Global, regional and national burden of dietary iron deficiency from 1990 to 2021: a Global Burden of Disease study

GBD 2021 Dietary Iron Deficiency Collaborators, Sooji Lee, Yejun Son, Jiyoung Hwang, Min Seo Kim, Susan A. McLaughlin, Victor Vilchis-Tella, Leo Zoeckler, Nandita Perumal, Sa’ed H. Zyoud, Ghazal Zoghi, Hafsa Zia, Abzal Zhumagaliuly, Claire Chenwen Zhong, Liqun Zhang, Haijun Zhang, Naod Gebrekrstos Zeru, Mohammed G.M. Zeariya, Iman Zare, Nelson ZamoraBurhan Abdullah Zaman, Chuanhua Yu, Naohiro Yonemoto, Dehui Yin, Muluken Yigezu, Subah Abderehim Yesuf, Sanni Yaya, Amir Yarahmadi, Vikas Yadav, Xiaoyue Xu, Yihun Miskir Wubie, Abay Tadesse Woday, Peter Willeit, Holly Wild, Kosala Gayan Weerakoon, Yanzhong Wang, Yasir Waheed, Simona Ruxandra Volovat, Manish Vinayak, Dominique Vervoort, Georgios Ioannis Verras, Balachandar Vellingiri, Tommi Juhani Vasankari, Joe Varghese, Jef Van den Eynde, Rohollah Valizadeh, Asokan Govindaraj Vaithinathan, Sanaz Vahdati, Seyed Mohammad Vahabi, Tolassa Wakayo Ushula, Bhaskaran Unnikrishnan, Muhammad Umar, Shahid Ullah, Saeed Ullah, Aniefiok John Udoakang, Munkhtuya Tumurkhuu, Abdul Rohim Tualeka, Thien Tan Tri Tai Truyen, Domenico Trico, Thang Huu Tran, Ngoc Ha Tran, Nghia Minh Tran, Marcos Roberto Tovani-Palone, Krishna Tiwari, Mariya Vladimirovna Titova, Jansje Henny Vera Ticoalu, Nikhil Kenny Thomas, Sathish Thirunavukkarasu, Samar Tharwat, Rekha Thapar, Mohamad Hani Temsah, Yibekal Manaye Tefera, Birhan Tsegaw Taye, Nathan Y. Tat, Md Tariqujjaman, Ingan Ukur Tarigan, Jacques Lukenze Tamuzi, Mircea Tampa, Iman M. Talaat, Jabeen Taiba, Celine Tabche, Seyed Amir Tabatabaeizadeh, Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabaei, T. Y. Sree Sudha, Mindy D. Szeto, Lukasz Szarpak, Chandan Kumar Swain, Hani Susianti, Vetriselvan Subramaniyan, Suresh Kumar Srinivasamurthy, Reed J.D. Sorensen, Soroush Soraneh, Shipra Solanki, Ranjan Solanki, Farrukh Sobia, Surjit Singh, Puneetpal Singh, Paramdeep Singh, Narinder Pal Singh, Jasvinder A. Singh, Jasbir Singh, Harmanjit Singh, Baljinder Singh, Luís Manuel Lopes Rodrigues Silva, Emmanuel Edwar Siddig, Sunil Shrestha, Velizar Shivarov, Aminu Shittu, Rahman Shiri, Shiran Shetty, Premalatha K. Shetty, Pavanchand H. Shetty, Mahabalesh Shetty, Rekha Raghuveer Shenoy, Rahim Ali Sheikhi, Maryam Shayan, Vishal Sharma, Anupam Sharma, Javad Sharifi Rad, Amin Sharifan, Medha Sharath, Mohammed Shannawaz, Mohd Shanawaz, Alfiya Shamsutdinova, Anas Shamsi, Mehran Shams-Beyranvand, Muhammad Aaqib Shamim, Sunder Sham, Alireza Shakeri, Masood Ali Shaikh, Moyad Jamal Shahwan, Wajeehah Shahid, Samiah Shahid, Mahan Shafie, Christianus Heru Setiawan, Yashendra Sethi, Sadaf G. Sepanlou, Pallav Sengupta, Mohammad H. Semreen, Siddharthan Selvaraj, Art Schuermans, Abu Sayeed, Monika Sawhney, Maheswar Satpathy, Anudeep Sathyanarayan, Brijesh Sathian, Sachin C. Sarode, Gargi Sachin Sarode, Tanmay Sarkar, Aswini Saravanan, Sivan Yegnanarayana Iyer Saraswathy, Itamar S. Santos, Rama Krishna Sanjeev, Abdallah M. Samy, Vijaya Paul Samuel, Yoseph Leonardo Samodra, Marwa Rashad Salem, Samreen Saleem, Luciane B. Salaroli, Afeez Abolarinwa Salami, S. Mohammad Sajadi, Soumya Swaroop Sahoo, Pragyan Monalisa Sahoo, Amirhossein Sahebkar, Narjes Saheb Sharif-Askari, Fatemeh Saheb Sharif-Askari, Umar Saeed, Basema Ahmad Saddik, Mamta Sachdeva Dhingra, Siamak Sabour, Cameron John Sabet, Aly M.A. Saad, Godfrey M. Rwegerera, Guilherme de Andrade Ruela, Bedanta Roy, Himanshu Sekhar Rout, Moustaq Karim Khan Rony, Luca Ronfani, Ravi Rohilla, Leonardo Roever, Hermano Alexandre Lima Rocha, Jennifer Rickard, Muhammad Riaz, Mohsen Rezaeian, Nazila Rezaei, Kannan R.R. Rengasamy, Giuseppe Remuzzi, Elrashdy M. Moustafa Mohamed Redwan, Christian Razo, Rabail Zehra Raza, Salman Rawaf, Devarajan Rathish, Ashkan Rasouli-Saravani, Mohammad Mahdi Rashidi, Sowmya J. Rao, Mithun Rao, Chythra R. Rao, Amey Rane, Rishabh Kumar Rana, Kritika Rana, Shakthi Kumaran Ramasamy, Mahmoud Mohammed Ramadan, Koushik Ramachandra, Prashant Rajput, Vinoth Rajendran, Sandesh Raja, Adarsh Raja, Setyaningrum Rahmawaty, Vahid Rahmanian, Mohammad Rahmanian, Amir Masoud Rahmani, Muhammad Aziz Rahman, Mosiur Rahman, Mohammad Hifz Ur Rahman, Md Mosfequr Rahman, Vafa Rahimi-Movaghar, Fakher Rahim, Pankaja Raghav, Venkatraman Radhakrishnan, R. Deepthi, Asma Saleem Qazi, Ibrahim Qattea, Nameer Hashim Qasim, Jagadeesh Puvvula, Bharathi M. Purohit, Manya Prasad, Jalandhar Pradhan, Pranil Man Singh Pradhan, Naeimeh Pourtaheri, Ramesh Poluru, Dimitri Poddighe, Zahra Zahid Piracha, Anil K. Philip, Norberto Perico, Arokiasamy Perianayagam, Gavin Pereira, Prince Peprah, Minjin Peng, Shrikant Pawar, Dimitrios Patoulias, Shankargouda Patil, Siddhartha Pati, Jay Patel, Roberto Passera, Seoyeon Park, Romil R. Parikh, Pragyan Paramita Parija, Sheikh Mohammed Shariful Islam, Md Rabiul Islam, Nasser Bagheri, Mohammed Usman Ali

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12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Although iron deficiency is well documented, less is known about dietary involvement in symptomatic iron deficiency manifesting in medical conditions. In this study, we quantified the global burden of dietary iron deficiency, focusing on where inadequate dietary iron intake leads to clinical manifestations such as anemia. We analyzed data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 to estimate dietary iron deficiency prevalence and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), stratified by age, sex, geography and socio-demographic index (SDI) across 204 countries. In 2021, global age-standardized prevalence and DALY rates were 16,434.4 (95% uncertainty interval (UI), 16,186.2–16,689.0) and 423.7 (285.3–610.8) per 100,000 population, with rates decreasing by 9.8% (8.1–11.3) and 18.2% (15.4–21.1) from 1990 to 2021. A higher burden was observed in female individual (age-standardized prevalence, 21,334.8 (95% UI, 20,984.8–21,697.4); DALYs, 598.0 (402.6–854.4)) than in male individual ((age-standardized prevalence, 11,684.7 (11,374.6–12,008.8); DALYs, 253.0 (167.3–371.0)). High-SDI countries presented greater improvement, with a 25.7% reduction compared to 11.5% in low-SDI countries. Despite global improvements, dietary iron deficiency remains a major health concern with a global prevalence of 16.7%, particularly affecting female individuals, children and residents in low-SDI countries. Urgent interventions through supplementation, food security measures and fortification initiatives are essential.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1809-1829
Number of pages21
JournalNature Medicine
Volume31
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2025

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