Ferritin is a measure of the total stored iron in the body. The "loose" iron in the blood isn't a very good measure, because it goes up and down, like blood sugar does. But stored iron changes more slowly.
(same thing goes for water!).
Iron is like that, in our diet. There is a very specific balance that the body needs. In the US, people appear to be getting way too much, partly because we eat a fair bit of meat and saturated fat and pop (all of which promote iron absorption), plus many foods have LOTS of added iron. So the iron-overload diseases are proliferating, and the base ferritin level tends to be high in many people.
Going vegetarian gives you way too little, but it takes some time for the iron levels to get low, and in the meantime, a person with overload will feel better. In most of the world, people tend to be anemic: because they don't eat much meat and often they have parasites, and they don't have iron-enriched food.
So think fertilizer: you don't want too much. You don't want too little.
On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 4:07 AM, tamaratornado <tamaratornado@yahoo.com > wrote:
Yes, he is working for a meat company. I like this company's newsletters.
I don't understand about ferritin. It's a type of iron? When I was younger, and vegetarian, I became anemic. Now that I am older, I have to worry about too much iron? It's confusing to me. Does that mean that younger women should eat more meat and older women less?
Some (many?) hunter-gatherer cultures ate large amounts of meat.
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