United States: Anemia is a health problem that affects about 2 billion people worldwide, or one in four people. It’s especially common in women and children, with one in three women and 40% of all children suffering from it. The good news is that anemia could be reduced with simple, low-cost treatments.
Although anemia is still more frequent in developing countries, it is also widespread in developed ones. Some of my relatives and friends have been dealing with it for many years. I am sure there are many more who have it but have never been to a doctor and been told they have it.
One of the reasons why anemia is so overlooked is that its symptoms are often subtle: in most cases, the presenting symptoms are mere fatigue and weakness.
As reported by the Our World in Data, such symptoms can be present due to many disorders and diseases, which makes it rather difficult to link these symptoms to a particular sickness. In children, when anemia is associated with slowed cognition and phsyomotor development, and poor concentration it is not clear cut, nor can it be attributed to micronutrient deficiencies.
There are much worse consequences of severe anemia, though, including. Pregnancy related anemia increases the likelihood of low weight babies and therefore the probability of newborns’ mortality,
and raises the probability of maternal mortality, particularly if there is considerable blood loss during delivery.
While anemia in pregnancy is really not a rare phenomenon, it is much more widespread in developing countries with very much low income.
Although diseases like anemia and iron deficiency (which is the leading cause of the disease) is not leading cause of deaths across the global, are significantly contributing to the world’s disease burden.
According to the Global Burden of Disease study it contributes to about 2% of the total disability adjusted life years. This may seem relatively small, but it is greater than many other globally recognized diseases such as AIDS, breast cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Of all anemia cases, nutritional deficiencies are responsible for between half and two-thirds of the cases worldwide. Vitamin A, B12 and folic acid deficiencies are known to cause anemia, but the most common of these is iron.