Iron deficiency is quite common in our country. It affects all age groups right from the pediatric age group to the geriatric age group. Most commonly the Iron deficiency can cause symptoms in all age groups. But where we are talking about women, in the age of 40’s we are talking about the working women, who have a lot of responsibilities in the house, in the family as well as in the job. So it is quite prevalent in those women with bad nutrition or bad bleeding tendency or bad menstruation. So if you talk about Iron deficiency in women, it will cause symptoms like loss of weight, there can be hair fall. There can be lack of concentration and they will excessively feel fatigue. This is called as easy fatigability. They will be tired for no specific reason. In menstruating women, in the reproductive age group of 40, can also bleed excessively in menstruation due to Iron deficiency, and there will be lack of concentration in their work. So these things are quite general but it become so pronounced in severe Iron deficiency, and this being simple, it is easy to diagnose, provided that the patients come and seek medical help. Coming to the severity of anemia, it can cause cardiac complications. If Iron deficiency, is severe in a woman of 40 years they will have palpitations, chest pain, they might have more heart rate, they might have high anxiety and that can be done by simple blood test.
