Relationship between iron nutrition and nutriment intakes in the menstruating and menopausal women

Abstract

Medical examinations related to iron nutrition (hemoglobin concentration, serum ferritin concentration and transferrin saturation) and measurements of daily nutriment intakes based on three day dietary records were carried out for 440 female subjects from adolescence to menopause, and the relationships between both parameters were compared. The subjects could be reasonably divided into 3 age groups of menstruating I (17-29 years), II (30-53 years) women and menopausal (48-69 years) women by the one-way analysis of variance. The occurrence of iron deficiency including iron deficient anemia was above 45% both in menstruating I and menstruating II women. In addition, the average amounts of iron intake were 8.7 and 10.2 mg/day in these groups, respectively. These values were below the recommended intake of iron (12 mg/day) for females of these ages in Japan. In menopausal women, the occurrence of iron deficiency decreased to 11.3%, which corresponded to the increase of average iron intake to 11.2 mg/day. Irrespective of age groups, there were almost no significant correlations between the results of medical examinations and the amounts of daily iron intake. Although no improvement in hemoglobin concentration and transferrin saturation was observed in 62 menstruating women, who received 10 mg iron daily as sodium ferrous citrate for 2 months, the average serum ferritin concentrations were significantly increased at 1 and 2 months after the supplement and 2 weeks after they stopped. These therapeutic trials indicate the relationship between iron deficiency and low iron intake in menstruating women.