DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2017.v05i11.028

Pages: 4449-4453

Nutritional anemia constitutes the most important cause of anemia in adolescents. It is mainly due to deficiency of iron, vitamin B12 and folate. In comparison to the vast amount of studies done on pregnant mothers and young children, work done on adolescent having nutritional anemia is scarce. The present study was planned to study the types of nutritional anemia in adolescents (10-18.9yrs) attending the hospital and to correlate the severity of nutritional anemia with serum levels of ferritin, Vitamin B12 and folate. 200 adolescent of age between 10-19 yrs were taken and classified as anemic based on their haemoglobin levels. Complete blood count was done with peripheral smear examination. Serum ferritin, serum folate and serum vitamin B12 were estimated. Male:female ratio was 1.02:1. Maximum subjects were in early adolescence (69.5%) while least in late adolescence (5%). Mean haemoglobin level was 9.36 + 2.45 gm/dl which falls in moderate category. Mean MCV was 85.27 + 14.25 fl which suggests high prevalence of normocytosis. Mean serum B12 level was 230.17 +144.96 pg/ml, mean serum ferritin was 102.72 + 9.61ng/ml and mean serum folate was 4.12 + 2.19 ng/ml. s 5.5% of study subjects had isolated iron deficiency, 25.5% had isolated folate deficiency and 4% had isolated Vit B12 defeciency. Combined folate and Vit B12 deficiency was seen in 31.3%. Majority of the subjects of mild anemia (79%) had normocytic anemia while in severe anemia 31% had microcytic anemia and dimorphic anemia each while 27% had macrocytic anemia. Folate deficiency was the most common followed by vitamin B12 defeciency and then irons deficiency. Supplementation with not only iron and folic acid but also with vitamin B12 is required through national programmes.