Iron tablets issued by school.

[sherwood]

My daughter came home today with a package of Iron pills issued by her school, she is 9 years of age.

Anyone else encountered this?

Another crack-pot air pollution control method? 

Edited January 19 by sherwood

[KhunLA]

1 hour ago, sherwood said:

My daughter came home today with a package of Iron pills issued by her school, she is 9 years of age.

Anyone else encountered this?

Another crack-pot air pollution control method? 

They should not be giving iron supplement to children.   Even though iron is water soluble,  it is still stored in the body, and can definitely be a problem for some people.

 

Hope it states the amount in the supplement.  Depending on diet, may want or to avoid.

 

"Kids ages 4–8 years need 10 milligrams while older kids ages 9–13 years need 8 milligrams"

[jts-khorat]

Depending on your location, anemia due to iron deficiency is not rare in Thailand.

 

Also, there have been studies in Thailand linking iron supplements to educational achievement: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0002916523436118

 

But why not ask your school? Surely the teacher of your daughter would be the person to give you the reason behind this?

[flyingtlger]

Unless you are ill, most people should be able to get sufficient iron from regular food.

Too much iron is very unhealthy:

 

Large amounts of iron might also cause more serious effects, including inflammation of the stomach lining and ulcers. High doses of iron can also decrease zinc absorption. Extremely high doses of iron (in the hundreds or thousands of mg) can cause organ failure, coma, convulsions, and death.

[sikishrory]

Throw them in the bin. 

A kid with no known iron deficiency doesn't need iron supplements.

It is already bad enough that (all over the world) we get many of our foods fortified with iron. Flours, breakfast cereals, bread, for example.

As others have said too much iron poisons your organs and can lead to a myriad of other health problems. 

Maybe the school assumes that most of the students live on low income and eat mama noodles and rice and egg and need a boost. 

Not really their job to be medicating or supplementing other peoples kids.

If you want to be sure go and get her ferritin tested. It is like 4 or 500 baht at the local lab here.

[SiSePuede419]

10 hours ago, sherwood said:

she is 9 years of age

I'm not a doctor, but I play one on AN...

 

The only people who should take iron are menstruating women who suffer from anemia.

 

Men should never take iron tablets.

 

Your daughter is too young.

Throw them in the 🗑️

Edited January 20 by SiSePuede419

[Russell17au]

Unfortunately many Thais are lacking in iron because of their diet. Unlike Farangs Thai's do not eant much red meat which is a main iron supply to the body. Chicken, fish and pork are not red meats. My wife ended up in hospital in Melbourne because of her iron deficiency

[bbko]

6 hours ago, jts-khorat said:

But why not ask your school? Surely the teacher of your daughter would be the person to give you the reason behind this?

Agree, you'll get better answers from the ones handing out the pills. 

Asking a bunch of senior citizens on a forum why a elementary school did something will lead to pure speculation.   

[digbeth]

did they have blood donation at the school? 

[Russell17au]

9 minutes ago, SiSePuede419 said:

I'm not a doctor, but I play one on AN...

 

The only people who should take iron are menstruating women who suffer from anemia.

 

Men should never take iron tablets.

 

Your daughter is too young.

Throw them in the 🗑️

That is mainly for westerners who do eat red meat which is the main supplier of iron to the body, but Thai's do not eat red meat. The quoted organizations are western organizations and their research is done on westerners who do have a diet of red meat and not on Thai's or other Asians who do not have a diet of red meat. The main meat that is eaten in Thailand is chicken ,pork or fish which are not iron supplying foods to the body

[KhunLA]

41 minutes ago, Russell17au said:

That is mainly for westerners who do eat red meat which is the main supplier of iron to the body, but Thai's do not eat red meat. The quoted organizations are western organizations and their research is done on westerners who do have a diet of red meat and not on Thai's or other Asians who do not have a diet of red meat. The main meat that is eaten in Thailand is chicken ,pork or fish which are not iron supplying foods to the body

Iron rich foods that Thais do eat, though question a couple:

Meat and Eggs

Beef

Chicken

Pork

Dried beef

Liver

Eggs (any style)

 

Seafood

Shrimp

Clams

Scallops

Oysters

Tuna

Mackerel

 

Vegetables

Spinach

Sweet potatoes

Peas

Broccoli

String beans

Dandelion greens

Kale

Chard

 

Fruit

Watermelon

 

Beans and Other Foods

Tofu

Beans (kidney, garbanzo, or white, canned)

Tomato 

Dried beans

Corn syrup ???

 

Edited January 20 by KhunLA

[BritManToo]

11 hours ago, sherwood said:

My daughter came home today with a package of Iron pills issued by her school, she is 9 years of age.

Anyone else encountered this?

Yeah, thalassemia is very common in the Thai population (30-40% of the population have it), iron pills help kids and are frequently given for this reason. 

Edited January 20 by BritManToo

[brianthainess]

IMO nobody should give any children pills, unless it is a doctor, obviously the school meals are not a good diet, but they spend money on tablets not good food. 

imageshuu.jfif

Edited January 20 by brianthainess

[KhunLA]

3 minutes ago, brianthainess said:

IMO nobody should give any children pills, unless it is a doctor, obviously the school meals are not a good diet, but they spend money on tablets not good food. 

Or at least offered to the parents, if wanting, pick up at school.  

[bbko]

22 minutes ago, brianthainess said:

the school meals are not a good diet,

Good point, is this a low end government school or a high end international school?  Either way, I'd be curious as to their reason for handing out tables instead of educating the parents on proper diet.

[sherwood]

Thanks for the replies.

Daughter has well balanced diet and I would rather the opinion of a doctor than a teacher so for the time being the pills will stay in the medicine cabinet.

Cheers 

[brianthainess]

The school food is abysmal as we all know, and yet many cheap foods are available like Fruit (bananas especially), Tofu, and Legumes, etc.. etc.

[retarius]

3 hours ago, KhunLA said:

Iron rich foods that Thais do eat, though question a couple:

Meat and Eggs

Beef

Chicken

Pork

Dried beef

Liver

Eggs (any style)

 

Seafood

Shrimp

Clams

Scallops

Oysters

Tuna

Mackerel

 

Vegetables

Spinach

Sweet potatoes

Peas

Broccoli

String beans

Dandelion greens

Kale

Chard

 

Fruit

Watermelon

 

Beans and Other Foods

Tofu

Beans (kidney, garbanzo, or white, canned)

Tomato 

Dried beans

Corn syrup ???

 

You missed out black pudding.

[bbko]

5 hours ago, brianthainess said:

as we all know

For some reason, whenever people use phrases like "as we all know", "everyone is saying", "everyone knows..." I think they are using those phrases to try and convince others. 

I ain't buying it. 

[artotle]

My kids got iron tablets with every vaccination and medical check from like 1yo onwards, every six months or so. No blood test, no explanation, just assumption that everyone's anemic. I understand many rural Thai kids might be, so I reckon that is the reason to just cut corners and give it to everyone.

 

Classic Thailand, binned every single bag.

[john donson]

the cheap iron pills will be of the type the body cannot use

 

the same stuff as in cheap supplements or even more expensive (c...trum) with all the WRONG type... zinc oxide, iron oxide, magnesium oxide...

 

 

but lack of iron,   pale white skin is one sign or tiredness,  can also be linked to adhd...

[Lorry]

On 1/20/2024 at 9:29 AM, BritManToo said:

thalassemia is very common in the Thai population (30-40% of the population have it)

 

About one per cent of the Thai population are affected with thalassemic diseases.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1298980/

 

30% carry some kind of thalassemia gene,  but only 1% have the disease. 

 

Hemoglobin carries oxygen in the blood.

Thalassemia patients produce a pathologic hemoglobin (because their genes encode the wrong blueprint for hemoglobin). It wouldn't help them to have more iron (one of the building blocks of hemoglobin), on the contrary,  they have too much iron already because their body cannot put it to good use.

 

Talking about thalassemia:

On 1/20/2024 at 9:29 AM, BritManToo said:

iron pills help kids and are frequently given for this reason

Individuals experiencing anemia or hepatosplenomegaly may require regular blood transfusions and chelating drugs aimed at removing excess iron from the body.

they will not need iron supplements as their iron levels are already high.

 https://www.samitivejhospitals.com/center/detail/Thalassemia-and-Hematology-Center

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lorry]

Distributing iron pills to school kids started in 2000.

 

The studies "proving" wide-spread iron deficiency anemia were often done with hill tribes, kids on welfare, people from the border areas., etc.

The studies sometimes read a bit funny,  e.g. on the same page we read 

"In the northeast Thai school children population, the prevalence of anemia is 31%"

and

"among 265 hill-tribe school children, 8-14 years of age, from Omkoi District, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. Anemia was observed in 20 school children, of whom 3 had iron deficiency anemia."

https://www.tm.mahidol.ac.th/seameo/2014-45-4/18-625422.pdf

 

How much iron deficiency exists in the overfed Thai middle class children of 2024 I don't dare to guess. 

OTOH these pills are cheap and won't do much harm.