Anemia affects both body and mind

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Anemia may contribute to impaired thinking among older adults, according to a new study.
Anemia - a low level of hemoglobin, the pigment that carries oxygen around the body - can lead to muscle weakness and fatigue. Now researchers at Johns Hopkins University reveal that it can lead to impaired thinking as well.

They gave tests to evaluate so called executive function - a type of thinking that influences problem solving, planning and following up - to 364 women in their seventies. Around one in ten had anemia. Fifteen per cent of those with the worst scores were anemic, compared to just three per cent of those with top scores. A loss of executive function can lead to a corresponding decline in self-sufficiency. It may be that anemia diminishes the supply of blood to the brain, or that fatigue leads to a loss of physical fitness, which has a knock-on effect. Of course, this study does not actually prove that anemia causes loss of executive function - or that its treatment will restore it. But these questions are worth further exploration.

Source
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society September 2006

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