Autoimmune gastritis is common in patients with iron deficiency – Non-invasive evaluation of iron deficiency aside guideline recommendations

Background: Iron deficiency (ID) is the most common nutritional deficiency. Symptoms such as fatigue, hair loss and restless legs syndrome decrease quality of life; furthermore it results in impaired physical and cognitive development and poor pregnancy outcome. Current guidelines recommend as non-invasive test only evaluation of coeliac disease. From our clinical observations we hypothesize that other GI causes such as autoimmune gastritis (AG) are far more common and non-invasive evaluation should be included in the primary workup. Methods: We did a retrospective evaluation of patients who attended an out-pati…