Prevalence of Iron Deficiency in Healthy Adolescents

Objective: Investigate iron status in a well-defined, healthy population of adolescents in our region in the northern coast of Spain. Material and Methods: We conducted an observational study in healthy adolescents of our area during October 2015. Criteria of inclusion: adolescents undergoing the official health control on their 15-16 years. Pregnant, thalassemia carriers, C-reactive protein (>5 mg/L) or underlying causes for anemia and subjects registered of Hospital admission in the previous 3 months were excluded. 1407 females and 852 males were enrolled. Hemograms were analyzed on XN analyzers (Sysmex, Kobe, Japan). Serum ferritin, serum iron and transferrin were measured with a chemical analyzer Cobas c711 (Roche Diagnostics). The adolescents were classified according to their Iron status: Normal Hb >120 g/L (females) >130 g/L (males); s-Ferritin > 50 μg/L; Latent Iron Deficiency (LID) Hb >120 g/L (females) >130 g/L (males) s-Ferritin 50-16 μg/L; Depletion of Iron stores (DS) Hb >120 g/L (females) >130 g/L (males) s-Ferritin <16 μg/L; Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) Hb <120 g/L (females) <130 g/L (males). Results: Females 112 (7.9%) IDA; 1295 non-anemic divided in 180 (12.8%) DS, 705 (50.2%) LID, 409 (29.1%) normal. Males 68 (8.6%) IDA; 784 nonanemic divided in 30 (3.8%) DS, 295 (37.5%) LID and 456 (58.0%) normal. Conclusion: Our data show higher prevalence of iron deficiency than reported in other western countries. Adolescent girls constitute a group at risk and specific attention should be given to them during adolescence.