Association between obesity and anemia in an nationally representative sample of United States adults: a cross-sectional study

Zhuo Chen; Bingyan Cao; Lu Liu; Xudong Tang; Hao Xu

doi:10.3389/fnut.2024.1304127

Association between obesity and anemia in an nationally representative sample of United States adults: a cross-sectional study

Front Nutr. 2024 Mar 13:11:1304127. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1304127. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Zhuo Chen¹, Bingyan Cao¹, Lu Liu², Xudong Tang¹, Hao Xu³

Affiliations

¹ Xiyuan Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
² Jining Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jining, China.
³ Cardiovascular Diseases Center, Xiyuan Hospital, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Introduction: Few studies are about the relationship between anemia and obesity, and previous studies have only paid attention to BMI.

Methods and results: We first included body fat percentage (BF%) as an assessment indicator and divided it into quartiles, grouped participants into obesity and non-obesity used data from NHANES database. After adjustment for age, gender, ethnicity, education and family income, the level of soluble transferrin receptor (sTfR), and incidence of elevated CRP or HsCRP were progressively higher with increased BF%, whereas mean cell volume (MCV), natural logarithm (Ln) serum ferritin (SF), and Ln SF/sTfR were progressively reduced. Although a higher prevalence of anemia and lower hemoglobin was observed with increased BF%, but there was no statistical difference. Women in the highest BF% group demonstrated a significantly higher risk of iron deficiency compared to those in the lowest BF% group.

Discussion: BF% should be given more attention, and women with high BF% should pay attention to iron deficiency.

Keywords: NHANES; anemia; body fat percentage; inflammation; iron deficiency; obesity.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Public Welfare Research Institutes (ZZ13-YQ-002). The funding sources were not involved in data collection, data analysis, or manuscript drafting.