In this study we determined the nutritional state of iron in 93 elderly people who were institutionalized in Granada, by means of a determination of their ingested iron, as well as the determination of the serum iron, hematologic parameters (hemoglobin and hematocrit), and the corpuscular indexes (mean corpuscular volume and mean corpuscular hemoglobin). The elderly people had an iron intake that was considered to be adequate (10.2 +/- 2.1 mg/day), and this is not related to the hematological parameters studied. 4% of the men, and 22% of the women showed hemoglobin values that were considered to be low.