Nutritional Status of Women Employees in Nuclear Fuel Industry at Hyderabad

Abstract

Anaemia is not a disease but a sign, with its own symptoms, of some other disorder in the body which is affecting the blood. ‘Anaemia’ actually means ‘lack of blood’ whether it is due to destruction of the ‘corpuscles’ that make up the blood, due to lack of iron, vitamins or other chemicals or due to partial or total failure of the bone marrow. Every clinician has faced the same plaintive query many a time. Just before the patient leaves the chamber: “Doctor, please give me something to restore my strength”. It is a common practice to prescribe a B-complex syrup/capsule and send the patient. But perhaps, that is not the full answer. Strength is the ability of muscles to respond with full and optimum power when so demanded by the body. It stands for the vigor of life, the ‘raring to go’ feeling and ultimately the key to a successful career, be it as a young sports hero, a working person, a busy housewife or a loving mother. It is estimated that about 30% of the world’s population of about 6000 million, are anaemic. More than half of these cases of anaemia are due to iron deficiency. Anaemia accounts for more than 800 million cases. The objective was to study the nutritional status of women employees, to detect prevalence of anaemia in women employees and to know if the effect of life style on nutrition has any role in contributing to anaemia. Methodology included the periodic medical checkup reports of women employees from January 2013 to December 2014 and a questionnaire which included questions related to their day to day work/habits. Investigations of vitamin B12, vitamin D3, iron, TIBC, transferrin saturation and TSH were done. Individuals, whose haemoglobin (Hb) was below 12.5 mg/dl were included in the study. Severity of anaemia was graded as Hb levels: between 12.5 and 9 mg/dl as mild grade, 9 to 6 mg/dl as moderate grade and below 6 mg/dl as severe grade. Out of total 451 women employees, 275 were found to be anaemic; of this, 95.06% were of mild grade, 4.94% moderate grade and severe grade NIL. All co-morbid conditions like, known case of diabetes, hypertension, hypothyroidism and asthma, were also considered.  Keywords: Anaemia, haemoglobin, iron, life style  Cite this Article Vijay Rao J. Nutritional Status of Women Employees in Nuclear Fuel Industry at Hyderabad. Journal of Energy Environment and Carbon Credits. 2016; 6(2): 45–51p.