Iron Relieves Fatigue

Women lead men in one undesirable area: fatigue. American women suffer three times as many problems linked to excessive tiredness as do men. But iron supplements may be able to help young women feel more energetic.

“We found that iron supplementation for 12 weeks decreased fatigue by almost 50% from baseline, a significant difference of 19% compared with placebo, in menstruating iron-deficient non-anemic women with unexplained fatigue and ferritin levels below 50 μg/L,” writes researcher Dr. Bernard Favrat, of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Favrat’s study involved 198 menstruating women between the ages of 18 and 50 years who took daily oral supplements of 80 mg of prolonged-release ferrous sulfate (iron).

“Iron deficiency may be an under-recognized cause of fatigue in women of child-bearing age,” write the authors of the study. “If fatigue is not due to secondary causes, the identification of iron deficiency as a potential cause may prevent inappropriate attribution of symptoms to putative emotional causes or life stressors, thereby reducing the unnecessary use of health care resources, including inappropriate pharmacologic treatments.”