Iron deficiency anemia in adolescent school girls from low socio-economic background and their cognitive achievement

Iron Deficiency (ID) is the most common cause of nutritional anemia and the prevalence of Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) in India is highest in the world. Adolescent females from low socio-economic background are more at risk of developing IDA due to greater growth demands, nutritional deficiencies, infections with parasites and due to menstrual blood loss. IDA can lead to many hematological disturbances, decreased physical work capacity and impaired cognitive functions.

This study was done on adolescent female school girls of 12–15 years age from a government school to find out the prevalence of IDA, to assess the relation between ID and cognitive functions and to know whether treatment with oral iron supplementations for 3 months will reduce the number of anemic students and improve their cognitive functions. Their Complete Blood Picture and Serum Ferritin levels were determined. The scholastic performance assessment and the cognitive functions were tested. The participants were divided into 2 groups:

Anemic (Hb< 12 gm %) and ID (serum ferritin <12 μg/L) students.

Non-anemic (Hb> 12gm %) and non-iron deficient (serum ferritin >12 μg/L).

In our study, prevalence of IDA was found to be 67%. In the cognitive tests, the scores of attention and concentration, verbal retention for similar parts, verbal retention for dissimilar parts, recognition were significantly less in group I compared to group II. There was no significant difference in the scores of recent memory, remote memory between the two groups. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that ID definitely and independently affects the cognitive functions. Supplementation with iron for 3 months in these students led to reduction in the number of anemic students by 50% and rapid improvement in the scholastic performance and cognitive functions.