lucknow paan masala starts affecting health much before cancerous fibroids appear in the oral cavity to researchers at clinical hematooncology department of king georges medical university paan masala consumption leads to a drop in ones folic acid level which is one of the main causes of anaemia principal researcher a k tripathi said the study was undertaken as a part of the departments efforts in the area of preventive hematology our study has indicated that chemicals in paan masala affect adversely bodys mechanism to absorb iron and folic acid which causes anemia he stated he claimed the relationship between paan masala and anaemia will change the clich that the latter is disease affecting females activists agree with the theory women are more vulnerable to anaemia because of the biological processes but a significant proportion of men are anaemic too which is a riddle considering there is no menstrual loss of blood and they tend to have a better share in food said sandeep pandey a sociohealth activist statistics gives weight to link established by kgmu researchers while the national family health survey shows an estimated 25 men between the age group of 15 and 49 in the city years are anaemic the global ats survey says that 34 males consume paan masala or gutka tobacco activist bobby ramakant stated anaemia affects day to day life of people many times gory warnings suggesting or depicting long term outcomes fail to scare people but when someone close is affected the message is clear we will use this to highlight the harms of tobacco he said