Research paper
A randomized, blinded, placebo‐controlled trial of education and iron supplementation for mitigation of iron deficiency in regular blood donors
Study answer
What this study found
Daily oral iron supplementation with 19 mg or 38 mg elemental iron, and ferritin-based iron-status letters, were effective and largely equivalent for mitigating donation-related iron deficiency; no intervention led to worsening iron status. Ferritin increased by 16.7 and 18.3 in the 38 mg and 19 mg iron groups, compared with 0.3 in the no-information letter group and 0.8 in placebo, and ferritin <26 ng/mL declined by 50% in the iron-status letter, 19 mg, and 38 mg groups. Ferritin <12 ng/mL fell by 70%+ in those same groups, while control arms were unchanged; log(sTfR/ferritin) <2.07…
- Study & population
- Randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled multicenter study of frequent adult blood donors in the United States who were not taking iron supplements.
- Intervention
- Five-arm randomized trial: two active oral iron regimens used ferrous gluconate tablets providing 38 mg or 19 mg elemental iron taken after each blood donation, compared with a placebo tablet arm.
- Key limitation
- Completed sample sizes were smaller than randomized sample sizes in several arms, especially placebo and the 19 mg group, which increases imprecision.
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Open PDFOriginal abstract
The historical approach of offering dietary advice to donors with low hemoglobin (Hb) is ineffective for preventing iron deficiency in frequent donors. Alternative approaches to maintaining donor iron status were explored.