Summary
• World Health Organization has been concerned with nutritional anaemias for 50 years.
• Management strategies have been developed by WHO and other international organizations, but burden of disease remains a serious problem with 2 billion persons affected globally, mainly in developing countries but also in industrialized countries.
• Highest incidence of iron deficiency occurs in pregnancy and in children.
• Iron deficiency causes impaired mental development in children and decreased work capacity in adults. In this respect latent iron deficiency without anaemia can be as serious as the anaemic phase, and specific laboratory tests are essential for diagnosis and clinical management.
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Notes
- 1.
Murray and Lopez is one of a series of four papers in consecutive issues: Part 1.Mortality by cause for eight regions of the world (1269–1276); Part 3. Global mortality, disability and the contribution of risk factors (1436–1442); Part 4. Alternative projections of mortality and disability by cause 1990–2020 (2498–1504).
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Lewis, S., Emmanuel, J. (2009). Global Concept of Iron Deficiency. In: Yehuda, S., Mostofsky, D. (eds) Iron Deficiency and Overload. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-462-9_17
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