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Why Do We Need Iron? · So That's Why

• 0:05
  Jen: Welcome to the So That's Why podcast, where we unpack the
• 0:09
  science behind everyday questions.
• 0:11
  I'm Jen.
• 0:12
  Matt: I'm Chris.
• 0:13
  And I'm Matt.
• 0:14
  Jen: Okay.
• 0:14
  A quick one to kick us off.
• 0:16
  What is the most common nutritional deficiency on the planet?
• 0:21
  Matt: B12.
• 0:22
  Chris: Vitamin D.
• 0:23
  Jen: Okay.
• 0:24
  It's not B12 or vitamin D. It's actually iron.
• 0:29
  Around a quarter of the world is anemic, and roughly half of those
• 0:33
  cases come down to one mineral that most of us barely think about.
• 0:38
  Um, so today we are gonna talk about why do we need iron and why
• 0:43
  are so many of us running short?
• 0:46
  Matt: Yeah, a quarter of the world, and yet iron isn't the one
• 0:50
  trending on TikTok at the moment.
• 0:52
  Magnesium is currently the one getting all the spotlight.
• 0:55
  Vitamin D obviously gets the headlines, and iron's just sort of quietly out
• 1:00
  the back doing all the heavy lifting.
• 1:03
  Chris: Which is the irony with iron.
• 1:05
  Matt: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Chris: I'm so
• 1:12
  sorry.
• 1:12
  Jen: Love the dad joke.
• 1:12
  Matt: The iron-y.
• 1:13
  Chris: In fact, I'm just gonna go.
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  I'm done.
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  I'll get my coat.
• 1:16
  Um, so iron is the reason all of those other items we mentioned can
• 1:21
  function at all, the vitamin D, the B12, w- magnesium, whatever.
• 1:24
  Without iron, the oxygen we're breathing would never reach the
• 1:29
  s- a single cell in our body.
• 1:31
  Jen: So that's the bit that always gets me.
• 1:33
  Every breath you have ever taken has been delivered to your body by iron,
• 1:39
  and almost no one ever thinks about it.
• 1:42
  Matt: Yeah, so in marketing terms, I guess iron has got a bit of an image problem.
• 1:46
  Jen: Yeah.
• 1:46
  Matt: Uh, it's got, yeah, it's got the most important job.
• 1:49
  Uh, it's got no recognition.
• 1:51
  It sounds, I, I, it sounds like y- every IT department I
• 1:54
  guess I've ever worked with.
• 1:55
  Jen: All the IT departments are like, "Yes."
• 1:57
  Matt: Yes.
• 1:58
  Jen: Finally.
• 1:58
  Matt: That's my suppli- that's my mineral.
• 2:01
  Right.
• 2:01
  Gr.
• 2:01
  Well, sh-
• 2:02
  Chris: we got a shout-out.
• 2:02
  IT finally got a shout-out on the show.
• 2:05
  So
• 2:07
  Jen: back to iron.
• 2:08
  Chris: Yeah, so hopefully by the end of this episode, if we actually do
• 2:11
  our job, you'll know exactly why, um, low iron makes you tired in a way that
• 2:16
  no amount of coffee will fix, and why some people need significantly more
• 2:20
  than others without ever realizing it.
• 2:23
  Jen: So it's always helpful, isn't it, to put, like, the scale of this into context.
• 2:27
  So the World Health Organization, they estimate that around 25% of
• 2:32
  the global population is anemic.
• 2:35
  So that's roughly two billion people.
• 2:38
  Um, and iron deficiency is responsible for about half of those cases of anemia.
• 2:43
  Chris: It's massive, isn't
• 2:44
  it?
• 2:44
  Matt: It's huge.
• 2:45
  Yeah, two billion people.
• 2:46
  I mean, that's an enormous number of people.
• 2:49
  Oh, it is something that most of us barely think about.
• 2:51
  I don't even know how you define two billion.
• 2:53
  I know.
• 2:53
  Do you know what I mean?
• 2:53
  I can't imagine the number in my head.
• 2:55
  Jen: I know.
• 2:56
  Chris: Yeah.
• 2:56
  It tends to, uh, creep in gradually when it comes to iron, so most
• 2:59
  people don't notice that they've been running on reduced capacity
• 3:02
  for months, sometimes even years.
• 3:05
  Jen: So where it gets really interesting clinically is a category
• 3:08
  called iron deficiency non-anemia.
• 3:11
  So your stores are depleted, you feel rough, um, you feel tired,
• 3:16
  you've got brain fog, you're slow to recover from exercise.
• 3:19
  I feel like maybe it's describe- … describing myself.
• 3:22
  Um-
• 3:23
  Matt: I
• 3:23
  was thinking the same thing.
• 3:25
  I just put it down to age, but apparently not.
• 3:27
  Jen: Yeah, but, you know, your hemoglobin in these cases, it hasn't fallen far
• 3:32
  enough yet to trigger a clinical anemia diagnosis on a standard blood test.
• 3:37
  Matt: Which is crazy, isn't it?
• 3:38
  So people can be properly low on iron, feeling rubbish for it, I, I,
• 3:43
  I'm not talking about you, Jen, but definitely me, uh, and the test still
• 3:47
  sort of tells them that they're fine.
• 3:49
  Jen: Mm-hmm.
• 3:49
  Chris: Yeah, and it's a really important, uh, thing to distinguish here.
• 3:52
  So the standard test for iron measures hemoglobin, which is
• 3:56
  actually the last thing to fall.
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  So the true early warning sign is ferritin, which is your iron
• 4:02
  storage marker, and unless your doctor specifically asks for it,
• 4:06
  it often doesn't get checked.
• 4:08
  Jen: Okay.
• 4:08
  So a bit, for a bit more context, between 25 and 40% of pregnant women in the UK
• 4:14
  and Ireland are running low on iron.
• 4:16
  Um, you know, women of reproductive age, they lose somewhere between, like, 10 and
• 4:19
  30 milligrams of iron per menstrual cycle.
• 4:23
  And those numbers that I've mentioned, they don't even touch,
• 4:26
  like, athletes or plant-based eaters, where the rates climb higher again.
• 4:31
  Matt: Yeah, which kinda makes me wonder how many people are putting
• 4:35
  persistent fatigue down to just being busy or not sleeping well,
• 4:40
  when there's a perfectly measurable mineral underneath this whole thing.
• 4:45
  Mm.
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  Chris: I suspect it's a lot of people- Yeah … to be fair.
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  And, um, of course, fatigue is arguably the most reported symptom of low iron,
• 4:54
  and it's the easiest to miss because everybody has it some days, don't we?
• 4:57
  You know, we all have days when we, we feel tired.
• 5:00
  Um, but the pattern people miss is when it doesn't seem to improve, so
• 5:04
  no amount of sleep seems to restore you or it feels like the caffeine
• 5:08
  stops doing what it used to do.
• 5:10
  Jen: Okay.
• 5:11
  So what's actually… what is iron actually doing in the body?
• 5:14
  That's what people probably wanna know.
• 5:16
  So about 70% of all the iron in your body is locked in two proteins, hemoglobin
• 5:23
  in your red blood cells and myoglobin in your muscles, and both have one
• 5:28
  job, and that is moving oxygen around.
• 5:31
  Chris: That's right.
• 5:31
  And hemoglobin, or he- each hemoglobin molecule carries four iron atoms kinda
• 5:37
  tucked inside it, and then each one grabs a single oxygen molecule in the lungs,
• 5:42
  holds onto it through the journey, and it lets it go where it's needed in the body.
• 5:46
  So if you multiply that across the trillions of red blood cells in your body,
• 5:51
  you've got this kind of oxygen, I guess, like, courier service running constantly
• 5:56
  in every direction, never stopping.
• 5:58
  Matt: Yeah.
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  So I, I guess iron's basically the postmaster in the postal system, isn't it?
• 6:03
  Without it, the oxygen never gets sorted, never gets delivered, and
• 6:07
  never makes it to the front door.
• 6:09
  Chris: We could call it Iron Man, but I, I guess that's already gone.
• 6:13
  Someone beat
• 6:13
  Matt: us to the punch.
• 6:14
  Yeah.
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  I like that.
• 6:15
  This is the Iron Man episode- Yeah … uh, for the purposes
• 6:18
  of search engine optimization.
• 6:20
  Brilliant.
• 6:24
  Jen: Okay.
• 6:24
  So when your iron levels drop, um, the system, your body, it doesn't stop.
• 6:30
  Obviously, it just slows down.
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  So your red blood cells get made smaller 'cause they've got less hemoglobin packed
• 6:37
  in, so then each one carries less oxygen.
• 6:40
  So your body is still delivering, it's just sending half-empty parcels.
• 6:45
  Chris: Yeah.
• 6:46
  That's right.
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  And, and that's what causes the kind of symptoms to cascade.
• 6:50
  So less oxygen reaching the brain means poorer focus and slower thinking.
• 6:54
  Less reaching the muscles means, uh, breathlessness and fatigue, and less
• 6:59
  reaching the immune cells means a, a kind of, a slower recovery from any infection.
• 7:02
  Jen: Mm.
• 7:03
  Matt: Yeah.
• 7:03
  Which would explain why low iron symptoms feel so scattergun, don't they?
• 7:07
  You've got the brittle nails, the brain fog, the racing heart all at
• 7:11
  once, and it's, I think it's easy to put that kind of thing down to
• 7:14
  different things when it's actually one mineral underneath all of it.
• 7:19
  Jen: It is.
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  And you mentioned brain fog, Matt.
• 7:21
  Uh, so that actually does deserve its own moment because the research is striking.
• 7:26
  There was a 2023 systemic review of 13 randomized controlled trials.
• 7:31
  So they found that giving school-age kids iron supplements significantly improved
• 7:37
  their intelligence because it impacted attention, concentration, and memory.
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  So there was measurable cognitive gains from correcting just one nutrient.
• 7:47
  Chris: That's it.
• 7:48
  And we see the same, um, pattern in brain scans.
• 7:50
  So areas of the brain involved in reasoning and problem-solving,
• 7:54
  they massively depend on iron.
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  So when these iron levels are low, the performance drops.
• 7:59
  Matt: Yeah, and that's the story from the body side of it, isn't it?
• 8:03
  But when we zoom out to diet, it gets a… it seems to get a lot more complicated.
• 8:09
  Iron doesn't all come in the same form.
• 8:12
  There are two types, aren't there?
• 8:13
  There's heme, there's non-heme iron, and that difference really matters, especially
• 8:18
  if you're on a plant-based diet.
• 8:20
  So can you guys explain that a little more?
• 8:22
  Chris: Sure.
• 8:23
  So heme iron comes from animal sources, so things like, uh,
• 8:28
  meat or fish and shellfish.
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  And heme iron's absorbed at roughly 15 to 35% kind of absorption rate, um, almost
• 8:37
  regardless of what else is on your plate.
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  But non-heme iron is different.
• 8:41
  It comes from plants, um, eggs, fortified foods, but this absorbs much lower,
• 8:46
  so it could be anywhere from 2 to 20%, and it's massively influenced by what's
• 8:51
  around it, so what's on your plate.
• 8:53
  Jen: And the, the reason for the difference is structural, so a bit of a…
• 8:58
  would this fall in chemistry, biology?
• 9:00
  Bit of both.
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  So heme iron sits inside a porphyrin ring, and that protects it through digestion,
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  whereas non-heme iron, that's got to be converted in your gut before it can
• 9:12
  be absorbed, which makes it much more vulnerable to anything that interferes.
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  Matt: Yeah.
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  So heme iron is more easily absorbed while non-heme iron needs a bit more help, uh,
• 9:23
  depending on what else is in the meal.
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  Chris: Yeah.
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  That's a really good way of putting it and a good distinction.
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  And the biggest factor affecting non-heme iron is phytates.
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  So phytates are found in whole grains, they're found in nuts, in,
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  in legumes, and these phytates can reduce iron absorption by over 50%.
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  But there are other things.
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  So calcium can impact it, as well as compounds in tea and
• 9:49
  coffee, and some proteins.
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  These things can all push that absorption down further.
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  Jen: But on the flip side, vitamin C is like a standout enhancer, so that
• 9:59
  helps convert non-heme iron into a form that your gut can absorb more easily.
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  So even something as simple as, like, a squeeze of lemon on a lentil
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  dish or a glass of orange juice with a fortified breakfast cereal
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  can make a noticeable difference.
• 10:14
  Matt: Yeah.
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  So if non-heme iron is harder for the body to absorb, vitamin C is really what
• 10:19
  helps it m- helps make it more available.
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  Jen: Mm.
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  Chris: That's right.
• 10:23
  And there's a, an interesting bit of biology.
• 10:25
  I think it's interesting anyway.
• 10:26
  Jen: Me too.
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  Me too, Chris.
• 10:28
  Chris: Um,
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  Matt: well done you two.
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  Chris: We need to just go, you know.
• 10:33
  Yeah.
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  Stick our lab coats on.
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  Yeah, get on
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  with it.
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  Jen: Geek out in the lab.
• 10:37
  Chris: Um, so the body tightly regulates non-heme iron.
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  So if your b- uh, iron stores are full, absorption naturally drops off.
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  But heme iron is less tightly regulated, which means the iron balance is
• 10:49
  something to think about over weeks and months rather than a single meal.
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  So it, it's not the same depending on those two forms of
• 10:55
  iron that you mentioned earlier.
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  Jen: Mm. And that's where day-to-day habits start to
• 10:59
  matter as well, don't they?
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  So tea and coffee are worth flagging here, as Chris said.
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  Um, so the polyphenols and the tannins, they bind to iron and
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  reduce how much is absorbed.
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  Even a cup within an hour of an iron-rich meal can noticeably reduce its uptake.
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  Matt: Yeah, which is… immediately complicates life
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  if you're British, doesn't it?
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  Because the post-meal cup of tea is, well, it's a national institution.
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  It is in our house anyway.
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  Jen: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:25
  Chris: Yeah, don't fear, Brits.
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  It's not too catastrophic, so there's plenty of room to
• 11:28
  enjoy your, uh, cup of tea.
• 11:30
  Jen: Yay.
• 11:31
  Chris: It's just a case of considering the timing.
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  So, um, it's ideally just don't have it in the same hour as a meal that's
• 11:38
  meant to be topping up your iron.
• 11:39
  So give the iron time to absorb and then enjoy that lovely cup of British sh- tea.
• 11:46
  Jen: Well, it's worth us talking about who needs to pay particular,
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  um, attention here 'cause the variation between groups is huge.
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  So adult men, for example, under the age of 50 need around about
• 11:56
  eight milligrams of iron a day.
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  but then women of reproductive age need about 18 milligrams a
• 12:03
  day, and then pregnant women, they need about 27 milligrams a day.
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  So we're talking about more than a, a threefold difference depending
• 12:11
  on what life stage you're in.
• 12:13
  Matt: Yeah, and that gap I think is bigger than I would've thought, if I'm honest.
• 12:16
  Jen: Mm.
• 12:16
  Matt: Uh, most general health advice gets pitched in the, at the average, isn't it?
• 12:21
  Jen: Yeah.
• 12:21
  Matt: Um, but iron really feels like one of those nutrients where average
• 12:25
  perhaps doesn't really mean that much.
• 12:27
  Jen: Mm.
• 12:27
  Chris: No, that's it.
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  And the, the… You're right, the average, it just doesn't
• 12:30
  cover those different groups.
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  Um, and I'd say pregnancy, well, without a doubt, is the most demanding window.
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  So the total iron requirement across the entire pregnancy is about one gram.
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  Um, so that's roughly 360 milligrams goes to the baby, mostly in the third
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  trimester, and about 450 milligrams is used to expand the mother's blood volume.
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  And in fact, did you know, fact fans, that the mum's blood volume increases
• 12:57
  by about 30% to 50% during pregnancy?
• 12:59
  Jen: Wow.
• 13:00
  Matt: Wow.
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  That's a
• 13:00
  Jen: lot, isn't it?
• 13:01
  Matt: That is a lot.
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  I wouldn't have guessed that.
• 13:03
  And so with the added need, it's fair to say pregnant ladies don't
• 13:06
  usually get enough iron then, I'm guessing, solely from their diet.
• 13:09
  Mm.
• 13:09
  Chris: No.
• 13:10
  That's right.
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  So the typical diet provides about 15 milligrams of iron per day, and we're
• 13:15
  talking about a requirement, as Jen said, of about 27 milligrams per day.
• 13:18
  So that's why routine supplementation in prenatal vitamins is recommended
• 13:23
  a- and absolutely essential.
• 13:25
  Jen: And just to build on that, a baby actually starts building up iron stores
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  in those, the final three months of the pregnancy, which then sustains them for
• 13:34
  the first four to six months of life.
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  So in a very real sense, the foundation for early infant development is
• 13:40
  being laid down even before birth.
• 13:44
  Matt: That's a properly impressive bit of biology, isn't it?
• 13:47
  Mm. Um, when you think about it, all that buffering before
• 13:50
  the baby's even been born.
• 13:52
  Chris: It really is a bit, let's be honest.
• 13:53
  It, it blows your mind, doesn't it?
• 13:54
  Jen: Yeah.
• 13:55
  Matt: Yeah.
• 13:55
  In so many ways.
• 13:56
  Chris: The amazing… The amazing thing about
• 13:57
  Matt: it.
• 13:57
  Now, that bit of biology I found interesting.
• 14:00
  Chris: Just
• 14:00
  that
• 14:00
  one.
• 14:00
  Jen: We're converting him.
• 14:01
  Matt: Just,
• 14:01
  just that one.
• 14:01
  Jen: We're converting him slowly.
• 14:02
  Just that one bit.
• 14:02
  Chris: That one bit.
• 14:03
  Jen: That
• 14:04
  one piece.
• 14:05
  Chris: Yeah.
• 14:07
  Uh, so moving around, so athletes are another group, um, worth highlighting
• 14:11
  here when it comes to iron, and it's particularly female athletes actually.
• 14:15
  So they lose iron through sweat, through impact-related, uh, bled r-
• 14:21
  uh, red… I think I said bled rud, so.
• 14:24
  Yeah.
• 14:24
  I mean red blood cell.
• 14:25
  You
• 14:25
  Jen: were, you were
• 14:25
  Chris: on
• 14:25
  Jen: the right line, weren't you?
• 14:26
  Chris: Um, so red blood cell damage in the feet during running, for
• 14:30
  example, and through low-level gastrointestinal micro-bleeding from
• 14:34
  sustained training, which I know-
• 14:35
  Jen: That sounds horrendous.
• 14:37
  Chris: It does, but you know, look it up.
• 14:38
  It, it's surprisingly common and pretty painful.
• 14:41
  Um, and that's where iron deficiency without anemia becomes a real performance
• 14:46
  issue with those kind of factors.
• 14:47
  Mm.
• 14:48
  Jen: And so we've mentioned it briefly, but then we get to, like, plant-based
• 14:52
  diets, and they change the picture a bit.
• 14:54
  And this is where things get really practical because non-heme absi-
• 14:59
  iron absorbs less efficiently.
• 15:01
  Um, so ve- vegans and vegetarians, they need to consume about
• 15:05
  80% more iron to meet the same requirements as someone eating meat.
• 15:10
  So then a vegan woman of reproductive age isn't aiming
• 15:13
  for, like, 18 milligrams a day.
• 15:15
  She's more, like, aiming for 32 milligrams a day.
• 15:18
  Matt: Which is a meaningful jump.
• 15:20
  Jen: Mm.
• 15:20
  Matt: Um, and I suppose the real question is whether people actually adjust for
• 15:25
  that in practice, or is it something maybe that gets missed in the day-to-day eating?
• 15:29
  Mm.
• 15:30
  Chris: Yeah.
• 15:30
  So data tells us that it does get missed very often.
• 15:33
  So studies on v- uh, vegetarian and vegan iron status show high rates of depleted
• 15:39
  iron stores compared to omnivores, which is, I guess, no real surprise.
• 15:42
  But importantly, not higher rates of clinical anemia, believe it or not.
• 15:46
  Matt: Mm.
• 15:46
  Chris: So what you tend to see is the body compensating, so it's
• 15:49
  working harder to maintain levels.
• 15:51
  But this does require a bit of awareness, and the main message is iron levels are
• 15:58
  very simple to control regardless of diet.
• 16:00
  But you do need to give some consideration to the actual iron intake and all
• 16:04
  those factors that affect absorption.
• 16:07
  Jen: And then just to widen the lens a bit, children between, um, six to…
• 16:12
  Six months and two years, they're another group where iron really matters.
• 16:16
  So growth is rapid, isn't it, in that period.
• 16:19
  Mm. Um, breast milk is naturally low in iron, and that's a window where
• 16:24
  deficiency in infancy has been linked to longer term cognitive effects.
• 16:28
  So it's worth being quite deliberate about iron-containing foods at that stage too.
• 16:33
  Matt: Yeah.
• 16:33
  So if someone's listening and wondering whether, you know, they should
• 16:38
  actually do something about their iron, maybe you're listening, maybe
• 16:41
  that's the question you've got now.
• 16:42
  Mm. Where's the best place to start?
• 16:44
  Jen: Okay.
• 16:45
  So the best starting point is a blood test, but not just any blood
• 16:49
  test, a blood test that includes ferritin, not just hemoglobin.
• 16:52
  So that's the most useful single marker, um, because it tells you
• 16:57
  whether your stores are actually depleted, not just whether you've
• 17:01
  crossed the line into anemia.
• 17:03
  Chris: Yeah.
• 17:03
  And from a food perspective, um, the highest density plant sources of iron
• 17:07
  are cooked spinach, uh, lentils, tofu, uh- Soybeans, pumpkin seeds, and many
• 17:14
  foods are fortified with iron, of course.
• 17:15
  Mm. For seafood eaters, uh, oysters, mussels, and shellfish are rich sources.
• 17:20
  And for meat eaters, it's fair to say red meats are pretty well
• 17:23
  known as, as being high in iron.
• 17:25
  Jen: Yeah.
• 17:26
  Matt: Yeah.
• 17:26
  And also the absorption pairing we talked about earlier, vitamin C with non-heme
• 17:31
  iron, I think is also quite important.
• 17:33
  Jen: Exactly.
• 17:34
  So it's the simple things like make it… that make a difference, like a lentil soup
• 17:38
  with a squeeze of lemon, a spinach salad with orange segments, um, a fortified
• 17:43
  cereal with like a small glass of orange juice, and even cooking acidic dishes
• 17:48
  like tomato sauce in a cast iron pan.
• 17:51
  That can contribute because iron leaches from the metal into the food.
• 17:56
  Chris: Yeah.
• 17:56
  And, um, back to supplements here.
• 17:58
  So if a supplement is, is needed, timing's really important with iron.
• 18:03
  Uh, so as we mentioned earlier, it's best to avoid things like tea and
• 18:05
  coffee within an hour of consuming iron.
• 18:07
  And actually, iron's one of the few nutrients that it's best
• 18:10
  to take on an empty stomach.
• 18:12
  Uh, but of course, the issue in supplements is iron's often contain,
• 18:15
  uh, combined with other nutrients too, that are best taken with food.
• 18:19
  So it's never easy.
• 18:20
  There's always a bit of a, a counterbalance.
• 18:22
  So I'd say as a, a general rule of thumb, take iron in the morning because
• 18:27
  that's the best time for its absorption.
• 18:30
  Absorption tends to be highest because of that overnight fast.
• 18:33
  Matt: Yeah.
• 18:34
  I've seen alternate day dosing come up as well, right?
• 18:37
  So research suggesting it might improve absorption, um, and reduce side effects
• 18:42
  compared to, uh, everyday dosing.
• 18:44
  Jen: Yeah, that's right.
• 18:45
  So daily iron triggers a hormone called hepcidin, which down regulates absorption.
• 18:50
  So spacing, um, taking your iron supplement every other day, that allows
• 18:55
  hepcidin to settle so absorption can then recover ready for the next dose.
• 18:59
  And it's especially useful if someone struggled with like constipation
• 19:03
  or stomach upsets on a daily dose.
• 19:06
  Chris: So one important caveat here, and I'm sorry to do the kind
• 19:09
  of Captain Sensible bit, but on, in this case- … it, it's really
• 19:12
  important when it comes to iron.
• 19:14
  So before taking a kinda high-dose iron supplementation routine, you should
• 19:21
  really discuss it with a healthcare professional first, because iron's
• 19:24
  one of the few nutrients where excess really is actively harmful, and it's
• 19:28
  particularly with people with conditions like hereditary hemochromatosis, where the
• 19:34
  gut absorbs far more iron than it should.
• 19:37
  Jen: Iron's so important, isn't it?
• 19:38
  I know we've talked in a previous episode about magnesium driving over, like, 300
• 19:44
  enzymatic reactions in the body, but iron's even more upstream than that.
• 19:48
  Does… It, it determines, you know, whether oxygen gets to the cells where
• 19:52
  all those reactions are happening.
• 19:54
  So without iron, the rest of the chain just doesn't function at full capacity.
• 19:59
  Chris: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 20:00
  And, and that's why iron deficiency shows up across so many systems at once.
• 20:04
  So the fatigue, the brain fog, the brittle nails you mentioned, the breathlessness,
• 20:10
  the slow recovery, that… All the same underlying issues showing up in
• 20:14
  different tissues be- because of iron.
• 20:17
  Jen: And that's also why correcting iron status when it is the cause can
• 20:21
  transform people's lives, 'cause he- people often describe it as, like, the
• 20:25
  light's coming back on, because every system that depends on oxygen delivery
• 20:30
  suddenly has the resources it needs again.
• 20:33
  Matt: Yeah, so the takeaway is that not all tiredness has the same cause.
• 20:37
  Sleep, stress, um, and screens obviously get a lot of attention,
• 20:41
  and, and you could argue rightly so.
• 20:43
  But sometimes the underlying piece is biochemical, um, and it's worth,
• 20:48
  I think, staying open to that.
• 20:50
  Jen: So why do we need iron?
• 20:53
  Because every cell in your body depends on oxygen, and iron is what delivers it.
• 20:58
  It's not the most fashionable nutrient, but it might be the most foundational.
• 21:03
  Matt: Yeah, and possibly the most quietly common deficiency on the planet, uh, doing
• 21:10
  one of the most important jobs in our body, and it gets very little attention.
• 21:14
  Um, and I'm sure I, I will find it at some point, uh, a metaphor for life.
• 21:19
  I'm sure there's one in
• 21:21
  Chris: there somewhere.
• 21:21
  I'm sure you could find one.
• 21:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:23
  And, uh, with iron, a key message from us is, for most people, it's very
• 21:27
  manageable with a bit of consideration.
• 21:28
  Mm. So iron-rich foods, vitamin C as a partner, that awareness
• 21:33
  around tea and coffee timing, and a ferritin check if symptoms persist.
• 21:37
  They're the key things to keep a check.
• 21:40
  Jen: So that's it for this week.
• 21:42
  Hit subscribe wherever you're listening or watching, and drop
• 21:46
  your question in the comments.
• 21:48
  We really do read them.
• 21:49
  Thanks for geeking out with us, but for now, that's it from me.
• 21:53
  Chris: That's it from me.
• 21:54
  And that's it from me.
• 21:55
  Jen: Bye for now.