Differences Between Women and Men .. in the Rate of Diagnosed Diseases After a Diagnostic Intervention is Conducted ... , 2022, Rosmalen et al

Arnie Pye said:
My understanding of iron/ferritin is simplistic. Ferritin is a measure of your iron stores. When iron in the blood is too low a healthy body should take what it needs from ferritin. When the blood has too much iron it should transfer it to ferritin.

But it isn't quite as simple as that once someone becomes infected with something. When someone is infected with a virus, bacteria, fungus, mould or whatever, that infection will probably need iron to reproduce - most things of that kind do, as far as I'm aware. If the immune system (?or something else?) detects a pathological invader it will reduce the level of iron in the blood and shovel it into ferritin. (Most? All?) pathological invaders cannot get iron from ferritin to help them reproduce. So, in a diseased state ferritin gets higher, serum iron gets lower, and haemoglobin reduces to a lower level.

If you google "iron withholding defense system" you'll find loads of links on it.

There are other reasons for ferritin being high or low besides having pathological invaders. But it needs to be seen in conjunction with serum iron levels, transferrin saturation, total iron binding capacity, haemoglobin to get an accurate understanding of what is going on with iron in the body.

I don't know if my experience is common, but my doctors do a Full Blood Count and make all their decisions based on that. Ferritin is rarely done. And I don't think my NHS GPs have ever done an iron panel, although a hospital did it once and reported below range iron to my GP. My GP never mentioned it to me, obviously didn't think it was important, and never repeated the test. I only found out this had happened when I bought as complete a copy of my GP records as I was allowed.
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Thank you for the information. Will do a bit more research tomorrow. It's slow going. I will get my husband to read this post as he is struggling to understand it too. We didn't push or anything for the GP to test his ferritin, it just seemed standard. I wonder if things have changed now and the NHS incorporates ferritin in the full panels?
 
Mij said:
Do you know your actual ferritin number? It took 9 months of daily iron supplements to get my levels up to 35 from 5.
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Such a long time. So pleased to see you were 90% recovered from symptoms though.

Yes, my Ferritin is 16.7 ug/L My husband's last June were "Serum Ferritin - (SE) 29 ug/L

He has had a normal iron panel result. I have just now ordered an iron panel from medichecks. We both cleaned up our diet from last June and specifically targeted an iron rich diet because of his result. I've been off caffiene for several weeks now also.

I've read that if supplementing iron for low ferritin when you have a normal iron panel, it can be fatal because the body can't get rid of iron and starts dumping it into the heart, brain. (Have no idea if this is true but made me cautious until I understand this a bit better).
 
Tara Green said:
I've read that if supplementing iron for low ferritin when you have a normal iron panel, it can be fatal because the body can't get rid of iron and starts dumping it into the heart, brain. (Have no idea if this is true but made me cautious until I understand this a bit better).
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Healthy people will lose very small amounts of iron in their faeces. But anyone with IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) or IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) might lose more. Gastritis or stomach ulcers could increase the amount of blood lost. Polyps in the colon might bleed all the time or intermittently. Cancer will increase blood lost.

The reason for saying that taking iron could be dangerous if ferritin is low is if it ends up feeding pathological invaders, or cancer, and allows them to reproduce.

You might find this link about various forms of anaemia or various iron-related problems of interest :

HowdoIknow_Anemia.ai - Handout-HowdoIknow_Anemia2020.pdf
 
Tara Green said:
The iron blood test from Medichecks for £39. Iron, TIBC, TS, Ferritin. Is there a better one?
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I'm not aware that there is a better one. I had an Iron Metabolism panel done, TIBC and UIBC(unbound iron binding capacity) were rather low in range. A further decrease of UIBC would lead to free iron circulation, which is known to produce oxidative stress itself.
 
Mij said:
I start feeling out of breath and dizzy when my ferritin dips below 20. Our ferritin should be at 60 (minimum).
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My POTS was much worse with ferritin deficiency. And I had many premature heart beats, if that's the correct term. Interesting, my hemoglobin was elevated when my ferritin was low.

Of course, the hemoglobin was tested first, and ticked the box for iron status. A short period later I requested my ferritin status be tested. It was very low.

It would be helpful if ferritin was checked along with hemoglobin. As I said on an earlier post in this thread, I encountered this issue 30 years ago. Since then, two doctors have told me ferritin should be tested. Unfortunately this isn't a universal practice.

About iron status and post menopause: food insecurity and just the cost of higher iron containing foods, can mean some people are iron deficient. As well as lacking in other nutrients. To assume post menopausal women have good iron status is missing the bigger picture. Some people on fixed incomes cannot afford nutritious food. And with the increased costs of basics, this is affecting more and more people.
 
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