Pagophagia (the consumption of ice) and geophagia (the consumption of soil compounds) are the most common forms of pica, which have often been associated with cases of iron deficiency anaemia. What is the motivation? Which metabolic pathways are interested?
I finally found the motivation of why iron deficit causes picacism (the desire of ice or sand) in patient; substantially, the lack of iron causes problems in cells with a rapid turn-over, so there is a disepitelisation of mouth and tongue mucosae.Consequently Ice, sand, paper can be a lenitive and a soothing.
it was easier than what I thought!
I did not find any information about picacism on pubmed or similar databases. But I found the reason in a book ("Medicina interna sistematica" by claudio rugarli), unfortunately I think there is only an italian version.
http://books.google.it/books?id=3n4r_naRzTAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=rugarli+medicina&hl=it&sa=X&ei=T07iUdSEGMbUPKKJgaAK&ved=0CEIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=rugarli%20medicina&f=false
Ok.many thanks.for long it has been difficult to tell the association between iron deficiwncy and pica.this is useful information
Prof Rugarli is one of the most important internal medicine doctor in Italy.
Unfortunately the book is only in Italian language, but I can confirm what Samin has reported.
Pics is just an association with IDA. . . It is neither a cause or effect of iron deficienvy .
- Badges
- Science topic