Buy backpacks, exercise machines, athletic shoes, and more at Fogdog Sports. The tissues of the human body need a regular supply of oxygen to stay healthy. Red blood cells, which contain hemoglobin that allows them to deliver oxygen throughout the body, live for only about 120 days. When they die, the iron they contain is returned to the bone marrow and used to create new red blood cells. Anemia develops when heavy bleeding causes significant iron loss or when something happens to slow down the production of red blood cells or to increase the rate at which they are destroyed.
Anemia can be mild, moderate, or severe enough to lead to life-threatening complications.
More than 400 different types of anemia have been identified. Many of them are rare. Iron deficiency anemia is the most common form of anemia in the world. In the United States, iron deficiency anemia affects about 240,000 toddlers between one and two years of age and 3.3 million women of childbearing age. This condition is less common in older children and in adults over 50 and rarely occurs in teenage boys and young men.