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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffNormally, your body uses iron from the food you eat or recycled iron from old red blood cells to produce hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is the part of red blood cells that gives blood its red color and enables the red blood cells to carry oxygenated blood throughout your body.
If you aren't consuming enough iron, or if you're losing too much iron, your body can't produce enough hemoglobin, and iron deficiency anemia will eventually develop.
Common reasons that iron deficiency anemia develops include:
- Blood loss. Blood loss is the most common cause of iron deficiency anemia in the United States and Western Europe. The reason is that blood contains iron within red blood cells. So if you lose blood, you lose some iron. Women with heavy periods are at risk of iron deficiency anemia because they lose a lot of blood during menstruation. Slow, chronic blood loss within the body — such as from a peptic ulcer, a kidney or bladder tumor, a colon polyp, colorectal cancer, or uterine fibroids — can cause iron deficiency anemia. Gastrointestinal bleeding can result from regular use of aspirin or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Tell your doctor if you notice blood in your urine or stools.
- A lack of iron in your diet. Your body regularly gets iron from the foods you eat. If you consume too little iron, over time your body can become iron deficient. Examples of iron-rich foods include meat, eggs, dairy products or iron-fortified foods. For proper growth and development, infants and children need iron from their diet, too.
- An inability to absorb iron. Iron from food is absorbed into your bloodstream in your small intestine. An intestinal disorder, such as Crohn's disease or celiac disease, which affects your intestine's ability to absorb nutrients from digested food, can lead to iron deficiency anemia. If part of your small intestine has been bypassed or removed surgically, that may affect your ability to absorb iron and other nutrients. Some medications can interfere with iron absorption. For example, regular use of medications that decrease stomach acid may lead to iron deficiency anemia. Your body needs stomach acid, which these products suppress, to convert dietary iron into a form that can readily be absorbed by the small intestine.
- Pregnancy. Without iron supplementation, iron deficiency anemia occurs in many pregnant women because their iron stores need to serve their own increased blood volume as well as be a source of hemoglobin for the growing fetus. A fetus needs iron to develop red blood cells, blood vessels and muscle.
- Iron-deficiency anemia. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/ida/ida_all.html. Accessed Jan. 22, 2009.
- Schrier SL. Causes and diagnosis of anemia due to iron deficiency. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Jan. 19, 2009.
- Schrier SL. Approach to the adult patient with anemia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Jan. 19, 2009.
- Mesa R (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Jan. 28, 2009.
- Schrier SL. Treatment of anemia due to iron deficiency. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Jan. 19, 2009.
