TF and gastrointestinal disease: We found a 22.5% proportion of absolute iron deficiency in our patients, which was much lower than the rate reported by Mearin et al. (54%), but these authors used a different definition of iron deficiency (ferritin < 30ng/ml or transferrin saturation < 16%), and the patients analyzed by these authors were admitted with more severe gastrointestinal diseases than our subjects [22].