ArticleBMC women's health2025
Beyond anemia: a comprehensive analysis of iron deficiency symptoms in women and their correlation with biomarkers.
Article in BMC women's health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Real-World Effectiveness of IHATNutrients · 2026Observational
- Beyond prediction: explainable machine learning for ferritin estimation from complete blood count.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2026Article
- Improving Iron Status Without Iron: Clinical Insights From Recombinant Human Lactoferrin Supplementation.Cureus · 2026Article
- Prevalence and symptomatology of anemia in young adults: A cross-sectional study.Northern clinics of Istanbul · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIron deficiency, the most widespread micronutrient deficiency globally, is especially common among women and seriously impacts their health considerably. The symptom spectrum in non-anemic iron deficiency (NAID) is less well described than in anemic forms. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the diversity and frequency of symptoms in NAID and compare with anemic cases and explore the association of symptoms with biomarkers.
methodsThis retrospective and cross-sectional study was conducted on female patients at a university hospital. Patients admitted to the iron deficiency outpatient clinic between March 2021 and August 2022 were analyzed. Patients aged 18 years and older with iron deficiency (ferritin < 30 mcg/L) were included. Iron parameters, hemoglobin levels, and symptoms were included into the dataset, and these independent variables were compared between patient groups categorized as NAID and iron deficiency anemia (IDA).
resultsThe study sample consisted of 239 patients. The frequencies of IDA and NAID were 70.3% (n = 168) and 29.7% (n = 71), respectively. Forty-one distinct symptoms or symptom groups were documented, ranging from neuropsychiatric to gastrointestinal manifestations. The mean number of symptoms per person was 16.5 (7.03). The top ten most common symptoms were weakness (87.03%), fatigue (82.43%), easy fatigability (78.66%), amnesia (72.38%), feeling cold (71.55%), alopecia (70.29%), cold intolerance (69.04%), sleep problems (66.53%), nervosity (63.18%), and cold foot (59.83%). The IDA group had more diverse symptoms than the NAID group (P <.05). Most of the forty-one symptoms or symptom groups were similar in frequency in the IDA and NAID groups. Only palpitations, cold intolerance, easy fatigability, and unclassifiable group differed between the groups (P <.05). The highest correlation between iron parameters and symptom diversity was transferrin saturation (TSAT) (r=-.229, P <.001). All but three of the positive symptoms showed TSAT levels below 8%.
conclusionsThis study confirms that anemia is not a prerequisite for the majority of iron deficiency symptoms, which are common in non-anemic women. TSAT demonstrates a robust correlation, underscoring its potential as an early diagnostic biomarker. Clinicians must acknowledge various non-specific symptoms irrespective of anemia. Additional research is required to corroborate findings and investigate symptom mechanisms and treatments.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.