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HEALTH
The Myth that Women Don’t Need Supplemental Iron after Menopause
For women, iron is an essential nutrient, which increases in importance after puberty. But what about post-menopausal women? Women are often told that they don’t need to take supplemental iron after they cease having a monthly cycle, unless follow a strict vegan diet.
It’s not always true — and it’s easy enough to check with a simple blood test.
As a younger woman, I only suffered from iron deficiency anemia immediately after childbirth. I rarely took iron supplements, and I generally had healthy hemoglobin, hematocrit, and iron levels.
But at age 59, when I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, I began having light-headedness and mild chest pain when hiking at high altitude. As a nurse, I knew that the chemical element iron helps support red blood cell formation and normal metabolism in the body. A deficiency can cause weakness and lightheadedness, and can impair our blood cell’s ability to carry oxygen properly. Initially, I thought my symptoms would resolve in few months, after my body had time to adjust to the higher altitude. When that didn’t happen, I had some blood work done — and to my surprise, I was anemic. Once I began taking a “blood building” supplement that enhanced my iron levels, my symptoms subsided fairly quickly. And that got me…
