The only truly iron deficient people in the world are vampires (and they don’t exist)

We recycle 90% of our iron through red blood cells via a process called erythrophagocytosis. We have iron available to us whenever we want it, as long as our iron copper transport complex is functioning. This depends on a number of vitamins and minerals, including A, D, C and copper.

90% of our iron needs is about 20 to 25 mg of iron. Our dietary needs are only one to 2 mg a day for non-menstruating people.

So why are we supplementing iron at 65mg heme a day? The most commonly prescribed supplement in the world. Something we give without thinking to pregnant women. To support that 10% dietary gap that amounts to a few mg a day? Seems like overkill

Where does the rest of the iron go? Straight to your tissues. Can’t we metabolize it? Yeah, at less than 1mg a day without blood loss, donation, menses, or phlebotomy. What happens to the iron in your tissues? The cascade of diseases associated with hemochromatosis. So this extra supplementation is unnecessary at best and harmful at worst

Could this be a problem only limited to people who take iron supplementation and undergo infusions? of course not, do you know why? For decades, we have been fortifying our breads and cereals with iron. An unsuspecting man could be iron overloading himself just because he likes to eat two large servings of rice crispies cereal a day.

This is scary, only because we cannot check for iron overload without tissue biopsies. And nobody is thinking about iron overload when considering people‘s most common chronic ailments. And nobody in academia or research has for decades considered how the physiology of iron deficiency in the body does not match its approach to treatment.

Sources include ED Weinberg and Morley Robbins

Edit: two words