Body Iron Stores in Thai Women of Reproductive Age
NAIY ANA BOON TA VEEYUWAT, PhD*, UTOOMPORN SITTISINGH, MPH**
Affiliation : * Department of Nutrition, Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400, ** Nutrition Division, Department of Health, Ministry of Public Health, Bangkok I 1000, Thailand.
Abstact Body iron stores is sensitively indicated to iron status. Since iron status strongly affects to iron absorption, body iron stores is a factor of estimating the dietary iron absorption method as pro posed by Monsen. This study aimed to determine body iron stores in Thai women of reproductive age, which is one of the iron deficiency risk groups. The serum ferritin levels of 115 normal iron status (serum ferritin 2: 12 ng/ml) women aged between 18-45 years were included in the body iron stores calculation by Cook's method. The result showed that the mean body iron stores of the women was 292.78 mg. This finding was consistent with previous reports that the values were in the range of 200-400 mg in the women. The mean body iron stores were of 309 mg and nearly 300 mg in American and Australian women, respectively. The values were less than the recommended amount of 500 mg in adult women. Only 3 per cent of the Thai women in the present study met the recommended amount. So, as in American and Swedish women, less than 5 per cent of them reached the storage iron of 500 mg.
Keywords : Body Iron Stores, Thai Women, Women of Reproductive Age, Ferritn
