Iron Deficiency Anemia in HIV-Positive Women

Iron Deficiency Anemia in HIV-Positive Women 1

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Class XXXX, Section XXXX, Fall 2012


Iron Deficiency Anemia in HIV-Positive Women

The Research Question is about women, who lived in Greater Vancouver Area

and had the iron deficiency anemia and with positive immunodeficiency virus. They were

tested by association between medical, social and nutritional factor. Also, people without

immunodeficiency virus took a part in this research. The information was collected

including different factors such as dietary intake, nutrition-related factors. The medical

information and all necessary data about patient were obtained from the medical chart.

They should be under 19 years, confirmed HIV-positive status, CD4 cell count of at least

200. It should be only women. They must not be pregnant. Blood loss often associated

with inflammation, bone marrow suppression, and disruption of intestinal epithelial cell

replication often causes the anemia.102 participants took part in the research. 60% of

people were from Oak Tree Clinic, there were 25% of patients from Vancouver Native

Health Clinic, 11% were recruited from the local Downtown Community Health and only

4% were from St. Pauls Hospital. The ethnic groups were different types. There were

plenty of Caucasian patients (53%), also by Aboriginal origin (30%) and a few patients

from Africa and South Asia.

Special statistical software program is often use in such researches. The name of

the program is S-PLUS 8 Enterprise Developer for Windows (Insightful Corporation,

Seattle, WA, 2007). The sample was divided in two groups. There were people with iron

deficiency anemia in the first group and people were without anemia in the second group

Instead of the traditional one-month research, it was over the preceding seven days.

According to the survey results, the ferritin levels were available for 42 participants, but

the haemoglobin levels were available for all patients. The prevalence of anemia was


30%, the prevalence of iron deficiency was 40% and finally, the prevalence of iron

deficiency anemia was 16%. 52% of these participants had the ferritin levels below 30 g

/L. In comparison with women who had not got iron deficiency anemia, women with iron

deficiency had lower levels of haemoglobin. BMI factor was also very important. Good

BMI had only 22% of the participants. According to the survey, it is clear that African,

Aboriginal women were predominantly with iron deficiency. No infections were found in

75% of the participants used antiretroviral therapy. 57% of the patients took

multivitamin, 16 patients were with iron deficiency anemia. 28% of them took iron

supplements. 62 patients also took food supplements and took the assistance dietary

program during one month. The highest result with this program was showed by the

Aboriginal women. There were any important associations between dietary iron intake

and iron status. If there were more participants, the results would be more accurate.

However, the sample size was too small to draw definitive conclusions.

During the research, it was found that women with HIV incur a risk for iron

deficiency anemia. If they want to prevent iron deficiently anemia, they should take

screening every three months, use multivitamins supplements including iron and hold on

supportive nutrition program. The data justify these conclusions. Iron deficiency anemia

in HIV-positive women is very complicated. It has multifactorial and complicated

causation. Because of health disparities, African and Aboriginal women have more risks

to an iron deficiency anemia (Semba R., Shah N., Strathdee S., Vlahov D., 2002). The

article says that you should not ignore your nutrition problems and you should always go

to the dietitian. This article can help dietitians to raise awareness about iron deficiency

anemia in those with HIV.


References

Semba RD, Shah N, Strathdee SA, Vlahov D. (2002). High prevalence of iron deficiency

and anemia among female injection drug users with and without HIV infection. JAIDS.

Documents

Iron Deficiency Anemia in HIV-Positive Women