Iron: an underrated factor in aging

[AnUser]

That does sound better than heme iron supplements.

[Neo]

@adssx

I have low ferritin

How low? Low ferritin might be a good longevity phenotypes if not too crazy low.

Bryan was supplementing to go from super low to still low.

The top CR people generally have low ferritin.

Low ferritin in a healthy longevity optimizer might be a good sign and not a bad.

Of course you want to be extra careful at checking that not due to colon cancer and extreme edge cases around any key gut issues.

[adssx]

Before:

• Iron: 19 µmol/L
• Ferritin: 23 µg/L (fluctuated around 20 in previous tests, as low as 18)
• Total Iron Binding Capacity (TIBC): 63 µmol/L
• Transferrin: 2.7 g/L
• Transferrin Saturation: 30%

After 2 months of Spatone (iron rich water + vitamin C to increase absorption):

• Iron: 25 µmol/L
• Ferritin: 23 µg/L
• Total Iron Binding Capacity (TIBC): 72 µmol/L
• Transferrin Saturation: 35%

So ferritin still seems low to me. No? (It might take more time to replenish iron stores?)

[John_Hemming]

AIUI a low ferritiin is a sign of lower inflammation. Not so much crazy low though.

My recent ferritins have been: 57, 64, 52, 60, 24, 48, 72, 58 (same units)
My irons have been 20.1, 24.5, 20.6, 17.3, 28.1, 26.9, 20.5 (same units)

The low ferritin was with a different lab that did a same day test which might mean it is more accurate for ferritin I don’t know.

I do lots of odd things to my metabolism, but am not doing anything deliberately to affect iron metabolism. What I would say is that my weekly measurements have a broader range than your measurements.

One thing I like about weekly measurements is it is possible to see to some extent what variation is meaningless.

However, the main labs I am using at the moment are postal or not otherwise same day (one is same day, but it takes me a lot of time to drive there and back so I am not generally inclined to use it).

I am pleased with my ferritin results in the round as I started a couple of years ago with: 420, 337, 358, 328, 332

Hence clearly there has been a big drop in Ferritin. Iron is if anything slightly up.

[LukeMV]

Forgive me if you’ve already mentioned this but do you feel tired? Losing some hair strands? Dry skin?

All symptoms of iron deficiency.

[Bicep]

Ok, found something that says tetracyclines are chelators:

Tetracyclines are established chelators [3], [4], [5], with a high affinity for copper, iron and zinc, and lower affinities for magnesium and calcium [3,4,6]. Tetracyclines bind to the 30S bacterial ribosome through a magnesium bridge [7,8]. Abundant metals, such as iron, may interfere with this mechanism by binding to the magnesium binding site. The working hypothesis for the current study is that CP762 sequesters iron thereby minimising iron-binding to other ligands, e.g., tetracycline. This will promote complexation with lower affinity ions, such as magnesium, required for binding to the bacterial ribosome.

From this paper:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857921007196

It looks like it mostly chelates good things, but among them is Iron, which can be good or bad. Hard to say.

This is just FYI since you mentioned it before.

[adssx]

Nope. Not these symptoms. Maybe more dark circles under the eyes than I used to, which can be a sign of iron deficiency I think?

[Joseph_Lavelle]

Blood donation today. Every 3 months like clockwork.

[Neo]

@adssx

Ferritin: 23 µg/L

Does seem low. Not sure how bad/risky that is. Might have been coming down too, and is even lower than yours and I had begun researching it when I mentioned the point about the CR optimizers generally end up with low levels. I’ll try and discuss with doctors more.

One thing you might want to do out of an abundance of caution is the do some test to rule out colon cancer, eg the colon guard stool test if you don’t want to go full colonoscopy at your age.

Or since you are in the UK you can leverage that

The NHS uses a colon capsule endoscopy (CCE), also known as a pillcam colon or video capsule endoscopy (PillCam), as an alternative to a colonoscopy to examine the colon for abnormalities

(Think Bryan Johnson did/does something like that too)

NHS England » NHS rolls out capsule cameras to test for cancer.

Comparing Colon Capsule Endoscopy to colonoscopy

[Neo]

@adssx

Spatone

How come you chose this way to start your supplementation?

[Joseph_Lavelle]

Detailed podcast on iron from Vyvyane Loh MD

‎vlmd rounds: Episode 54: Life & Death with Iron on Apple Podcasts

“ Most people with anemia or iron overload don’t think about their immune system but iron levels are very closely linked to inflammation in your body. Learn the details on the regulation of iron stores in the body and the importance of macrophages in iron cycling. Find out how iron impacts insulin sensitivity and metabolic health and what happens when iron is deposited in your brain. liver and other organs.”

[adssx]

@Neo

Might have been coming down too, and is even lower than yours

How low is yours?

@Neo

Or since you are in the UK you can leverage that the NHS uses a colon capsule endoscopy (CCE)

Thanks. I didn’t know. I’ll have a look.

@Neo

How come you chose this way to start your supplementation?

My doctor (Adam Bataineh) suggested it as a gentle way to increase my iron levels a bit more to 30 mg/L. If not enough, we’ll switch to a more potent supplement I guess.

@Joseph_Lavelle

Detailed podcast on iron from Vyvyane Loh MD

‎vlmd rounds: Episode 54: Life & Death with Iron on Apple Podcasts

Thanks. Is there a summary somewhere? I’m interested in “how iron impacts insulin sensitivity and metabolic health” and how to improve iron metabolism (rather than the levels per se) after skimming through these papers:

• Iron imbalance in neurodegeneration 2024: “Another factor to consider is that even low ferritin levels might actually hide a high amount of redox-active iron, which triggers ferritin oxidation and its massive precipitation. Therefore, a low MRI ferritin-signal does not exclude the presence of significant neurotoxic iron. Currently, it is challenging to provide definitive therapeutic recommendations because the understanding of how iron interacts individually with mitochondria, dopamine, and synapses, as well as how these three systems interplay in situations of iron dyshomeostasis, remains incomplete.”
• A brief history of brain iron accumulation in Parkinson disease and related disorders 2022: “Friedman and Galazka-Friedman have interpreted such findings as indicating that altered ferritin shell structure and the consequent leakage of free iron are more important for the pathophysiology of parkinsonism than total iron levels (Friedman and Galazka-Friedman 2012).”

[Joseph_Lavelle]

@adssx I am not aware of a summary nor have I written one yet. I think I need to get into the topic of iron for my podcast so I will have more to share eventually. My conclusion so far is iron is very complicated…too complicated to interpret actual problems from basic blood panels (iron in the blood is a small part of the picture). The body is very careful with iron because of iron’s importance and dangers, and it usually does a good job with it. For myself, I would not supplement iron unless I had symptoms. Of course that’s easy for me to say since my iron markers are “good” (ferritin 53 ng/ml, iron total 123 mcg/dl, TIBC 352 mcg/dl, % Saturation 35%)

Here is the same podcast from Dr Loh on YouTube where she provides visuals.

Episode 54: Life & Death with Iron

[Neo]

Here you go:

Any thoughts on the discrepancy between all the iron measures being “in norm” while ferritin is below:

[Neo]

Here are the other ones for me based on what @desertshores shared was additional context

Any feedback from anyone greatly appreciated

[adssx]

Thanks. Similar issue for me. As @约瑟夫_拉维尔 said: “iron is very complicated…too complicated to interpret actual problems from basic blood panels (iron in the blood is a small part of the picture)” I haven’t been able to make sense of it so far…

Btw, if you take dapagliflozin, it reduces ferritin by 19%: Effects of dapagliflozin and dapagliflozin-saxagliptin on erythropoiesis, iron and inflammation markers in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease: data from the DELIGHT trial | Cardiovascular Diabetology | Full Text

[Joseph_Lavelle]

@Neo i recommended you watch the Dr Loh video on iron I posted in this thread. She speaks to the issue of low ferritin when hemoglobin is normal.

[Neo]

Thanks, will make sure to do!

[adssx]

I quickly watched the video.

Lactoferrin co-administration, doesn’t increase the absorption that much, but when you give lactoferrin together with ferrous sulfate we do see some higher serum iron levels, and that might be because lactoferrin itself has some anti-oxidant properties, and as a result, it decreases inflammation and so decreases hepcidin and allows you to export more iron from macrophages to other parts of the body.

If anything, this video confirmed that iron metabolism is super complex. If, as she says, “iron status is location and context-specific”, then how can supplementation help? You can’t “direct” the supplement to a specific tissue…

[Joseph_Lavelle]

A good summary. Thanks.

My 2 cents is that this is a particularly important area for older athletes to investigate. I think a reasonable person could argue for an iron theory of aging.

I am going to dive into this area very soon. It is not only hard to understand what is going on via blood markers and symptoms, there are many variables involved: recycling of iron, absorption of iron in diet, the body’s response to inflammation regarding iron, the delayed timing for effects of changes in iron to show up. Iron overload is implicated in many health problem. Low iron feels like shit.

I am donating blood regularly which is certainly a good thing if I have too much iron in my body. But do I? I don’t know. It’s only a hunch.