Women’s Health Beyond Weight Loss: Iron Deficiency Anemia
Welcome to the first article in my series highlighting aspects of women’s health that — get this — have absolutely 0% to do with what we look like! Not one little bit. Not “strong is the new skinny”, not “curves in the right places”, just none. Not shading lifting or exercise or even vegetables for goodness sake, but I want to illustrate through this series that healthy has no one “look”. Making assumptions about people based solely on their appearance is damaging, hurtful, a thousand other bad things, you get the picture. Well, OK, rant over. Time to delve into our first topic chosen by some faithful Instagram followers!
She is… IRON DEFICIENCY ANEMIA! I am super interested that this topic beat out pregnancy as the first installment. I don’t know why though when I think about it, because this is one of the, if not the most common nutrient deficiency for women. In this article, I will do my best to describe iron deficiency anemia, why it is of particular importance for women, and some tips for making sure we all get our daily dose! For simplicity’s sake, I will be talking about women ages 19–50 years old, as this is the time period when their need for dietary iron is most different. The only other time in life when women’s needs differ from men’s is during adolescence, but again for simplicity’s sake here we will focus on adults!
Iron deficiency anemia is caused when there is insufficient dietary iron intake. Iron is needed to make hemoglobin, the part of our blood that carries oxygen throughout the body. So therefore, if your iron is low, oxygen delivery in your body tissues is low, and your energy levels will be — you guessed it — low. This is why people with iron deficiency often report symptoms of tiredness and fatiguing easily. Some other symptoms to look out for include dizziness, headaches, brittle nails, and shortness of breath or chest pains.
The RDA (recommended dietary allowance: this is the amount of a given nutrient) for iron for women ages 19–50 is 18mg/day, while for men of the same age range it is only 8mg/day — why is this? If we think about women in this age bracket, most are going to be losing iron every month through their menstrual cycle. This increases the amount of dietary iron that is going to be needed to achieve healthy levels. If a menstrual cycle is particularly heavy, this can further increase the needs for dietary iron. In addition, if a woman is pregnant, she will need to consume more iron to support the growing baby’s development. Get this, the RDA for iron goes up to 27mg/day for women ages 19–50 who are pregnant! Women who are vegetarians also have different iron needs, but we will get to that in the next section.
Now that we know why women have a higher demand for iron, I want to share some ways in which we can increase our iron intake. I won’t be discussing methods like birth control for heavy periods or medications for underlying conditions (as this is out of my scope of practice), but I can tell you about a few food-related tips to incorporate into your diet!
Iron comes in two forms: heme and non-heme. Non-heme iron is iron that comes from non-meat or animal sources, and heme iron is iron that comes from meat or animal sources. Heme iron is more easily absorbed by the body than non-heme iron.
If a woman is struggling with iron-deficiency anemia and is NOT a vegetarian, the best dietary recommendation would be to increase foods high in heme iron, such as red meats and poultry. Eating more of these foods is the easiest way to increase iron stores since heme iron is so easily absorbed and utilized by the body. If a woman IS a vegetarian, this complicates things only a little. Non-heme iron can be found in foods such as beans, spinach, and enriched foods such as bread products. Since it is less easily absorbed and utilized by the body, the RDA for vegetarian women ages 19–50 is 32mg/day.
My favorite tip to tell people looking to get more iron in their diet (I think it is so cool!) is to pair their iron source with vitamin C-rich foods, especially if they are eating non-heme iron sources! Vitamin C has been shown to increase the body’s ability to absorb non-heme iron sources. When my sister was experiencing iron deficiency to the point where it was affecting her running career, I got her to start her day with a glass of orange juice (vitamin C) and a fortified cereal (iron). Within her season, she was able to get her iron status up through this dietary habit and supplementation recommended by her doctor.
Vitamin C is found in most citrus fruits, strawberries, bell peppers and (less commonly known) broccoli.
So let’s get creative now: meal ideas!
An easy breakfast idea is the cereal and orange juice combination I mentioned before. Just be sure to check that the cereal is fortified by looking at the nutrition facts panel on the box! If you see a high percentage of the RDA’s for each vitamin on the panel, this is a safe bet. If the vitamin content is looking largely absent, maybe look for a different cereal for this purpose.
For lunch, we are going to incorporate bell peppers, our vitamin C source, with kidney beans. Kidney beans pack a serious iron punch with a whopping 15.1mg/cup! The following recipe was taken from northcoast.coop :
SERVES: 4
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups cooked kidney beans
- 1 cup fresh corn, the kernels from one large ear of corn
- 1 cucumber, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 3 green onions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
- 4 Tablespoons fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
- Zest from 2 limes
- 3 Tablespoons fresh lime juice (1 ½–2 limes)
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
Directions
- Before rinsing the beans in a strainer, check for and remove stones and damaged beans by spreading them out on a light colored plate or cooking surface.
- To shorten their cooking time and make them easier to digest, kidney beans should be pre-soaked. There are two basic methods for pre-soaking. For each, start by placing the beans in a saucepan with two to three cups of water per cup of beans. The first method is to boil the beans for two minutes, remove pan from heat, cover and allow to stand for two hours. The alternative method is to simply soak the beans in water for eight hours or overnight, placing the pan in the refrigerator, so the beans will not ferment.
- Before cooking the beans, regardless of pre-soaking method, drain the soaking liquid and rinse the beans with water. Add enough fresh water to cover the beans by one extra inch. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until they are fork tender. Kidney beans generally take about 1–1 ½ hours to become tender. For this recipe, use ¼ pound of dried beans (about ½ cup of beans), which yields 1½ cups of cooked beans.
- Put all of the salad ingredients into a medium size bowl and toss together.
- In a separate bowl, whisk all of the dressing ingredients together and then slowly add to the salad bowl contents. Toss everything together until combined. Serve immediately or keep in the refrigerator until serving.
For dinner, I am leaving you to create your own masterpiece! Read through the iron-rich foods in this article as well as the vitamin C-rich foods and get cooking! Will it be broccoli with an iron-enriched pasta? Spinach and strawberry smoothie? The possibilities are endless!
I hope this article has showcased women’s health for you readers! Tackling iron deficiency anemia is important to ensure we can go about our daily duties with ample energy and be able to provide adequate nourishment to our growing babies! Thank you for reading my first Medium piece, I appreciate you all.
Sources of information for this article include knowledge from my classes at Marywood University and the following sites:
