An Overlooked Side Effect Of Iron Treatment: Changes In Menstruation

Abstract

Iron deficiency is one of the most commonnutritional problems of the human race. Iron has been used to treat anemia formore than 300 years. It is known very well that oral iron treatment have someside effects. Contrary to well defined side effects, we have observed somemenstrual changes in some patients receiving oral iron treatment. Therefore, weaimed to evaluate these findings and discuss the underlying potential mechanisms.One hundred twenty eight nonpregnant female patients who were diagnosed withiron deficiency anemia were enrolled in the study. Menstrual status at the timeof diagnosis and menstrual changes 2 months after the iron treatment were notedfor all patients. We detected menstrual changes in half of the iron receivingpatients. This is the first report of a correlation between irontreatment and menstrual changes, and we consider that this side effect isoverlooked by the clinicians. Although its mechanisms are unclear, many factorsare considered to affect this side effect and we suggest that the possibleunderlying mechanisms should be investigated.