More Ontarians will be flagged for iron deficiency after guideline change [Video]

Ontario could soon see more residents receiving treatment for iron deficiency thanks to new guidelines lowering the threshold for abnormal iron levels in the blood.

“Around the world, there’s been substantial variation in what is defined as the lower limit of normal,” said Michelle Sholzberg, the director of hematology at the University of Toronto and the Hemequity lab at St. Michael’s Hospital. 

“People who’ve had true iron deficiency have not been flagged as having iron deficiency because it hasn’t been flagged as abnormal and now it will be flagged… and it will prompt clinician action.”

Lower limits previously flagged by some labs ranged from under five to under 15 micrograms per litre of ferritin, a blood protein that stores iron.

“The reason why that’s problematic is because there’s a lot of really great robust scientific evidence going as far back as 1992 suggesting that a level in adults below 30, …