Why Iron Regulation Is Central To Health

To have good health, your body needs to create energy and clear its exhaust.

If you are depleted in the key vitamins and minerals that drive this process, you won’t be able to make enough energy.

The key players needed to create energy in your cells are Magnesium, Copper, Iron and Caeruloplasmin (the taxi that ferries Copper round the body).  When these get out of balance, you cells become dysfunctional and you will experience fatigu

This kind of cellular mineral dysfunction is at the root of many conditions - chronic infections, fibromyalgia, autoimmune conditions, thyroid and adrenal conditions and many more. There are a number of ways iron and its co-minerals can become dysregulated which are listed below:

Anaemia of chronic inflammation/infection

The two main drivers of modern chronic disease and chronic infections and chronic inflammation. In the anaemia of chronic inflammation/infection, the body will store iron so that the pathogens don’t get it. I see this a lot in people with chronic infections such as Coxsackievirus, Epstein Barr Virus, Long Covid, Lyme etc. This is thought to be the second most prevalent type of anaemia after iron deficiency anaemia. This condition leads to a shortage of oxygen as the body is sequestering iron, rather than using it in the tissues. Result: ferritin goes high in lab tests but iron itself and iron saturation goes down. This is one reason why a full iron metabolism panel is necessary rather than trusting one marker alone to give the proper picture. Oxygen shortage and its causes must be identified and addressed for a person to overcome their infections as hypoxia (oxygen shortage) inhibits the Natural Killer cells (which suppress infections and cancers) from doing their job. Low Natural Killer (NK) cell status on lab tests should alert us to this potential scenario.

Iron deficiency anaemia

When I see low iron, low red blood cells, low haemoglobin on lab results, I know that the resulting diminished oxygen drives specific inflammatory markers which drive chronic tissue inflammation.  This is undesirable in any condition. The reason for the depletions need to be investigated.  Is the person eating enough iron-rich foods?  Do they have adequate stomach acid to absorb their dietary minerals? Have they been taking Proton Pump Inhibitors which would reduce this ability? Are their guts inflamed with parasites eating their food? Do they have active Coxsackievirus which would inhibit proper absorption and digestion of foods and supplements. One again, looking for and addressing the root causes is necessary to solve the problem.

Poor oxygen status stalls progress

Poor oxygen status from anaemia can prevent case progress. This is especially important if you are a smoker or have circulatory problems from years of poor exercise conditioning, blood sugar problems, diabetes, chronic mineral deficiencies or the anaemia of chronic inflammation/infection. If people don’t understand key iron metabolism biology, they can become frustrated that they are never going to get better.

Dr Sam Yanuck, a Professor of Functional Immunology at the University of North Carolina in the U.S., explains the difference between anaemia, respiratory issues and circulatory issues with the following analogy. You have to get 10,000 people to the beach. You have buses. All buses have 100 seats.  How many buses do you have to carry people? (how many red blood cells do you have to carry oxygen?). Fewer red blood cells = you can’t carry enough oxygen (i.e. anaemia). How many seats on each bus are filled? 100 seats full = 100% oxygen saturation. But if you’ve only got 87 seats filled, you can’t get enough people to the beach without enough buses.  Are the roads open? You could have enough buses, they could be filled, but if the roads are closed or blocked, you will have trouble getting people to the beach. That is circulatory problems. All three problems will yield the same result - low oxygen and more inflammation. Patients with a little of all three will have a compounded low oxygen effect. Helping people to understand these issues may motivate them to effectively address their problems.

Take care when repletion iron

It is common for fatigued people to respond to the ubiquitous media advertisements on the backs of buses and billboards and take iron supplements off their own bat. The problem is that they may need more iron in the right place (in the cells) but you may also have excess iron in the wrong place (in the tissues). Just taking iron pills or liquid may not solve the underlying problems and can even make certain situations worse. This is because whenever you replete iron in the body, this drives something known as the Fenton reaction which drives further inflammation and depletes levels of glutathione, an important antioxidant or means of dealing with toxins.   Once again, to get the best outcome, you need to identify the underlying causes, address these and replete iron in a safe way by providing glutathione concurrently. Sometimes, it is necessary to prescribe N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC) as well as glutathione.

Copper deficiency anaemia

Our bodies take oxygen (O2) from the air and combine it with Hydrogen (H) to make water (H2O) in order to create energy.  This process requires bioavailable copper (in a usable form). Bioavailable copper ensures that iron has ‘chaperones’ to escort it round the body. If copper is not bioavailable, iron can wreak havoc inside the cells. Copper is also key for thyroid function and without enough of it, our energy production units in cells (mitochondria) won’t work efficiently enough. End result = chronic fatigue and dysfunction.

Leading iron researcher Morley Robbins has spent a decade of his life unraveling the story of the interplay of magnesium, copper, iron and caeruloplasmin, how they interact to maintain health and what happens when these interactions are interfered with, primarily as a result of eating the wrong foods and taking the wrong supplements in the wrong type. He uses a culinary analogy to explain the workings of this interplay. Copper harnesses oxygen in the same way that a chef harnesses ingredients. Iron transports oxygen as a waiter carries a meal to diners in a restaurant. Eighty per cent of the body’s stores of iron are in “carrying oxygen” but the real action occurs in the copper-directed kitchens in our mitochondria (energy producers in our cells). Thus, bioavailable copper is central to the process.

Part of the Root Cause Protocol (RCP) Morley Robbins has developed to restore optimum regulation between copper, iron, magnesium and caeruloplasmin includes:

• Natural (non synthetic) Vitamin C and B vitamins.

• Vitamin A in cod liver oil.

• Magnesium

• An Ancestral diet of the kind advocated by nutritional pioneer Dr Weston A. Price.

• Minerals.

• Organic grass fed beef liver once a week as an excellent source of B vitamins, copper, choline, retinol (wholefood vitamin A) to name a few ingredients.   Does he think it is possible for vegans and vegetarians to fully implement RCP? Unfortunately not because there are no plant based sources of retinol. And retinol from animal sources (primarily cod liver oil and beef liver) are deemed central for increasing copper that the body can use (and ensuring iron can function properly). This is the entire focus of the RCP.

Iron dysregulation - a Covid legacy

Covid has been shown to disrupt iron metabolism. It does this by splitting iron off haemoglobin. This releases free iron into the circulation. Haemoglobin thus loses its capacity to bind with oxygen, inducing hypoxia. This is the mechanism behind the Covid symptom of struggling to breathe. It has not been unusual to see sky-high ferritin (stored iron) in tissues.  I have seen lab results for ferritin as high as 890 when the conventional upper limit is around 236 ng/ml. A high level of ferritin is toxic and inflammatory to tissues. This is a prime example of iron causing havoc when it is in the wrong place in the body. RCP has been effective in helping such cases reduce inflammation from too high ferritin.

Hereditary Haemochromatosis (HH)

Finally, no discussion on iron metabolism would be complete without mentioning a problem which affects about 10% of the population - hereditary haemochromatosis or hereditary iron overload. This is an inherited genetic condition where iron levels slowly build up over many years. As I have already said, dysfunctional iron build up is very inflammatory and causes damage to organs. Undetected HH can be life threatening so should not be missed. 

In the case of HH, it is essential to get the iron level down. Phlebotomy via a haematologist is the key tool for this. Replacing lost fluid volume is important as well. As iron is a catalyst for the inflammatory Fenton reaction, it recommended to use Glutathione and NAC. 

HH is a big reason to do a full iron metabolism panel: iron, transferrin saturation, copper, caeruloplasmin, ferritin on every new patient. Done privately, each marker costs only a few pounds. It is shocking how few people have had a proper iron panel considering its vast importance in health.

If you would like to check your iron metabolism, please email the Good Health Clinic on goodhealthclinic@outlook.com or ring on 07836 552936.