Eighteen college athletes and seven sedentary control women participated in an eight week study of iron status and physical training. Half of the ten volleyball players and the eight cross country runners were randomly allotted to placebo or supplement (120 mg of ferrous sulphate) treatments. Hemoglobin, serum ferritin, serum iron, total iron binding capacity and various red blood cell indices were measured at the start, after four weeks and at the end of the study. Body composition, maximal oxygen consumption, menstrual histories and seven day diet histories were determined at the beginning and end of the study.
Diets were analyzed for protein, calories and iron. As expected, few of the women routinely consumed the RDA (18 mg/day) for iron. Only one of the subjects, a runner, had a subnormal Hb (\u3c 12 mg/100 ml) at the start of the study. For this subject, Hb was still low after four weeks of supplementation, but was normal after eight weeks on the iron supplement. Hemoglobin was normal for all other subjects at the start, middle and end of the study. Four of the volleyball players, six of the runners, and three of the controls, however, had suboptimal serum ferritin levels (\u3c 20 ng/ml) at the start of the study.
These results suggest that women athletes are consuming diets low in iron and have depleted iron stores. Despite low iron intakes and depleted iron stores, Hb values remained in the normal range, suggesting that Hb is not a good standard for iron status in women athletes or that normal hemoglobin values for athletes should be higher than 12 gm/100 ml
