ron Intake in Adults from Medellin According to Demographics, 2012

Objectives: To analyze the iron intake in healthy adults of Medellín according to demographics, and to determine the association between the consumption of iron and hemoglobin in this popula¬tion. Materials and methods: Cross-sectional study in 109 subjects. We applied a semiquantitative survey of food consumption frequency source of iron given the frequency of consumption and portion. Summary measures, frequencies, Mann Whitney, Kruskal Wallis ANOVA and Spearman correlation were calculated. We used SPSS version 20.0, considering a significance level of 0.05. Results: The mean age subjects was 32, 64.2 % were female, 81.6 % with technical or university studies, 29.3 % students and 43.9 % of low socioeconomic status. We found a daily intake of 12.3 mg/day on average, 61 % from non-heme iron. The total iron consumed was statistically higher in unemployed subjects than in workers, students and housewives. The heme iron intake was statistically higher in individuals with graduate. No statistically significant differences were observed when comparing iron consumption by sex, age group and hemoglobin. Conclusions: The low intake of iron is not influenced by sex or age group, but by occupation and education, and is a factor that cannot reduce the prevalence of iron and other micronutrients deficiencies. It requires to implement more and better strategies for nutrition education and increased avail¬ability, production and consumption of safe foo