Dementia is associated with iron-deficiency anemia in females: A population-based study

Cognitive derangement and neurological symptoms are observed in patients with anemia. Although it is still controversial, a few studies suggested that anemia may increase the risk of dementia. This study aimed to explore the association between iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) and dementia in a population-based case-control study. We retrieved our study sample from the Taiwan Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000. We extracted 8300 subjects with a diagnosis of dementia and 8300 age- and gender-matched controls. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the prevalence of prior IDA between cases and controls (6.0% vs. 3.8%, p <0.001). The conditional logistic regression analysis suggested that the odds ratio (OR) of prior IDA for cases was 1.36 (95% CI: 1.07-1.74) compared to controls after adjusting for subjects' monthly income, geographic location, urbanization level, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, hypertension, and alcohol abuse. Among female subjects, the adjusted OR of prior IDA for cases was as high as 2.00 (95% CI: 1.42-2.80) compared to controls. However, in men - no increased odds of prior IDA were observed, compared to controls. We concluded that women with dementia had a higher prevalence of prior IDA, compared to controls.