Anatom3DIron deficiency
Sideropenia · Nedostatek železa
What it is
The world's commonest nutritional deficiency, and always worth finding the cause.
Symptoms & signs
- Fatigue
- breathlessness
- pale skin
- brittle nails
- restless legs
- hair loss
- craving ice or dirt (pica)
🚩 Get help if…
- call 112 / 911 now Vomiting blood, or black, tarry stools
- see a doctor soon Breathless or chest pain on mild effort
- see a doctor soon A change in bowel habit, or blood in the stool
- see a doctor soon Iron deficiency with no clear cause in a man or after menopause
Where it strikes
Medical treatment
- Oral iron every other day — absorbed better than a daily dose trials support
- IV iron when tablets are not tolerated trials support
- Find the bleeding: endoscopy in men and in women past menopause trials support
- Oral ferric maltol (Feraccru, Accrufer) — approved (EMA 2016, FDA 2019) for adults
Natural & lifestyle
- Red meat, lentils, dark greens
- vitamin C with meals
- avoid tea and coffee within an hour
- treat heavy periods
Emerging & experimental
- Hepcidin-targeted therapy
Alternative, off-label & anecdotal
Approaches used outside the guidelines, with what their supporters report and what testing has found so far.
- Cooking in cast-iron pots or with an iron ingot ('Lucky Iron Fish') — small trials show modest rises mixed evidence
- Spirulina and beetroot — little iron the body can use anecdotal / traditional
ICD codes
- ICD-10 E61.1
- ICD-11 5B5K.0 Iron deficiency