Ferritin & Dopamine?

[redsun]

My ferritin is 12 as of last month and I feel awful. I read that a German doctor said that you can't lose weight unless your ferritin is at least 30. I have been struggling to lose weight for months with no luck! Is weight an issue for you?

You feel awful probably because your anemic.

 

[tankasnowgod]

Youre soon there bro. You see, ferritin can be low while your iron circulation is whack also. He seem to base it on one article only because youre not familiar with whatever else he would base it on lol. I should have said ferritin say next to nothing about iron.

Again, most iron researchers would disagree, as does my own personal experience when lowering iron. I have heard many times that Ferritin is the best marker of total body iron stores, and while getting de-ironed, I saw it fall from my original level of 444. It was far and away the most useful marker for me. There's a rule of thumb that says every blood donation removes 250mg of iron, and drops ferritin by about 30 points. It sure seemed to be that way in my case, though there was a lot of variation around that 30 point drop.

 

[magnesiumania]

Again, most iron researchers would disagree, as does my own personal experience when lowering iron. I have heard many times that Ferritin is the best marker of total body iron stores, and while getting de-ironed, I saw it fall from my original level of 444. It was far and away the most useful marker for me. There's a rule of thumb that says every blood donation removes 250mg of iron, and drops ferritin by about 30 points. It sure seemed to be that way in my case, though there was a lot of variation around that 30 point drop.

What im left with after reading Morleys articles is that its more complex and ferritin is less important if you want to understand hiw your body actually use iron. There is also hemociderin, a similar protein to ferritin but with a higher capasity for storage. Thats where you get the most iron from when doing donation. I hope i can expand or contribute to you understanding rather than being just an ****.

 

[tankasnowgod]

What im left with after reading Morleys articles is that its more complex and ferritin is less important if you want to understand hiw your body actually use iron. There is also hemociderin, a similar protein to ferritin but with a higher capasity for storage. Thats where you get the most iron from when doing donation. I hope i can expand or contribute to you understanding rather than being just an ****.

When it comes to donation, I don't think it's either ferritin or hemociderin that's really lowering iron stores that much....... it's hemoglobin. Experience of hemochromatosis patients doing double red cell apherisis demonstrate this, a much quicker lowering of ferritin. That's why the estimate remains at 200-250mg per unit of blood regardless of body iron levels. For those with excess iron doing frequent phlebotomies (like every week), hemoglobin usually "rebounds" quickly, and/or might be higher than a less iron loaded person, anyway.

I'm fairly confident with my understanding of iron in the body at this point. I think Robbins has some good points, but he seems to write and/or claim or reference things that don't seem possible. For example, stating that the ideal amount of ferritin in the blood to be 0, even if that is from a researcher....... well, maybe theoretically, but as a practical matter, most people get down into the single digits of ferritin, they have anemia symptoms, and in those cases, it might be due to iron deficiency. Babies have high ferritin levels in the hundreds, and teens usually have ferritin in the teens or 20s (with females usually remaining in the range till menopause), so while it might be a theoretical ideal, it doesn't seem in any way practical.

 

[cs3000]

Is there a link between ferritin and dopamine levels? I have low ferritin at 17 right now (range 38 - 338). I also feel I have low dopamine levels.

Does raising iron levels to normal help with dopamine? Anyone have experience with this?

these suggest that low iron levels could impair dopamine D2 receptor function
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3415866/

in this one anemia hit rats D2 receptors hard which reversed when they introduced iron
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7184034/

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/149232424.pdf dopamine receptor density lowered in iron deficient rat diets over 6 weeks

there's a clinical trial in women with low ferritin & fatigue without anemia, testing dopamine receptor density, but couldn't find the results Effect of Iron on Cerebral Dopamine Receptor Density in Non-anaemic Premenopausal Women With Low Ferritin and Fatigue - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov