Biomarker For Liver Iron Overload

[haidut]

I exchanged some posts with forum member Such_Saturation on another thread discussing non-invasive biomarkers for determining iron contents (saturation) in organs such as the liver. In iron overload states, iron often accumulates in the liver and liver diseases is thought to be caused largely by the reaction of iron with PUFA. Iron is a central topic of Peat's writings are its levels are affected by virtually all pathological conditions, so I thought it would be good to have a test for tissue levels.
So, I found this study which came up with a novel marker to calculate liver iron stores. It is simply the ratio ferritin/AST, with AST being one of the liver enzymes commonly measured by blood tests around the world. For the record, AST is actually not really a liver-specific enzyme but the study found it to be more predictive of iron stores in liver than the other liver enzymes like ALT or ALP. So, if the ferritin/AST ratio gets above 17 the study says there is a good chance the liver iron stores are high. I have attached the study for those interested in reading it in full.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24662623

"...Serum ferritin was predictive of iron overload in patients with high but not moderately elevated serum ferritin, that is, 92% of patients with ferritin >2000 mg/L but only 56% of patients with ferritin <2000 mg/L had hepatic iron overload. In contrast, aspartate transaminase inversely correlated with hepatic iron concentration in patients with moderate hyperferritinemia (P ¼ .045 for ferritin <2000 mg/L). To combine the diagnostic value of both parameters, we defined the ferritin/aspartate transaminase ratio as a potentially new predictor for iron overload. The ferritin/aspartate transaminase ratio strongly correlated with hepatic iron concentration (R ¼ 0.47, P < .001) (Figure 1). The best discrimination was obtained with a cutoff of 17 mg/U, which resulted in a sensitivity of 83.3% and a specificity of 78.6%. In our study population, the positive predictive value was 85.2%, and the negative predictive value 74.1%. Receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that ferritin/aspartate transaminase had a significantly better
diagnostic value compared with transferrin saturation (area under the curve, 0.83 vs 0.62, P ¼ .001) (Figure 2). Of note, subgroup analyses indicated that ferritin/aspartate transaminase was a good predictor of iron overload in hyperferritinemic patients independently of the underlying diagnosis."

 

[narouz]

Thanks, haidut!
I'll use that with my next labs.
I've been operating under the assumption I have high iron in liver.
I've been experimenting with IP6 for a few weeks now
and will see how it affects my iron numbers next time I do labs.

Our friend gbolduev
made these comments about iron overload in my IP6 thread--
of course from his particular gbolduevian neo-Eckian bio-chemistry gestalt.
His whole post is below,
and it contains this bit on chelation I will highlight as a preface:
"Also iron chelation is good, but dont forget we have low iron in tissues but some free iron in the organs and also tons of iron in the liver. SO I think proper iron chelation would be by making iron bioavailable so it does not spill from the liver and making sure you have proper ceruloplasmin levels to make iron work."

Retention of iron in the liver is due to low estrogen. Peat is super wrong on this. Women after menopause start retaining iron in their livers also, since their estrogen levels fall.

Basically if you are stressed you will use a lot of pregnenolone to make progesterone for cortisol and aldo pathway and will have very little DHEA. That will put your testosterone and estradiol into the lower part of the range. And you will start accumulating iron and copper in the liver. The mechanism how it works is this.

To release iron from the liver you need xanthine oxidase which runs on vitamin B2 and molybdenum, then you need ceruloplasmin to oxidize iron and put it on transferrin.

SO here we can possibly have 2 problems , lack of B2 or molybdenum , and lack of DHEA from stress so there is very little estrogen made.LOW estrogen equals low ceruloplasmin which equals no iron on transferrin and tons of it in ferritin.

Another problem is suppressing estrogen)))) like Peat advices, and then you run low on zinc no matter what you do and you wear glasses as thick as a windshield in your car)). Estrogen is needed to make zinc bioavailable since without bioavailable copper that estrogen provides your zinc levels will be suppressed. And when you run low on bioavailable zinc your protein synthesis goes down the drain and what suffers first. Yes you got it, the tiny muscles around your eyes. NOW we look at the thickness of PEATs glasses))) Cant see his eyes behind those. It is funny that I had exactly the same when I got sick before I got into all this medical crap. I remember I was driving a car and I could not see the signs on the road and my eyes constantly got tired .



SO the good idea would be to test your DHEA,Pregnenolone and also B2 and molybdenum status. IF you have low pregnenolone, that is most likely you have SIBO in the gut, since prenenolone is made from cholesterol and koenzym A which requires B5 in its active form --pantethine and acetic acid( vinegar).
B5 recycling depends on the gut.

That is why so many people are helped with simple vinegar plus brewest yeast.

Also iron chelation is good, but dont forget we have low iron in tissues but some free iron in the organs and also tons of iron in the liver. SO I think proper iron chelation would be by making iron bioavailable so it does not spill from the liver and making sure you have proper ceruloplasmin levels to make iron work.

I hope this makes sense


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24731011

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23041085

I usually dont look at these, but the first study was Swedish , so may be not as bull**** as FDA controlled crap on pubmed)))

 

[Such_Saturation]

Very nice!

 

[CoolTweetPete]

Pardon me as my head exploded whilst reading gbolduev's words.

 

[yerrag]

I'm needing to take the iron panel to determine if I have iron overload. But this ferritin/AST biomarker for liver iron overload, would it be able to supplant the iron panel? If this biomarker says I don't have liver iron overload, would the absence of liver iron overload be representative of the condition of the body with respect to iron overload?

 

[Xemnoraq]

@haidut im interested in this post because i follow alot of your posts, ive recently in the last four months gone on low iron but ive been basically no pufa for almost a year now.
one of your posts that interested me was the post about aspirin chelating iron and liver damage, so interestingly enough ive been using aspirin to chelate iron, every time i do it which is 7 grams a day one day every two weeks, my body goes into almost total shock and my liver gets incredibly inflamed swollen i get carotenemia, crazy endotoxin burden basically a liquid temporary diet, crazy headaches basically on my deathbed! aha but ive noticed out of all my times doing it combining the aspirin chelate with an extremely low iron diet, i notice every time i finish a round of 7g aspirin chelate and come out of dying for almost 2 weeks i feel extraordinarily better each time i recover from the chelate. So, about that post im assuming chelating a large amount of iron to the liver with aspirin is in fact very harmful on the liver and body? i kind of wanted to take the fast route get it out quicker im too much of a chicken to donate blood! so in your expert opinion @haidut , are these the kind of things you would assume for such a high dosage and chelation at once on the body? basically felt like my liver failed! but each time i do it i feel better and better closer to pufa and iron depletion each time

 

[ecstatichamster]

@Jake sullivan why would you take 7g of aspirin like that? It's a crazy high dose.

It could be harmful to you. And you are not listening to your body. That is serious if you feel like you are on your deathbed.

I'd take 7g of aspirin if I built up to it and with a good reason.

There are much better ways of getting rid of iron. Stop being a chicken and donate blood.

 

[raypeatclips]

@haidut im interested in this post because i follow alot of your posts, ive recently in the last four months gone on low iron but ive been basically no pufa for almost a year now.
one of your posts that interested me was the post about aspirin chelating iron and liver damage, so interestingly enough ive been using aspirin to chelate iron, every time i do it which is 7 grams a day one day every two weeks, my body goes into almost total shock and my liver gets incredibly inflamed swollen i get carotenemia, crazy endotoxin burden basically a liquid temporary diet, crazy headaches basically on my deathbed! aha but ive noticed out of all my times doing it combining the aspirin chelate with an extremely low iron diet, i notice every time i finish a round of 7g aspirin chelate and come out of dying for almost 2 weeks i feel extraordinarily better each time i recover from the chelate. So, about that post im assuming chelating a large amount of iron to the liver with aspirin is in fact very harmful on the liver and body? i kind of wanted to take the fast route get it out quicker im too much of a chicken to donate blood! so in your expert opinion @haidut , are these the kind of things you would assume for such a high dosage and chelation at once on the body? basically felt like my liver failed! but each time i do it i feel better and better closer to pufa and iron depletion each time

If you are feeling like your "liver has failed" and you are on your deathbed please stop taking so much aspirin that is an absolutely huge amount.

 

[Lucenzo01]

I have read that riboflavin works wonder for getting rid of the iron of the liver, not sure if it's legit.

 

[Xemnoraq]

it definetly is a huge amount and im forsure using myself as a guini pig for this so to speak which is definetly not smart but many things make more sense doing it, and i now understand the other side of aspirin and how it works and its effects in high doses

 

[Peatness]

Iron overload inhibits self-renewal of human pluripotent stem cells via DNA damage and generation of reactive oxygen species - PubMed

Iron overload affects the cell cycle of various cell types, but the effect of iron overload on human pluripotent stem cells has not yet been reported. Here, we show that the proliferation capacities of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) were...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Sherbert]

“So, if the ferritin/AST ratio gets above 17 the study says there is a good chance the liver iron stores are high”

Brilliant!