Female Iron Deficiency

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True Likely Speculative

What is MOCA?
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Human Uniqueness Compared to "Great Apes":

Likely Difference

Human Universality:

Population Universal (Some Individuals Everywhere)

MOCA Domain:

Medical Disease

MOCA Topic Authors:

Ajit Varki

Iron deficiency is a very common problem in fertile human females, and results mainly from a combination of blood loss during menstruation and a diet poor in easily absorbable iron. Further demands on the limited iron stores result from pregnancy and lactation. This problem has not been frequently reported in captive great apes. One possible reason is the apparently lower extent of blood loss during menstruation in great apes. The other is that dietary sources of iron are more consistently available in captivity. Studies of iron deficiency in wild populations of great apes are not available. it is interesting to note that red meat is the best source of absorbable iron in the diet.

Timing

Timing of appearance of the difference in the Hominin Lineage as a defined date or a lineage separation event. The point in time associated with lineage separation events may change in the future as the scientific community agrees upon better time estimates. Lineage separation events are defined in 2017 as:

the Last Common Ancestor (LCA) of humans and old world monkeys was 25,000 - 30,000 thousand (25 - 30 million) years ago
the Last Common Ancestor (LCA) of humans and chimpanzees was 6,000 - 8,000 thousand (6 - 8 million) years ago
the emergence of the genus Homo was 2,000 thousand (2 million) years ago
the Last Common Ancestor (LCA) of humans and neanderthals was 500 thousand years ago
the common ancestor of modern humans was 100 - 300 thousand years ago

Possible Appearance:

6,000 thousand years ago

Probable Appearance:

2,000 thousand years ago

Definite Appearance:

100 thousand years ago

Topic	Certainty
Carnivory	Speculative
Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate	Speculative
Helminthic Infection	Likely
Volume of Menstrual Blood Loss	Likely

References

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