5 Natural Treatments for Anemia Symptoms
July 12, 2018
Original article and page source found here.
Anemia, also known as anaemia, occurs when your blood has a lower than normal number of red blood cells or if your red blood cells don’t have enough hemoglobin. Because a side effect of anemia is low circulation of oxygen, anemia symptoms usually include muscle weakness, ongoing fatigue or lethargy, brain fog, and sometimes mood changes.
Severe anemia or unabated anemia can also sometimes cause complications, including damage to your heart, brain and other organs, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). (1) Although it’s rare, anemia that remains untreated can even become deadly.
Considering the seriousness of anemia and how common it is among certain age groups — especially women during reproductive years or adults with existing health conditions who are over 65 — it’s imperative that you learn how to recognize anemia symptoms in yourself or your loved ones. Below you’ll learn about the most common signs of anemia, as well as the best ways to treat these symptoms and reduce anemia risk factors, such as iron deficiency or eating a highly processed diet.
What Is Anemia?
Anemia is “the condition marked by a deficiency of red blood cells or of hemoglobin in the blood.” Hemoglobin is an iron-rich protein that gives your blood its red color. It helps cells bring oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body.
If you have anemia, your body simply doesn’t receive enough oxygen-rich blood, leaving you tired and weak. (2) Red blood cells contain hemoglobin. They are also important for immunity, including fighting infections, as well as clotting blood and preventing too much bleeding.
Anemia is closely related to iron deficiency. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in the U.S. Iron helps produce hemoglobin, and therefore the CDC estimates that almost 10 percent of women are iron-deficient.
This is alarming considering the essential roles that iron plays, including facilitating with oxygen distribution. Your body needs iron to perform many functions throughout every single day. But it’s common for many people to live with low iron levels due to factors like blood loss (such as from menstruation), a poor diet or an inability to absorb enough iron from food sources.
Anemia Symptoms
Without enough oxygen-carrying red blood cells in your body, it’s impossible to transport adequate amounts of oxygen to your brain, tissues, muscles and cells. Feeling a little “out of it” and tired is pretty common for many adults, due to compounding reasons. These can include stress, lack of sleep, battling a virus and a busy work schedule, among others. Therefore, when it comes to knowing whether or not you should be checked for anemia, it’s important to understand how anemia symptoms usually manifest and what makes them different than simply feeling exhausted due to other life circumstances.
Here are some of the most common anemia symptoms adults tend to experience: (4)
Fatigue
Weakness
Pale skin
A fast or irregular heartbeat
Shortness of breath, trouble breathing, low stamina and reduced endurance
Chest pains
Dizziness or loss of stability
Cognitive problems, including brain fog, difficulty concentrating and trouble getting work done
Cold hands and feet or other signs of body temperature changes
You should also be aware that, initially, anemia can be so mild that it often goes unnoticed for a period of time, sometimes even for years. But anemia symptoms typically worsen as the condition progresses, especially if more than one risk factor is contributing to the problem.
You can find out if you have low red blood cells by taking a hematocrit test, along with a hemoglobin test.
Causes
There are three primary reasons why you might develop anemia from not having enough red blood cells:
You’re not producing enough red blood cells.
You’ve been losing too much blood due to injury, menstruation or other circumstances that cause bleeding.
Your body is destroying the red blood cells you have due to changes in your immune system.
Risk Factors
Deficiency in iron or vitamin B12. This can happen if you don’t eat enough in general, you eat a restrictive diet, or sometimes if you’re a vegetarian/vegan who avoids animal products (since these are good sources of iron and B vitamins). Your body needs adequate iron, vitamin 12, folate and other nutrients from the foods you eat in order to produce healthy amounts of hemoglobin and red blood cells.
Being a woman, since women develop anemia more often than men do.
In people who have pernicious anemia, they are getting enough vitamin B12 but aren’t able to properly metabolize or use it. Because of this, their bodies still can’t make enough hemoglobin.
Older age. Research shows people over 65 are more likely to develop anemia.
Pregnancy can also increase risk for anemia.
Candida, which can alter how you absorb nutrients including B vitamins.
Other conditions including an autoimmune disease (like lupus for example), HIV/AIDS, rheumatoid arthritis, kidney disease or cancer can cause anemia. If you have kidney issues and anemia, your erythropoietin — a glycoprotein that controls red blood cell production, may be off. If your kidneys don’t produce enough of it, it can contribute to anemia.
Having a digestive issue that disrupts nutrient absorption, such as inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease or an ulcer.
Frequently taking over-the-counter pain relievers, especially aspirin, which block certain nutrients.
Sometimes anemia is genetically inherited, and therefore less likely to be due to lifestyle factors or your diet. These include aplastic anemia (your body doesn’t produce enough red blood cells), bone marrow diseases like leukemia and myelofibrosis, hemolytic anemia (red blood cells are destroyed faster than bone marrow can replace them), or sickle cell anemia (having a defective form of hemoglobin that produce red blood cells which can’t be used, and causes blood cells to die prematurely). A genetic disorder called G6PD deficiency may also contribute to anemia. (5)
Thalassemia is another condition that can lead to anemia. This inherited blood disorder marked by fewer red blood cells and less hemoglobin in the body than normal, which can cause anemia.
How Your Diet Affects Anemia
Aside from getting enough iron and B vitamins (more on this below), what’s one of the most important things you can do to overcome anemia? Remove processed and junk foods from your diet as much as possible. Consuming lots of empty calories — like processed and junk foods, such refined grains, fast food, synthetic ingredients or excess sugar, for example — can contribute to deficiencies in essential nutrients, fatigue, weight gain, weakness and also inflammatory bowel disease or candida.
Candida is a condition that results in high levels of yeast proliferating and disturbing the normal pH balance and mucous lining of the GI tract. This causes changes how you absorb nutrients. Oftentimes, digestive issues like IBD or candida and anemia are linked, especially in women. If you ever notice a white color on your tongue or in the back of your throat, or if you ever tend to get any sort of yeast issues, these are signs of candida symptoms. Along with digestive issues, chronic fatigue, brain fog is often overlooked as a sign of candida and IBD. IBD or candida overgrowth can cause a lack of focus, poor physical coordination, difficulty in concentrating on tasks and poor memory, just like anemia can. (6)
In order to overcome candida and related digestive issues, it’s usually very helpful to try eliminating almost all processed sugars and grains at least for a period of time. In other words, trying an “elimination diet” might greatly help control symptoms. If you are eating a lot of sugary foods, pastas, breads, cereals or really any type of refined grain product or sweetener, they’re going to feed yeast in your GI tract. This can block iron absorption and worsen anemia, so addressing the quality of your diet is key for recovery. I recommend replacing these problematic, low-nutrient foods with things like fresh veggies, lean protein and healthy fats. This will help restore digestive/gut health and also provide you essential nutrients, including iron.
Here Are the Worst Foods for Anemia To Avoid:
Added sugar/sweeteners
Processed grains
Dark Chocolate. Although chocolate is rich in iron, it also contains tannins, a type of antinutrient that interferes with iron absorption. Keep intake in moderation, include plenty of other iron-rich foods in your diet and stick to milk and white chocolate varieties to minimize tannin intake.
Bran. Bran is high in insoluble fiber that traps and removes iron during digestion.
Conventional dairy. Calcium binds with iron in foods and can lead to poor absorption.
Soda. Soda is high in sugar and poor in nutrients and it blocks iron absorption.
Coffee and black tea. Excessive coffee intake may block iron absorption, so reduce it to no more than one cup per day.
Natural Treatments
You can treat anemia symptoms naturally in the following ways:
1. Nourish Your Spleen
The first natural treatment for anemia is really nourishing your spleen. Your spleen is an organ that is responsible for red blood cell production, as well as keeping fluids together in your system. If your spleen isn’t healthy, that’s one of the first factors that’s going to cause anemia.
There are specific foods that will actually help nourish your spleen, helping you overcome anemia symptoms naturally. That first food group is squash, specifically pumpkin, acorn squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash and those bright orange-colored foods. Think fall harvest! Those sorts of foods are fantastic for nourishing the spleen. Aim for getting one to two servings of squash in your daily diet. If you want some ideas, try my Butternut Squash Soup as a starter.
The other food group that’s very important for nourishing your spleen and red blood cell production is green leafy vegetables like nutrition-rich spinach, kale and chard. Having one serving of those per day, something like a Kale Caesar Salad or sautéed spinach, is also very nourishing to your spleen.
Last, but not least, bitter foods are great for the spleen, specifically vegetables like romaine lettuce and arugula salad. You can even consume bitter herbs before a meal as a supplement. But anything that’s sort of a bitter food is very nourishing for the spleen.
2. Use Probiotics for a Healthy Gut
Step number two to help you naturally overcome anemia symptoms is to boost gut health with probiotics. Gut health is crucial for absorption of nutrients. The principle is not: “You are what you eat.” Rather, it is: “You are what you digest.” If you’re not digesting properly and absorbing and assimilating nutrients properly, you’re not absorbing iron!
For a lot of people taking iron supplements, unfortunately they might not be working all that well. The reason is that their digestive system isn’t healthy; they probably have a condition called leaky gut syndrome. Leaky gut doesn’t allow you to properly absorb iron as well as certain other vitamins and minerals, like vitamin B12, magnesium and zinc.
A medical study out of Stanford found that when somebody supplements with probiotics, all of their B vitamin levels tend to go up, along with iron levels. (