Anemia drugs widely used in cancer treatment increase risk of deaths and blood clots called venous thromboembolisms (VTE).

Erythropoietin has so far been known to doctors as a hormone that boosts red-blood-cell production. Now, a mouse study led by Lois Smith, MD, PhD, an ophthalmologist at Children's Hospital Boston, shows it also keeps blood vessels alive and growing in the eye.

Mice with a human sickle-cell anemia disease trait have been treated successfully in a process that begins by directly reprogramming their own cells to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, without the use of eggs.

For patients with dialysis-related anemia, the risk of death is increased when hemoglobin levels remain persistently low over a period several months—not necessarily when they fluctuate over time, according to a study in the January Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

A new indicator of variations in hemoglobin level over time is a strong predictor of the risk of death among patients receiving dialysis for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), reports a study in the December Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

The international humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of patients with the parasitic disease visceral leishmaniasis (“kala azar”) admitted to its treatment center in Somalia. The disease is transmitted by sand flies and causes fever, weight loss, anemia, and enlargement of the liver and spleen.

Maintaining the appropriate amount of iron in our bodies is important, too little results in anemia and too much is also toxic to the body. Anemia is a symptom of many different diseases including erythroid protoporphyria and beta-thalassemia. It is also observed in individuals who suffer from chronic diseases such as autoimmune diseases and cancer when it is known as anemia of inflammation.

A stunning discovery by German scientists may make blood doping and the treatment of severe anemia as easy as washing your hair. In the October print issue of The FASEB Journal, researchers show that the estimated 100,000 hair follicles on each person’s head have the potential to become erythropoietin (EPO) factories.

A nutritional supplement known as Sprinkles, which can be added to children's food, reduces anemia by more than half, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Nutrition.

The June issue of Elsevier’s Community Oncology takes an in-depth look at the charge that ESAs, generally considered vital to cancer patients’ quality of life, are overprescribed for profit. Scientists, oncologists, and critics of oncologists are in a heated debate now over the use of ESAs, or erythropoiesis-stimulating agents—drugs that fight anemia by boosting levels of oxygen-carrying red blood cells and the protein hemoglobin.

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have determined a key mechanism by which the body regulates iron metabolism, a discovery that may provide new approaches for the treatment of anemia.

The search for ways to promote growth of farm animals without adding antibiotics to feed has led scientists in Taiwan to an advance toward genetically engineering animals that produce higher levels of a natural growth-promoting protein in their milk.