Wisal Abbas¹, Ishag Adam^2*, Duria A. Rayis², Nada G. Hassan², Mohamed F. Lutfi¹

¹Faculty of Medicine, Alneelain University, Khartoum, Sudan; ²Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, P.O. Box 102, 11111, Khartoum, Sudan

AIM: To assess the association between obesity and iron deficiency (ID).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Pregnant women were recruited from Saad Abualila Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan, during January–April 2015. Medical history (age, parity, gestational age) was gathered using questionnaire. Weight and height were measured, and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. Women were sub-grouped based on BMI into underweight (< 18.5 kg/m^2), normal weight (18.5–24.9 kg/m^2), overweight (25–29.9 kg/m^2) and obese (≥ 30 kg/m^2). Serum ferritin and red blood indices were measured in all studied women.

RESULTS: Two (0.5%), 126 (29.8%), 224 (53.0%) and 71 (16.8%) out of the 423 women were underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese, respectively. Anemia (Hb <11 g/dl), ID (ferritin <15µg/l) and iron deficiency anemia (IDA) were prevalent in 57.7%, 21.3% and 12.1%, respectively. Compared with the women with normal BMI, significantly fewer obese women were anemic [25 (35.2%) vs. 108 (85.7%), P < 0.001] and significantly higher number of obese women [25 (35.2) vs. 22 (17.5, P = 0.015] had iron deficiency. Linear regression analysis demonstrated a significant negative association between serum ferritin and BMI      (– 0.010 µg/, P= 0.006).

Citation: Abbas W, Adam I, Rayis DA, Hassan NG, Lutfi MF. A Higher Rate of Iron Deficiency in Obese Pregnant Sudanese Women. Open Access Maced J Med Sci. https://doi.org/10.3889/oamjms.2017.059
Keywords: Body mass index; iron deficiency; obesity; pregnancy; Sudan.
*Correspondence: Ishag Adam. Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, P.O. Box 102, 11111, Khartoum, Sudan. Tel +249912168988. Fax +249183771211. E-mail: ishagadam@hotmail.com
Received: 08-Nov-2016; Revised: 10-Feb-2017; Accepted: 06-Mar-2017; Online first: 29-Apr-2017
Copyright: © 2017 Wisal Abbas, Ishag Adam, Duria A. Rayis, Nada G. Hassan, Mohamed F. Lutfi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Funding: This research did not receive any financial support.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
 

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