RESUMO
1] To determine the frequency of different causes of iron deficiency anemia in female patients of reproductive age group. 2] To determine the association between lack of balanced diet and iron deficiency anemia. Cross-sectional analytical study. Federal government services hospital, Islamabad. From July 2008 to November 2008. The study included female patients of reproductive age group i.e. 15-49 years of age having hemoglobin less than 11.5g/dl. The sampling technique was purposive. The data was analyzed using Microsoft excel 2000 and SPSS 10.0. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine the direction of relationship between total nutritional score and level of hemoglobin; student's t-test was used to determine the significance of association. Ap-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. A positive correlation was observed between total nutritional score and level of hemoglobin [r=0.402, p-value = 0.008]. Correlation between animal protein and level of hemoglobin was 0.438 [p-value = 0.004] while between plant protein and level of hemoglobin was 0.211 [p-value = 0.179]. It is concluded that there is a definite role of nutritional deprivation in the development of iron deficiency anemia. Lack of balanced diet especially protein group has much stronger association with this type of anemia. Animal protein as compared to plant protein has strong association with the development of iron deficiency anemia