14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists working with the Imperial College London say that, according to their investigations, people who are suffering from iron deficiency are more likely to experience a stroke at one point in their lives than individuals whose bodies contain just the right amount of said element.
The researchers argue that, all things considered, it is possible that people who have an iron deficiency have a higher stroke risk due to the fact that their blood is somewhat stickier than the one of normal individuals.
Consequently, clots are more likely to form and eventually interrupt the flow of blood to the brain, thus causing a so-called ischaemic stroke to occur, Eurek Alert explains.
In a paper published in the journal PLOS ONE, the Imperial College London detail the link between iron deficiency and a higher stroke risk was first documented several years ago.
However, how and why these two issues are connected has not yet been fully clarified.
The specialists say that, as shown by their own investigations and several other studies, abnormal iron levels in the body toy with the properties of very small blood cells known to the scientific community as platelets.
Specifically, iron deficiency causes these cells to be a tad stickier than they normally would be. Hence, platelets have higher chances to stick together, and thus form clots.
“Since platelets in the blood stick together more if you are short of iron, we think this may explain why being short of iron can lead to strokes, though much more research will be needed to prove this link,” says Dr. Claire Shovlin.
While monitoring a total of 497 patients who all had abnormal blood vessels in their lungs, the researchers found that those whose iron levels were fairly low, i.e. around 6 micromoles per liter, were nearly twice as likely to suffer a stroke than those who had iron levels of 7-27 micromoles per liter.
Besides, when exposed to a compound known to trigger clotting, the platelets of patients suffering from iron deficiency needed less time to clump together.
The researchers now wish to carry out further investigations and hope to determine whether or not it might be possible to reduce stroke risk simply by treating iron deficiency.
“The next step is to test whether we can reduce high-risk patients' chances of having a stroke by treating their iron deficiency. We will be able to look at whether their platelets become less sticky,” Dr. Claire Shovlin explains.
Furthermore, “There are many additional steps from a clot blocking a blood vessel to the final stroke developing, so it is still unclear just how important sticky platelets are to the overall process. We would certainly encourage more studies to investigate this link.”