Now that you know a bit about red blood cells, hemoglobin and iron, let’s define what anemia and iron-deficiency anemia are.

First, anemia. Anemia is a condition where a reduced number of healthy red blood cells are circulating in the body. Now, with a reduced number of healthy red blood cells, as you could imagine, the body wouldn’t have quite enough oxygen to deliver to its tissues and organs. So let’s take this one step further.

A red blood cell is made up of many different things. Hemoglobin and iron being two. So knowing that iron is needed to make hemoglobin, if the body didn’t have enough of it from eating iron-rich foods, do you think the body could make enough hemoglobin? Nope. Because after all, iron is needed to form it, right?

So if not enough hemoglobin can be made from this lack of iron, well then, it means not enough healthy red blood cells are formed with hemoglobin/iron in them. See where I’m going with this? Iron-deficiency anemia. It’s a condition where not enough iron is in the body to form healthy red blood cells with hemoglobin.

See, this blood stuff is not so tough to understand. Next, the symptoms and consequences of anemia.

Did you know?

A red blood cell lives about 120 days before it dies and is replaced.