Iron Overload: How Too Much Puts You at Risk for Disaster
When it comes to iron most of us are familiar with anemia, the lack of iron in the blood. With the onslaught of processed and fortified foods found in our grocery stores today and the growing popularity of supplementation, it’s quite possible that you or somebody you know may be exceeding the recommended daily allowance and building up excess iron in the blood.
Iron is generally recognized as a beneficial nutrient, but just like most everything else in the world having too much makes it take a dark turn. Excess iron levels have been linked to everything from an increased risk of heart disease to Alzheimer’s disease, so it’s important to read labels and pay attention to how much iron we may be ingesting.
On this week’s episode we break down the ways you might be getting too much iron, the many risk factors involved with iron overload, the specific blood tests to test for excess iron, and what to do if you find you have too much.
Some Points We Discuss:
What is iron and what does it do in the body? (3:04)
The seven causes of iron overload. (4:04)
The recommended daily allowance of iron. (6:30)
What is happening inside your body if you have too much iron? (9:48)
What can you do if you are concerned about increased levels of iron? (12:56)
What are optimal ferritin levels? (14:07)
Comparing the types of iron tests available. (14:57)
How can you lower your iron levels? (16:25)
What do pregnant women need to do about iron? (21:52)
Tips for those that are anemic. (23:07)
Some Key takeaways From This Episode:
Know ways in which you are getting iron in your diet on a daily basis. (4:04)
Vitamin C increases the absorption of iron from red meat 2-4 times. If you are anemic, take vitamin c with red meat. If you are not anemic, take your vitamin c away from red meat (8:22)
Iron overload creates free radicals. Free radicals damage your cells which leads to mitochondria damage leading to disease. (10:05)
Get your ferritin levels checked! (13:15)
You can lower your iron levels by looking at your lifestyle and diet, donating blood, lower your carbohydrate intake, analyze your red meat consumption, consider some supplements, and visit the sauna. (16:25)
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Brian Strickland: Hello listeners and welcome back to the Holistic Navigator Podcast where we talk about all things holistic health and believe in the body's capacity for self healing if given the proper nutrients and care. For any new listeners we may have out there, we wanted to take a moment and say welcome. We're really excited that you found the show [00:01:00] . My name is Brian Strickland. I'm producer and I'm joined in the studio as always by our host Ed Jones. On today's episode, we're taking a look at iron and specifically how excess levels of iron may affect your health. While a good portion of the population is concerned about anemia in a lack of iron. We believe that excess levels may be more common than you think so settle in and let's go ahead and get the show started. Here's your host, Mr. Ed Jones.
Ed Jones: Thank you so much. Brian, as always, you just do such a fantastic job of organizing and making this Holistic Navigator so professional. We are rocking and rolling with growing this encyclopedia of knowledge because I'll tell you people you're not getting it from conventional sources and you have to step up to the plate if you want to be optimally healthy.
What does that mean? It means that being far less risky to have diseases of chronic aging that is taking this country down and we have to know the The kind of like the puzzle you put together to decrease that significantly don't expect your annual physical to be much of this [00:02:00]. It won't be that because they're looking for diseases. Well, today I want to talk about a question that I probably have been asked ten thousand times over my 40 plus years related to iron levels.
The problem is most of the questions that were asked to me were dealing with anemia. Anemia means too little iron. However, the truth is it is far more dangerous to have excessive irons and you don't feel excessive iron. You feel it when you're anemic because you're tired, but when you have too much iron, it is going to raise your risk of every single disease that we dread first off before I get into that.
What is iron? And what does it do [00:03:00]? Well actually iron transports oxygen in your body. Helps maintain brain function hormones and is involved in energy production having too little or too much has serious repercussions on our health, but the fact is that excess iron will accelerate things like Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, diabetes. In fact, a Scandinavian study found that elevated iron levels raise demands risk of heart attack two to threefold. And another, people with high iron levels were five times more likely to suffer a heart attack than those with normal levels. And then when it comes to cancer, it's been known since the late 1950s that injecting large doses of iron into lab animals could cause malignant tumors to occur. So there's so many reasons why we need to be aware of this topic of iron overload [00:04:00].
Brian Strickland: So with this being the problem that it is, Ed, why would certain individuals have elevated levels? What causes it?
Ed Jones: Well, actually Brian, there's about seven causes of elevated levels and a few of these you would have no clue about. First off, the people who have the less risk of this are women who are menstruating. Why is that? Because, of course, they are losing blood every month. Now, they have a risk of anemia and I may deal with that for a moment further on but at this point that is a good thing to have if you have excessive iron is to have some bleeding that's normal bleeding, of course.
The number two reason is, a big word, hemochromatosis. It is a genetic disease that actually affects somewhere around 1 in 40 or 1 in 50 people. And what it does is it prevents the body from disposing of the iron so you get an iron overload. In my experience this gene does not start showing itself until usually middle-aged [00:05:00]. And a lot of men have it more than women. It seems that just my observations, but that's number two reason.
Number three-- alcohol will cause the absorption to increase in your food. So, if you drink alcohol like my little bit of tequila at supper, it can increase the iron levels. Well, sometimes that's is an advantage for these people who can't get enough iron.
Four-- cooking in iron pots and pans. Probably, I'm guessing that's not as prevalent as in the old days, but a lot of Southern cooks certainly still cook the corn bread and the iron skillet and other things.
Brian Strickland: I’ve got my cast iron on the stove. All the time.
Ed Jones: Next is something that I actually looking into preparing for this podcast, I've had this idea but I never looked into it, but eating processed foods can increase your iron [00:06:00]. Why is that? Because, again, the commercial formulators of food are only putting things in the package is because of the ability to market it and sell it. So if you look at a protein bar or any kind of processed food or cereal, the public is impressed when it says with iron. That's because again, they're not informed as the Holistic Navigator listeners would be. But I looked up some protein bars and I was literally blown away. The government recommends it, in this case, they're actually pretty accurate on the RDA of iron which is about 18 milligrams. Guess what? The Mars Honey Nut Oat Bar has 18 milligrams in one single Mars bar. That's pretty dang scary. Luna Bar has 14 milligrams. So that's if you ate one of those a day you're getting all of the iron that you need [00:07:00].
Brian Strickland: Is that like a recent thing that manufacturers are doing?
Ed Jones: No I know for a fact they've been adding it to cereal for marketability for many many years. So there's nothing wrong with it if your iron is not excessive but most people have no clue.
Next is well water. People who live in the country using well water it is possible that the water has too much iron.
Next is supplementation with nutrients from your vitamins and minerals. I've continued to talk about the fact that you should not take iron supplements in your multivitamin or any other form until you know that you are anemic.
And the other testosterone replacement in men. It causes the body to kind of horde and produce more iron [00:08:00]. That's something that requires dealing with, because the side effect, even if you don't eat it, if you do any of these things and most people do combination of factors like eating the protein bar. And on the protein bar, I will have to plug a protein bar that I formulated called the Zunta Bar. It has .4 milligrams. I think it is the cleanest protein bar made. I just had to throw that one out there.
Brian Strickland: What about red meat consumption? I mean could you eat enough red meat to elevate your levels to any significant level?
Ed Jones: You're reading my mind. That was the next thing I was going to say. The red meat has the most amount of highly absorbable iron. See, vegetables have iron but it has to then be converted to a more usable form. And so even though you're looking at spinach and you may read that it has 9 milligrams, it's totally different 9 milligrams than you would be getting out of a steak.
Now, the thing about it is Vitamin C increases the absorption of iron from red meat two to four times [00:09:00]. That's why I advise people who are anemic to make sure they are doing vitamin C with their red meat. If we find that your levels are excessive on iron then I'm going to recommend do your vitamin C away from red meat. That means you can do it, Brian, with chicken and fish and not worry. It's actually the red meat that causes the excessive levels if vitamin C is taken with it.
Brian Strickland: So if you're drinking a glass of bourbon and cooking a ribeye in your cast iron skillet every night you may want to rethink your life choices. I mean just in general as well also, iron overload.
Ed Jones: On multiple levels, you may want to rethink that yes.
Brian Strickland: So now that we know the reasons why people may have elevated levels. Why is it so dangerous? What's happening inside with the body that can affect people's health?
Ed Jones: That's the best question you could ask because you know, if it was not causing grief within the body then we wouldn't be talking about it. But it has significant risk involved and the reason, at least biochemically, is it creates a formation of something called a hydroxyl free radical [00:10:00]. And I'm going to make this really, really simple. Free radicals, people, are what we don't want. If you can imagine sitting in front of your fireplace, and the old fashioned fireplaces that didn't have a screen on it, you put the wood and you have built a beautiful roaring fire. Well, you know every so often you're going to hear a pop and something will shoot out of the fireplace onto the carpet. Well that little ember that's on fire will burn a teeny hole in that carpet.
That is what a free radical does within the body because what it is is a kind of an unpaired electron and it's shooting itself through healthy cells. And so when you have excessive free radicals, you are damaging the equipment that you and I are made of 00:11:00]. And that is going to do something that decimates the mitochondria function. Mitochondria is in every cell and is actually the energy production part of our body. So that means that would be like the engine in your car you're going to put gas which was our food but you're going to put gas in the car to make power. Well, the mitochondria when it's dysfunctional which is what happens, people, in all aging. In fact, a 90 year old has about three percent of the mitochondrial function that a ten-year-old has. And if you listen to one of my previous podcasts on The Holistic Navigator on my personal regimen plan of what I take I continue to reference that. The number one reason that I supplement and I also eat a keto diet is to protect the mitochondrial function. We can't completely stop the damage. I'm going to get old just like everybody else, but I'm hoping it's going to be far slower than I would if I did not embrace these ideas [00:12:00].
So, too much iron is creating those little hot embers that are going to shoot through all of your cells and that's the main biochemical reason for why it increases the major diseases. And the sad part is, Brian, that unfortunately very few doctors understand either the biology of this reaction or they're just clueless and don't even check for the levels. You know, one of my most enjoyable podcasts that I recently did was with Dr. Lavalle on understanding blood chemistry. We talked about the fact that you cannot expect your general practitioner to be the kind of person to test the right things in your blood.
Brian Strickland: Yeah, so excess levels of iron increase free radical production. Is that safe to say?
Ed Jones: Yep.
Brian Strickland: Okay. So if people are concerned if they have excess levels of iron [00:13:00], I'm assuming there's some sort of test that they can take. Is that a blood test that they would do?
Ed Jones: Yes it is, Brian. And sadly I doubt I've ever seen a conventional physical blood tests when you just go in yearly to ever include what we call ferritin. What is ferritin? It's an inexpensive test that looks at these stored iron in your body. It's like the gas tank in your human frame and it's where the iron will be pulled from when it needs it. You can test for serum iron and other things. That test seems to be more expensive and I tend to like ferritin because it's quite inexpensive. When we check for stored iron, this is another perfect example of what Dr. LaValle and myself spoke about, if you live in the normal ranges of blood work you are going to lose people. The reason is, exactly like I've always spoke about, we want to be in [00:14:00] what we call the optimal range of blood work not in the reference ranges. On Ferritin, the blood levels in many labs will use a range between 30 and 250 as ferritin, but guess what the optimal is? Between 40 to 70 nanograms per milliliter unless you're pregnant or you are menstruating. And so what that's going to show you is if you are above 100 on ferritin it's time to do something because you are causing damage within your body. Not a single conventional physician would tell you that because they simply are not trained in school. It's not their fault. It's just the system itself, but it will be a recipe for health disaster if you can't get that under control if especially after the age of 40.
Brian Strickland: So what's the difference between like a ferritin test [00:15:00] and what was the other one? The serum?
Ed Jones: Yeah, the serum blood iron is what floats through the the blood system and ferritin is more reliable because it's more consistent. If you took some iron pills and you ate a bunch of red meat with vitamin C and we tested you the next day, your iron level would most likely have elevated because of what you did. Ferritin is going to be more stable. It's going to show more of a consistent number and we know that if we can lower the ferritin, which we'll talk about in a minute, then you're going to probably be okay. I do use the word probably it's not an exact science. I have dealt with a few people who have low ferritin and extremely high serum iron. But [00:15:45] most of the time you'll be fine if we can get your iron again. Remember this people 40-70 nanograms on a ferritin test.
How do you get a ferritin test? Well, you can do it, hopefully you'll find a practitioner who understands what we call Functional Health [00:16:00] and medicine. If not go to The Holistic Navigator under products, scroll down to Direct Labs and order your own blood testing. I would encourage you to listen again to Dr. LaValle and myself because you may want to add other tests on but you can order your test. You'll get a requisition in two hours and you can go to a drawing station within your town and get the ferritin test.
Brian Strickland: So, let's just give a hypothetical of somebody that was concerned about having excess iron levels. They went ahead and did the farad and tests and they found that they did indeed have high iron levels. What would be the next logical steps for them?
Ed Jones: Well, it is kind of limited, Brian. Actually, there's not a whole lot to consider. But the number one is looking into your lifestyle and seeing are you cooking on the iron posture? You're drinking the well water, you know, are you taking supplements you're eating the wrong protein bars and cereal look into those [00:17:00] to see if the reason is because of truly excessive levels. But even with that, this is “The To Do List” to lower your iron levels You need to donate blood. You need to go and donate blood three times a year. Now. that's three times a year unless your ferritin is over 200 nanograms per milliliter. If it is, you need to be more aggressive. You need to go as often as you can. I don't recall how often that is. I think it's every eight weeks that you can go. And for people who have pre-existing conditions, they will not allow you to donate blood and unless you have a prescription. So I would encourage you to find a practitioner who understands this story and have them write a prescription. They will dispose of your blood. But at least you can go give some.
Brian Strickland: Gotcha
Ed Jones: Secondly, is you need to lower your carb intake because what's happening is excessive carbohydrates burn dirty. They just do. That doesn't [00:18:00] mean you can't have your rice and you know your foods that you like. We all are carb addicts to a certain degree but excessive carbs. What is excessive? You can listen to my podcast on keto to understand what I believe is excessive and it's still in a very reasonable range, people, it truly is. But when you eat excessive carbs it’s doing the same thing as that little fireplace ember and the same thing that iron does which is causing free radical production. Well, if we can lower that part of it from foods, then we have, you know, less damage. That's happening to the biggest reason we age and decline which is mitochondrial function. So it gives you more window of opportunity.
Next, you know, making sure that you do look at the red meat consumption and you do not take Vitamin C with it.
But the last three are for people who either for some reason or unwilling to give blood or they just want to keep adding to the effectiveness of giving blood [00:19:00]. Now people keep in mind you can go to load now, so don't just throw yourself into this. This and say, “Okay. I'm good now because I'm giving blood and I'm doing all these things that Ed Jones said.” We want to make sure that you don't get too low and I'm going to speak on that in just a second. But the three things you can do that do not involving giving blood is a product called IP6. I have dealt with IP6 for about 35 years. A lot of people with some serious health concerns will take IP6 for their immune system to help and sometimes actually get over this very serious concern that I'm not going to mention the word but that we have an epidemic of it in this country. But IP6 chelates. What is this word? Chelates means claw and it means it's going to grab the iron and keep it from going into the system and it can help pull out and leach some of the iron already there. You have to do pretty hefty doses. If you do the powder, you need to do [00:20:00] two big servings a day. If you do the capsules, actually you need about eight to ten capsules. Per day. I love IP6. So that's one option.
Secondly, we know that curcumin again is rising to the top as a super star and it is also a chelater. So taking curcumin. What you need to do anyway for reducing chronic inflammation. I would be doing two twice a day of a good brand of curcumin.
And lastly one of my most admired therapies for long-term health is the sauna. And the sauna is ideally you'd want something that was it was not outgassing, that had the right wood, that what didn't have far-infrared. But most of us are not fortunate enough to be privy to that. But I go into a Gold's Gym and it’s not the best sauna, but I'm still rolling sweat off the skin. When you roll sweat off for 20 to 25 [00:21:00] minutes, you're going to lower your level of so many toxins, heavy metals, excessive Iron. You're going to do something called autophagy, which means you're going to actually eat up some of the diseased cells that you have.
So the levels of the ideas to get this down is pretty simple. And again if you don't want to do anything, but give blood that's probably will take care of it. But I totally say you must be rechecking as you do vitamin D because we never know it goes up and down based on life dosages and what's going on in your body.
In fact, I know this is a rabbit hole, Brian, but when people have knee replacement surgery their vitamin D Drops in about 35 to 40 percent in four weeks. So the body really really uses stuff up when it needs it.
Brian Strickland: Right.
Ed Jones: So I hope I've covered this quite well. I do want to make one quick comment about pregnancy. Most of these rules do not apply to a pregnant [00:22:00] woman. Pregnant women are desperately in need of maintaining proper levels of iron. In fact the Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 27 milligrams of iron per day and that truly may not be enough because when a woman is at 27 weeks pregnancy her iron level. I mean her blood level has doubled within her body in order to feed the fetus. So it's critical and you know, what's crazy is about 27 weeks is when preeclampsia which is a serious disorder of pregnancy starts to occur. And the theory is if we could keep the magnesium levels up omega-3 levels up, and keep the iron levels up, preeclampsia would go down drastically in this country. But again, we are in a broken system with health care. They're not going to advise patients about nutritional supplementation [00:23:00].
And lastly for those listening who may have a relative or friend who is the opposite, which is anemic, I want you to know that the over-the-counter drug store irons are basically the same that people were buying in the 1980s. Which means they still constipate, they still cause some discomfort, and they don't work too. Well. So why don't we go ahead and you know advance our knowledge and purchase things that actually work, that don't cause constipation and don't cause you to be sick? Going to mention a few brands. I love Mega Food. I love AOR. I love Thorne, Nutrigold, Nature's Plus, Bluebonnet, and Natural Factors, and Garden of Life. Those are my favorite irons for people who actually need to supplement. Again with these people, they need to at a certain point. Make sure they test to make sure they don't have too much even for menstruating women [00:24:00] because sometimes you can be losing some iron, but if you're putting too much back in then you can still get overdose on the iron.
So I think I've covered it pretty dang well, Brian.
Brian Strickland: I think so.
Ed Jones: Now I want to encourage everyone to take hold of their own health concerns as much as they can. That is what will empower you. If you don't become informed and be able to have options and create a team approach, you will be basically a victim of the broken health care system. I really still admire the people in that system. If I have a heart attack, a car wreck, or a terrible strep throat, that's where I'm going, people. But I'll still want to choose the wisest one in that group. But we need a bigger group than that because preventing disease is where it's at and even managing if we have it. In fact, you know this test along with the few that Dr. Lavalle and I talked about, I'm recommending [00:25:00] to every person who listens so please go back and listen to Dr. LeValle’s and my podcast from just several weeks ago to be fully informed.
Well again, I know that I've said this too many times but I do separate the world into two classes of people: learners and non-learners. If you're listening to this you are in the group that I really love which are the learners. And lastly, Hippocrates, which is still one of my favorite people from oh just about 370 BC. He said,”Everyone has a doctor in him or her. We just have to help it in it’s work. And the natural healing force within each of us is still the greatest force in getting well. And our food should be our medicine and our medicine our food.” That will never change. Thank you everyone. This is Ed with The Holistic Navigator.
Brian Strickland: The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or any one of the medical profession and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The Holistic Navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials. The Holistic Navigator is not a doctor, nor does he claim to be. Please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.