Ironing out fatigue

Women who are not anemic but who suffer from fatigue may benefit from iron supplementation. In this issue of Blood, Krayenbühl et al provide strong evidence that women complaining of fatigue who were not anemic but who had reduced or absent iron stores were symptomatically improved after receiving parenteral iron. Given the numbers of women who are iron deficient, the findings could find broad application, but work needs to be done to refine the approach to this common problem.