Constant tiredness gets blamed on a busy life, and often that is fair. But one very common and very treatable cause is quietly missed again and again, especially in women: iron deficiency.
Your body uses iron to make haemoglobin, the substance in red blood cells that carries oxygen from your lungs to the rest of the body, so when iron runs low, your blood carries less oxygen and everything feels harder. The World Health Organization describes anaemia as a major global health problem, with iron deficiency among the most common causes and women and young children most affected.
The signs build slowly and are easy to dismiss: persistent tiredness and weakness, looking pale, breathlessness on stairs, a fast or pounding heartbeat, dizziness, headaches, brittle nails and sometimes unusual cravings for things like ice. Because they creep in gradually, many people simply lower their expectations of their own energy.
Women with heavy periods, people who are pregnant, growing children and teenagers, people who eat little iron-rich food, and people with digestive conditions that affect absorption or cause slow blood loss. This last point matters, because in some people, especially older adults, iron deficiency can be a clue to bleeding that needs to be found, which is why the cause matters as much as the treatment.
Iron-rich foods help, and in Indian kitchens these include pulses, green leafy vegetables and, for those who eat them, meat, fish and eggs, with vitamin C such as lemon or fruit aiding absorption. As the U.S. NIH notes, too much iron can cause harm, so do not self-treat with high-dose supplements; get the simple blood test, treat the shortage under guidance, and find the cause.