(Penny Min/ Health News) — Nearly one in four American adolescent girls and young women may suffer from an underdiagnosed mineral deficiency that causes weariness, brain fog, and attention issues.
According to new research, which was the first to examine iron insufficiency in girls and young women and published in JAMA Networks, almost 40% of adolescent girls and young women in America have inadequate amounts of iron, a crucial element required to produce red blood cells.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provided the researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School with information on girls and women aged 12 to 21 collected during the previous 20 years for the study.
The team discovered that iron deficiency anemia affected 6% of the survey’s sample. Angela Weyand, from the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor and the study’s primary author, reveals she wasn’t surprised by the results, as she frequently receives recommendations from pediatricians and family practitioners who worry that their patients may be iron deficient. (…)