The Iron Requirement of Six Adolescent Girls

Community study of menstrual iron loss and its association with iron deficiency anaemia.

“…It is not unreasonable to assume that collection on the second occasion by each woman was more complete than on the first occasion, as the questioning by the nurse following the first measurement would emphasize the need for complete collection. In fact, omitting the five women who reported incomplete collection on the first occasion and whose first results have been omitted from the results already presented, the mean of the first collection in the women who co-operated on two occasions is 13-5 mg., which is only just less than the mean of the subsequent collections in these women, 13-7 mg. A similar trend, also statistically insignificant, is shown in the data of Schlaphoff and Johnston (1949). Nevertheless it is possible that our estimate of the mean loss is low.…”

Menstrual Blood Loss–A Population Study

“…Compared with the findings of other investigators, the mean value of the menstrual blood loss of the entire series expressed as ml blood is lower than the mean value found by B a r e r and F o w l e r (1936), A r e n s (1945) and G o l t n e r and G a i l e r (19643, but higher than the mean value found by L e v e r t o n and R o b e r t s (1g37), Baldwin, W h a l l e y , and P r i t c h a r d (1961), H a g e d o r n , Kiely, T a u x e , and O w e n (1962), A p t e and V e n k a t a c h a l a m (1963), H y t t e n , C h e y n e , and Klopp e r (1964) and J a c o b s and B u t l e r (1965). The differences may be due partly to the fact that the various studies are different with respect to the selection and the number of subjects studied, their age, parity, etc.…”

Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for iron

“…The Netherlands Food and Nutrition Council (1992) calculated basal iron losses in childhood by extrapolation using body weight to the power of 0.75. Menstrual iron losses were estimated to be 0.6 mg/day in girls aged 13-16 years (Schlaphoff and Johnston, 1949). Requirements for growth were calculated from variation in body iron stores (average: 40-50 mg/kg body weight (Fomon and Anderson, 1974)) and their SD was considered to be 15 %.…”