ORLANDO, FLA. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — At its base, anemia occurs when your red blood cell count is low. But the condition gets a lot more complicated from there. If doctors think they have found anemia, they have to ask themselves: What’s the cause? What’s the size of the red blood cells? Is it genetic? But it could still take time to get a diagnosis as some anemias are sneaky and disguise themselves as other problems.
If you think you have anemia, you probably think eating more iron-rich foods would fix it, but that’s not always the case.
Jose Najera, MD, Board Certified Hematologist and Oncologist at Orlando Health says, “Either you’re not absorbing the iron, or you’re losing the iron because of a bleed, or you’re not absorbing B12. So sometimes there’s things that you cannot correct with lifestyle.”
One problem with identifying anemia is it can disguise itself as other conditions.
“With anemia you have fatigue, low energy, maybe you’ll have low interest of doing things because you feel so tired. And sometimes those are some of the symptoms from depression like fatigue, low interest,” explained Doctor Najera.
Latent anemia is when diagnosis happens long after the condition starts, whether it’s from symptoms that are being dismissed like fatigue or hair loss … and some types of thalassemia, an inherited anemia, have no symptoms at all. Then there are also some anemias that are not due to lack of iron.
Doctor Najera says, “There are anemia that we call it anemia of chronic inflammation. And in these conditions, there’s a lot of inflammation going on in the body that the iron stays trapped.”
Finding this anemia means finding the source of the inflammation, which can be due to chronic infections, chronic autoimmune diseases, and cancer.
“It can be a colon cancer, it could be stomach cancer, can be esophageal cancer,” Doctor Najera told Ivanhoe.
Doctor Najera recommends getting a complete blood count and a blood chemistry test once a year – because if found, anemia can be the warning sign that saves your life.
He also recommends that young people get annual blood tests, especially since there’s been an increase in colon and stomach cancers. There is no universal anemia treatment since there’s no universal cause. He says, if you want to add more iron to your diet, eat more meat, beans, and spinach. And, if you have cut meat out of your diet, consider taking a B-12 supplement.
Contributors to this news report include: Marcy Wilder, Producer; Chuck Bennethum, Editor.
Source:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/14508-thalassemias
* For More Information, Contact: Bill Kallus
Media Relations and Public Affairs Manager
Orlando Health
