How to Avoid Anemia

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. David Hill and today we are going to be talking about how to avoid Anemia. So what is Anemia. Anemia describes a whole bunch of different conditions that lead you to have low counts of red blood cells. Now the red cells are the workers that carry oxygen from your lungs out to the rest of your body and then go back to the lungs and do the whole thing again. Obviously if you don't have enough red cells then you can't get enough oxygen out to the rest of your body. This can make you feel tired, or weak. It can make it difficult for you to think, it can even cause behavioral and developmental problems in children who are affected. However, there are a lot of things that can reduce your red cell count. It's not all one thing. Now the most common thing that we think about when we think about Anemia is iron deficiency. Why? Well the protein that does the magic work of the red blood cells is called hemoglobin. And in the core of every hemoglobin molecule is a molecule of iron. So if you don't have enough iron for some reason, you can't make hemoglobin and you can't make the red cells that carry the hemoglobin. So you've got to think about dietary iron. Especially people who are vegetarians, may not have very much iron in their diet. They may want to look for other sources of iron; leafy green vegetables, dried beans are both great sources for people who are vegetarians or vegans. You may even want to take an iron supplement. Second of all you might look for sources of bleeding. Sometimes the source are obvious, you may have undergone a recent surgery. You may be a woman who has very heavy or prolonged periods or irregular periods. You are going to want to work with your doctor on making that better. The signs of bleeding may not be obvious at all. Some people who have stomach ulcers, colon cancer or problems with the intestines may bleed into the intestines and never see the blood.Or they may see black tarry stools or things that don't look exactly like blood and if they don't understand any of those things you should bring to your doctor with questions. Other causes of Anemia have nothing to do with iron deficiency. A chronic illness can make people anemic. Diseases of the bone marrow like leukemia or lymphoma may cause people to become anemic as well. So if you are starting to feel tired or weak or worried about anemia, you know if you know that you have heavy periods, sure you can try a little bit of iron, but if there is not an obvious cause for it, you are really best off trying to find out what's going on with the help of a doctor. Because those symptoms are very nonspecific. And before you assume that they are anemia you better check and make sure that you don't have something else equally important going on. Talking about how to avoid anemia. I'm Dr. David Hill."