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Abstract

For many years, obesity and iron deficiency have both been unclear on whether they are related or not. A study was conducted with approximately 13,000 overweight patients and approximately 26,000 non-overweight patients to determine if these two are in fact related by testing of what is called blood iron markers. The overweight patients were found to have lower serum iron concentrations than those who are non-overweight. As a result of this study, it is determined that overweight patients are “significantly associated with iron deficiency”.

The main purpose of this research is to establish association between the unproven perceived link in hypoferremia, or obesity and a low iron blood count, in layman’s term. I believe the sample chosen was very appropriate because it was a collection of experiments carried out over a significant period of time, and the sample group was large enough to alleviate any deficiencies that may have developed if the sampling group was limited. The number of individuals used seemed to provide solid grounds for people from different backgrounds and it avoided the downsides of sampling from a limited area, which could have limited the results.

The approach the researchers used was non-experimental and it relied on evidence from previous experiments. I believe the research design is Meta analytic. It analyzes any correlation between obesity and low iron blood count using data from previous experiments. The researchers used various methods to carry out this analysis. Those methods include literature research that identified appropriate articles and overlooked those with inaccurate data. The statistical analysis was completed by comparing the relevant standard deviation of the blood count iron markers in the obese individuals and those for the individuals who were not overweight, and the results for each article were organized. The main concern with this research was the high rate of heterogeneity found in the study due to the different methodologies among the selected studies (Zhao 2015). The researchers took measures to accommodate for this discrepancy by performing a subgroup analysis.

Reference

Privitera, G. J. (2017). Research Methods for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE.

Zhao, L., Zhang, X., Shen, Y., Fang, X., Wang, Y., & Wang, F. (2015). Obesity and iron deficiency: a quantitative meta-analysis. Obesity Reviews, 16(12), 1081-1093. doi:10.1111/obr.12323