Anemia poses a life-threatening risk to the elderly, new study finds

Anemia is nothing to ignore in later years. It doubles the risk of dying and boosts the risk of hospitalization by 40%, new research shows.

A reduction in the number of red blood cells that fuel the body with oxygen, anemia occurs in about 13% of adults older than 70. In some cases, deficiency in iron or vitamin B-12 is to blame. Cancer, liver or kidney disease also can thwart production of red blood cells. Nearly a third of cases remain unexplained.

Brenda Penninx of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., and her colleagues studied 3,607 adults, ages 71 and older, who participated in a large federally sponsored health study. Using blood samples, the researchers identified anemia among 12.5% (451) of study participants. They then reviewed information on the study subjects who had been hospitalized or had died in the subsequent four years.

Anemic patients were found to be more likely to have been hospitalized, to have had longer stays and to have died than non-anemic patients, regardless of whether they had diseases associated with anemia, Penninx reported last week at the American Society of Hematology meeting in San Diego. Doctors must watch patients’ red blood cell counts even in the absence of apparent disease, concluded Penninx, an associate professor of gerontology.

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Jane E. Allen