Nutritional and other megaloblastic anaemias among Africans and Indians in Durban

Abstract

1. 1) A series of 48 African and Indian patients with megaloblastic anaemia is reviewed with particular reference to their dietary histories and serum vitamin B 12 levels. 2. 2) Most commonly megaloblastic anaemia was related to pregnancy (22 cases), a majority of these occurring within 3 months of delivery. Diets were poor in half of this group, and there was a fairly close correlation between poor diets and low serum vitamin B 12 concentrations. 3. 3) Ten patients were shown to be suffering from megaloblastic anaemia of the Addisonian type, one suffered from malabsorption, and three from cirrhosis of the liver. 4. 4) By excluding known causes of megaloblastic anaemia, a group remained consisting of 11 patients all of whom had poor diets; eight of them were vegetarians. All but two of these had low serum vitamin B 12 levels. They appear to be examples of nutritional megaloblastic anaemia. 5. 5) Serum vitamin B 12 concentrations were observed to rise during treatment with folic acid in three patients with megaloblastic anaemia of pregnancy, and in one with nutritional megaloblastic anaemia, and these findings are discussed.