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Iron

Summer Rose

Summer Rose

Red Like Roses
Sponsor
May 3, 2012
93,247
26,134
Gainesville, Florida
Iron is a very important mineral for good health. Iron deficiency is unfortunately the most common nutritional deficiency in the world, and is one of the most important minerals since it is present in all cells in the human body. It serves many vital functions such as carrying oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body as part of hemoglobin. Symptoms of iron deficiency include low energy levels, brittle nails, hair loss, Plummer-Vinson syndrome (atrophy of the mucous membrane covering the tongue), and impaired immune function. Untreated iron deficiency can lead to iron deficiency anemia. Too much iron in the diet can also be dangerous, but its absorption in the digestive tract is tightly controlled by biological functions. This does generally minimize the harmful effects of excess iron, but the mechanisms can sometimes fail.

When digested, nutritional iron is bound to proteins in the bloodstream, which generally keep it from causing harm. What can cause harm is "free" iron in the body. There are two types of iron overdose. Acute iron overdose is consuming an excessive amount of iron in a short amount of time. The body will treat the excess iron like a poison and try to get rid of it, which can cause stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting (someone suffering acute iron poisoning should, however, be encouraged to vomit). The second type is iron overload, where excess iron will accumulate in internal organs, and can cause fatal damage to the brain and liver. Most people are not at risk for iron overload unless they take an iron supplement in far too high of a dose, but people with the genetic condition of hemochromatosis are at risk for it even without supplements. Iron overload is particularly dangerous because the body has no way of getting rid of extra iron that makes it into the bloodstream. The only effective way to get rid of excess iron is deliberate blood loss.

Despite its toxicity and danger, it is still an essential mineral to the human body. There are two types of dietary iron: heme iron and non-heme iron. Heme iron is found only in foods from animal sources. Foods rich in heme iron include most shellfish, non-muscle animal foods (such as liver, kidney, and heart), red meat, and cephalopods (e.g. octopus and squid). Good non-heme iron sources include yellow beans, lentils, spinach, soybeans, and chickpeas. Heme iron is more easily absorbed than non-heme iron, so it's easier to get your iron intake from animal sources, however once absorbed it is no longer relevant from which source it came.
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Bubba Thudd

Bubba Thudd

is getting banned
Jul 19, 2005
24,571
4,666
Avaland
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