Coffee Lovers, Beware of Adverse Effect of Iron Deficient Anemia, Scientists Warn

By Kyle J. Norton

Anemia is a medical condition characterized by reduced numbers of healthy red blood cells or hemoglobin that bind the oxygen for the body needs.

Iron deficiency anemia is a type of anemia caused by insufficient levels of iron, the substance that plays an essential role for production hemoglobin.

Patients with iron deficiency anemia may induce symptoms of tiredness and shortage of breath due to oxygen deficiency.

Most people believe that the condition can easily cured by intake of iron supplement. However, according to my experience, iron is hard to absorb in supplement form, even in empty stomach.

Intake of iron supplements in patients with iron deficiency anemia may experience symptoms of stomach cramps, nausea, and diarrhea.

In severe cases, iron insufficiency may facilitate symptoms of extreme fatigue, weakness, pale skin chest pain, fast heartbeat, headache, inflammation, brittle nails….. and dizziness.

Some researchers suggested that in prevention of digestive symptoms, a small amount of food intake together with the supplement may be required in some people. 

Others advised that iron supplement should not taken together with high fiber foods, such as whole grains, raw vegetables, bran and foods or drinks with caffeine.

Please make sure that you do not take milk, calcium and antacids with iron supplements

More importantly, intake of iron supplement may also interact with some medicine such as tetracycline, penicillin, and ciprofloxacin as well as diminishing efficacy of drugs used for Parkinson disease and seizures.

Genetic alternation and slow, chronic blood loss within the body such as stomach peptic ulcer, a hiatal hernia, a colon polyp or colorectal cancer are the major causes of iron deficiency anemia.

According to Dr. Aime Crespo at Children’s Hospital Boston, genetic mutation of deficiency of the TMPRSS6 protein is associated to the cause for the body to produce too much hepcidin, a hormone that inhibits iron absorption by the intestine.

Truly, long term diet of iron deficiency and chronic use of drug that induce gastric bleeding such as aspirin are also associated to prevalent risk factor in occurrence of iron deficiency anemia.

Coffee, a popular and social beverage all over the world, particular in the West, is a drink made from roast bean from the Coffea plant, native to tropical Africa and Madagascar.

Dietary iron beside is an important mineral for our body to make oxygen-carrying proteins hemoglobin for red blood cells and myoglobin for muscle functioning, the mineral also is needed for wide variety of metabolic processes, including oxygen and electron transport, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis……

Coffee may interfere digestive track function in absorbed nonheme iron from dietary sources, a respectable study suggested.

According to the lead author of the study, a cup of coffee intake showed to reduce iron absorption from a hamburger meal by 39%, in compared to 64% of tea, a potent inhibitor of iron absorption.

Even more interestingly, ingested a cup of drip coffee or instant coffee with a meal composed of semipurified ingredients, rate of iron absorption was reduced from 5.88% to 1.64 and 0.97%, respectively

In the time length basic, coffee exhibited same degree of iron inhibition regardless an hour before or after the meals. 

Furthermore, the authors also found that change of concentration of coffee intake may also interfere with rate of inhibition.

In the prevention of dietary consumption that induces iron deficiency, intake of iron inhibited beverage such as tea and coffee are recommended to add iron enhanced absorption foods into their diet such as ascorbic acid and meat, fish and poultry;… and reduced intake calcium.

Importantly, depletion of iron stores may only have minimum effect on enhanced iron absorption in people who follow an inadequate dietary situation, thus increased risk iron deficient anemia without even knowing it.

There is an algorithm established by the the University of Göteborg, that calculate the amount of iron absorption without injection of dietary enhancers and inhibitors.

This algorithm is based on the study used basal dose absorption of 40% in compared to different amounts of dietary factors known to influence iron absorption by measuring iron absorption from 24 complete meals with mean iron absorption in 31 subjects who served a varied whole diet labeled with heme- and nonheme-iron tracers over a period of 5 days.

However, researchers of the study also said, “This algorithm has several applications. It can be used to predict iron absorption from various diets, to estimate the effects expected by dietary modification, and to translate physiologic into dietary iron requirements from different types of diets”.

The findings suggested that coffee may have inhibited effect in reduced digestive system functioning in absorption of dietary iron.

Therefore, people with iron deficient anemia should take only coffee with an extra portion of iron enhancers in their meal.

People who drink too much coffee may want to reduce numbers of cup per day.

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Author biography
Kyle J. Norton, Master of Nutrition
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published on line, including world wide health, ezine articles, article base, healthblogs, selfgrowth, best before it’s news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada – Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bio science, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Inhibition of food iron absorption by coffee by Morck TA, Lynch SR, Cook JD.(PubMed)
(2) Effect of tea and other dietary factors on iron absorption by Zijp IM1, Korver O, Tijburg LB.(PubMed)
(3) Prediction of dietary iron absorption: an algorithm for calculating absorption and bioavailability of dietary iron by Hallberg L1, Hulthén L.(PubMed)