Macrocytic anemia risk factors

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] Shyam Patel [2] Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Amandeep Singh M.D.[3]

Overview

Common risk factors of megaloblastic anemia include nutritional factors, alcoholism, elderly, pregnant, vegans, and malabsorptive syndromes.

Folate deficiency
Nutritional deficiency
- Strict vegan diet
- Malabsorptive disorders such as blind loops/bacterial overgrowth, sprue, Whipple’s and crohn’s
- Diphillobothrium latum infection (a competitor for B12 absorption)
Elderly age
Alcohol use
Narcotic abuse
Physiologic or pathologic states of increased metabolic demand
- Pregnancy
- Infancy
- Low grade hemolysis
- Malignancy
- Chronic hemodialysis
Autoimmune disease
- Hashimoto’s
- Vitiligo
- Diabetes
- Adrenal insufficiency (Schmitt’s Syndrome)

↑ Carmel R (May 1996). “Prevalence of undiagnosed pernicious anemia in the elderly”. Arch. Intern. Med. 156 (10): 1097–100. PMID 8638997.
↑ Toh BH, van Driel IR, Gleeson PA (November 1997). “Pernicious anemia”. N. Engl. J. Med. 337 (20): 1441–8. doi:10.1056/NEJM199711133372007. PMID 9358143.
↑ Rusak E, Chobot A, Krzywicka A, Wenzlau J (September 2016). “Anti-parietal cell antibodies – diagnostic significance”. Adv Med Sci. 61 (2): 175–179. doi:10.1016/j.advms.2015.12.004. PMID 26918709.
↑ Bizzaro N, Antico A (2014). “Diagnosis and classification of pernicious anemia”. Autoimmun Rev. 13 (4–5): 565–8. doi:10.1016/j.autrev.2014.01.042. PMID 24424200.