Iron Low Anemia – Diet or Something Deadly

Now, I want to talk about a disease that is easy to diagnose even easier to Define, But, yet the causes of that disease are complicated many and hard to find the implications are even harder to figure out the disease is anemia. Anemia is basically a disease that effects the hemoglobin concentration. In other words, the anemia is defined as a reduction in hemoglobin concentration. In our blood, If the concentration is below 11 grams per deciliter then we can diagnose a patient with anemia. So, what is hemoglobin? Hemoglobin is a protein in our red blood cells that is responsible for carrying oxygen. So, Those would be our red blood cells. This is how they look like and then inside of these red blood cells, we can find hemoglobin as a protein and it carries oxygen from our lungs. For example to our brain or our hands or other parts of our body. So, Hemoglobin is a very important protein but why would the concentration of hemoglobin be reduced. Well, not every anemia is the same. You see from kidney can failure to cancer, so kidneys in our bodies are responsible for production of red blood cells, also internal bleeding in our gastrointestinal tract. So, Here you have the esophagus and then the stomach ore here. Bleeding in these organs can cause reduction in these red blood cells. So we’re talking about the production of these red blood cells that can be decreased due to kidney failure but also losing your blood through internal bleeding. Cancers and inflammation can also inhibit the production of these erythrocytes that is the red blood cells. The cause is for anemia are many maybe you’re capable of producing these red blood cells but you don’t have the molecules which are required for production of the hemoglobin. There are two major things when it comes to anemia. One truly important thing is to determine what type of anemia it is? and then the second thing is well that can help us as well figure out what is causing that anemia? not skipping these two things is really important. It can literally save patients life. So the standard procedure once anemia has been diagnosed is to look at the so-called MCV value. The MCV value in the blood tests is basically telling us how big these erythrocytes are. These are red blood cells, the MCV valve you basically stands for mean corpuscular volume mean corpuscular volume so if the mean corpuscular volume is low. right? if the mean corpuscular volume is slow then we must check for the value called ferritin and based on that value, we can tell if the patient lacks iron. If the ferritin is low and if the MCV is low then we can assume “yes” the patient has the low iron. Iron is required to build erythrocytes of functional erythrocytes but if the patient has an increased or normal ferritin. So, we’ve first realized that the MCV value is low then we checked for ferritin and it was normal or increased. Well then the patient could have thalassemia which is a genetic disorder. So, if it’s so, if the ferritin is increased, we’re looking at a genetic disorder which the patient inherited from the parents. Well, other forms of anemia can be explained with other tests but this one is particularly important because it is very common. Low iron, low MCV value and low ferritin value. So, reduced MCV and reduced ferritin indicate low iron but is it really that simple? See low iron can be caused by bad diet but if there is a cancer in the gastrointestinal tract or in the lungs or any major inflammation. For example, covet can cause a major inflammation in the respiratory tract but also other organs such as heart. Our iron values and intake from our gastrointestinal tract can be reduced and that is very important. why? because it is often overlooked a doctor diagnoses the patient. A patient with reduced MCV and reduced ferritin and then assumes okay low iron values, it gets confirmed and then just prescribes medication and that’s it. It might increase the symptoms temporarily what if there is this underlying condition that has caused something like that one reason. Why it is so tricky with this condition? is that oh, It’s just that my iron is low and people associated quickly with the diet that they are having and they just think well you know I need to improve my diet or I’ll just take some supplements and it’s going to work out. It might work out temporarily, The major problem is if there is something catastrophic as a cancer or internal bleeding, the patient can die so it is really important to investigate this further to search for this underlying cause besides that iron deficiency anemia can actually come with normal iron levels and other lab tests can confirm it. So, besides these other lab tests, It’s important to do other investigations to search for the cause. If you’re a doctor and if you want to make videos like these then make sure you go to anatomski.com but if you’re a patient or person who’s interested in anemia you have more questions then go to symptomsky.com/help/anemia