Three reasons why people are anemic:

  1. Not consuming enough iron-rich foods
  2. Not able to absorb iron from the foods you are eating, hence heal the gut
  3. Internal bleeding such as heavy menses

Here’s another reason that you may be anemic that is often overlooked:

There are iron-loving bacteria (Actinomyces spp., Mycobacterium spp., pathogenic strains of E. coli, Corynebacterium spp. and many others) that live in our digestive tract. They consume whatever iron the person gets from their diet, leaving that person deficient in iron. Supplementing iron makes these bacteria grow stronger and does not remedy the anemia. In order to treat this reason for anemia is to balance the microbiome, before supplementing with iron.