoglobin. Hemoglobin—an iron-rich protein that gives the red color to blood—carries the oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. In people with anemia, the blood does not carry enough oxygen to the rest of the body. Red blood cells also remove carbon dioxide, a waste product, from cells and carry it to the lungs to be exhaled. Red blood cells also are called RBCs or
erythrocytes. Normal red blood cells are all about the same size and look like doughnuts without a hole in the center. They are produced by the spongy marrow inside the large bones of the body. Healthy red blood cells have an average lifespan of 120 days. When they die, the
iron from the hemoglobin is recycled to make new red blood cells. There are many
types of anemia. The three major causes of anemia are
blood loss, decreased production of red blood cells, or increased destruction of
red blood cells. White blood cells and platelets are the two other kinds of blood cells. White blood cells help fight infection. Platelets help blood to clot. In some kinds of anemia, there are low amounts of all three types of blood cells. The most common symptom of all types of anemia is feeling tired because the body is not receiving enough oxygen.
Iron-deficiency anemia
In
iron-deficiency anemia, the body does not have enough iron to form hemoglobin, which means there is not enough hemoglobin to carry oxygen to the whole body. The body gets its iron from food. The main foods that contain iron are
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