Struggling With Brain Fog And Fatigue? You Might Be Lacking This 1 Essential Mineral.

Treating the issue could help you feel much better, but it may take some self-advocacy.

What if your exhaustion wasn’t just because of family stress, work tasks and social obligations? While those things can certainly cause fatigue, it turns out iron deficiency ― which is present in roughly one-third of women who get a period ― can be the culprit.

“Many people think [iron is] just another vitamin, like you just didn’t take your iron, or you didn’t get enough in your diet, but it’s totally not that. Iron is a very important mineral ... that’s involved with every cell in the body utilizing energy,” said Dr. Steven Fein, a hematologist and owner of HemeOnCall, women’s health centers that treat iron deficiency, abnormal blood counts and more hematology issues.

“Your muscles cannot contract without iron. Your brain cannot think without iron,” he explained.

The issue is most prevalent in premenopausal women. “We think that about 30 million U.S. women have iron deficiency,” Fein said.

Iron deficiency can cause a host of issues, including a condition called iron deficiency anemia. “You can imagine it like a spectrum where iron deficiency without anemia is the milder version, and then if you get to a point where you have iron deficiency anemia ... if you get to that point where you’re that severe, then the symptoms are all the worse — more fatigue, more tiredness,” Fein said.