Iron Deficiency Makes Blood Stickier

Iron deficiency, a condition that affects 2 billion people worldwide, causes platelets in the blood to become stickier, resulting in more clotting and an increased risk of stroke. 

Previous research has suggested that iron deficiency can contribute to increased stroke risk.  To discover the cause of this association, Claire Shovlin, MD, of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, and colleagues, followed 497 patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia—a disease that causes enlarging of the blood vessels in the lungs.

Researchers chose participants with this disease because while blood vessels are normally able to filter out smaller blood clots, in patients with HHT, these clots can bypass these filters and reach the brain.

They found that those patients with moderately low iron levels—6 micromoles per liter—had double the risk of stroke when compared with patients that had 7-27 micromoles of iron per liter. 

This was caused by an increased adhesiveness of platelets, the blood cells that cause blood to clot.  When platelets became stickier, it leads to more small clots forming in the blood.

“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,” they concluded.

“The next step is to test whether we can reduce high-risk patients’ chances of having a stroke by treating their iron deficiency.”

–Michael Potts

Shovlin CL, Chamali B, Santhirapala V, Livesey JA, et al. Ischaemic Strokes in Patients with Pulmonary Arteriovenous Malformations and Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia: Associations with Iron Deficiency and Platelets. PLoS ONE 9(2): e88812. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088812