How To Prevent Anemia With A Healthy Diet
Preventing iron deficiency, or anemia, is simpler than you think. Adjusting your diet to make it iron rich, or more specifically iron adequate is all that is needed.
Beginning with infants, breast milk NOT cow’s milk is recommended. Infants absorb about 50 iron from breast milk in comparison to 12 from cow’s milk.
Women and Anemia
For adult women and teenagers, the requirement is less than 18mg a day. During pregnancy however, a larger volume of blood is required to support the fetus so the risk of iron deficiency is higher during this time as well.
Medically speaking, women require about 30-60mg of iron during pregnancy. Post menopause, women need about 8-10mg of iron a day.
Female athletes and endurance athletes are a very high risk group due to their excessive use of their red blood cells.
Loss of iron through sweat is commonly observed in their case. Inadequate dietary iron with extensive training places a lot of stress on the body as the body has a hard time responding to these demands.
Dietary Recommendations
Red meat is prescribed to fulfill the demands of the body in such cases, so is poultry foods like eggs, turkey and chicken, seafood such as mussels, clams and shrimps more so because they contain heme iron which is easily absorbable.
Vegans too have a variety to choose from. Cereals (iron enriched ones), pastas, bread, legumes such as peas, baked beans and leafy vegetables such as spinach and coriander leaves, canned asparagus, baked potato, lentils and molasses are some of them.
Apart from this, dried fruits, raisins and apricots can act as good substitutes as well. Though rich, vegetables and fruits are a source of non heme iron.
Effectively Intaking Iron
Intake of iron has to be effective and to have the desired effect iron helpers have to be included in the diet. Vegetables have non heme iron which is difficult to absorb. Compared to 15 absorption rate in non vegetarian food items, it is only 5 in vegetarian ones.
Vitamin C rich fruits (iron helpers) perfectly suit the purpose. Thus, intake of iron rich food simultaneously with a glass of lemon juice or orange juice only enhances the iron absorption. Other iron absorption enhancers are broccoli, tomato juice and sprouts and strawberries.
Red wine, calcium, caffeine, milk and tannins on the other hand are inhibitors.
In elderly people, anemia is usually prone to complications. The diet is the same for them but has to be monitored carefully. Under no condition, however, should the dietary iron be more than 50mg without medical supervision.
Symptoms of Anemia
Symptoms of anemia include: Breathlessness, cardiac complications, fatigue and reduced physical and mental performance are just a few of its numerous effects.
It goes without saying that prevention is the best solution. Vegans and women especially will benefit from taking a liquid iron supplement to prevent anemia.
Floradix liquid iron and herbs is a supplement that we recommend.
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Great article. As a vegetarian I am always concerned about my iron levels. Liquid iron is definitely the best way to take iron as a supplement.
Indeed your treatment on the sickness is fatastic.
Awesome post. Bookmarked for future reference.