Iron Overload: Should I Care?
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I recently got a huge suite of blood tests done and one of the only things that came back out of range was Total Iron Binding Capacity. From what I'm reading, low TIBC along with otherwise normal levels of other iron biomarkers can indicate iron overload. Full results:
TIBC: 249 ug/dL (250-450)
UIBC: 164 ug/dL (111-343)
Iron: 85 ug/dL (39-169)
Iron Saturation: 34% (15-55)
Ferritin: 127 ng/mL (30-400)My question is: how concerned should I be about this? Has anyone else dealt with iron overload?
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Iron overload is one of the main "Peaty" causes of disease.
Under stress (oxygen deficiency) a high iron concentration in blood and organs results in the iron producing more reactive electrons. This is bad!
Similarly to PUFA, the degradation happens over many years and suddenly manifests as a functional disease, at which point you will go to a hospital and get something to treat that problem.To lower iron eat less meat and replace calories in your diet with milk/cheese. I think you can also do a blood donation to instantly drop your iron levels and people who donate blood tend to be healthier overall. Look: Cancer incidence and Heart health . The healthful effects are attributed to the iron- and other toxic heavy metal reducing effect of phlebotomy.
When eating meat, drink coffee with lots of milk. Coffee inhibits iron absorption.
U can also take copper or eat copper-rich foods. Copper turns ferrous iron (stressed) into ferric iron (passive). Copper retention is also managed by stress.Read: https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/iron-dangers.shtml
NB: "Normal ranges" are BS, i.e. Peat wanted everyone to have a TSH as close to 0 as possible and his recommended maximum was at where our 'normal' starts.
