Iron Deficiency Alters Serum Prolactin (high Prolactin)

[Douglas Ek]

Iron Deficiency in Infancy Predicts Altered Serum Prolactin Response 10 Years Later

There’s many studies linking iron deficiency to disabled dopamine function resulting in symptoms as fatigue, brain fog, ADD and RLS all of which are shared symptoms of dopamine deficiency and iron deficiency.

As we know high prolactin is symptom of low dopamine. Another thing we know high prolactin causes is alopecia. You know what a common iron deficiency symptom is? Hair loss.

Also iron deficiency is linked to cold hands and feet. Probably by causing poor thyroid function since the liver rely on iron for the proper function of deiodinaise enzyme which primary function is to convert T4 to the more active T3 thus resulting in elevated TSH.
Lower than normal T3 would result in lower than normal DHT thus iron deficiency might contribute to lower DHT levels aswell. But on labs showing elevated T levels.

@Dezertfox among with many others here on the forum posted lab works where his prolactin, TSH and T was all high. His doctor suspected it was a adenoms on his pituitary. He later came to me since Ive previously written lot about iron. And told me he had a lowish ferritin at 30. I my self have had low ferritin and also elevated TSH, prolactin and Test levels.
So I got dezertfox to supplement with iron for awhile and one of his symptoms was in fact hair loss. Guess what. His hairloss went away. I havent heard from dezertfox in awhile and I’m intrigued to know now how he’s doing after restoring his iron levels from suboptimal.

But the funny thing about it is how important low prolactin, TSH and high dopamine and DHT seems to be to ray peat and peaters. But they all are against iron because of its oxidating effects. I argue that iron is not dangerous if you dont have a compromised anti-oxidant system in place. Look at the american diet high iron low anti oxidants. Thats the reason for diabetes and metabolic disorders and not normal iron levels. Its anti-oxidant deficiency that makes iron dangerous.

And so many people come here with symptoms and lab results indicating iron deficiency and everyone recommends against iron. So this people try everything with no results and are stuck in missery.

I know dezertfox was in touch with haidut sending PMs about his health problems and that his doctor wanted to prescribe him an anti androgen. The doctor should had prescribed and iron supplement instead. People need to start recognizing this as a real problem and statrt to adress the real cause of irons destructive nature. Low vitamin C and vitamin E. Makes sense why vit C would allow the body to absorb more iron. Because with more anti oxidant power the body is not afraid to absorb more iron.

Sorry for typos. Written on phone at work.

@haidut any thoughts on this?

 

[Cirion]

Interesting. As I always like to say, context is always key. There are only a few things that are virtually universally bad or at best only marginally useful. PUFA is one of those, but I think you're right about Iron, what you wrote makes a lot of sense. It doesn't mean we should all just supplement it, but it does mean we should see if we might actually be deficient in it before purposefully restricting it and donating tons of blood.

I for one tend to have high prolactin and probably high TSH as well, but my T levels are average, not high or low. I also do not suffer hair loss. So I dunno if I am deficient. I have not tested in a while, but I want to do a test soon.

 

[Douglas Ek]

My advice to people would be to aim for ferritin at the range of at least 50-100 and on top of that if worried you can always make sure you get enough vitamin E and other antioxidants to defend yourself. But I dont think its called for if you eat healthy. Only if you eat the american way of sodas and processed foods where theres virtually no antioxidants I would call for supplements and reconsidering your diet.
Also have to say I strongly advice against taking iron supplements unless you done blood test over iron status and other indicators to get a complete picture.

 

[TeaRex14]

Interesting find, I think Peat has mentioned in the past that the dangers of iron are related to the presence of PUFA. Suggesting elevated iron and too much polyunsaturated fats have a synergistic negative effect. When you are PUFA depleted, iron is less toxic. Higher then normal ferritin levels are associated with an increase in CVD as well, but again, it's unclear how much of a role PUFA is playing in the process. Likewise iron deficiency will cause some problems as well. I think the important thing to stress is it's really hard to avoid iron in the modern western diet, even when you proactively try to avoid it.

 

[Cirion]

My advice to people would be to aim for ferritin at the range of at least 50-100 and on top of that if worried you can always make sure you get enough vitamin E and other antioxidants to defend yourself. But I dont think its called for if you eat healthy. Only if you eat the american way of sodas and processed foods where theres virtually no antioxidants I would call for supplements and reconsidering your diet.
Also have to say I strongly advice against taking iron supplements unless you done blood test over iron status and other indicators to get a complete picture.

If I recall correctly the last time I had my iron tested I had a ferritin of... I wanna say like 130? Wasn't too low or too high, I know that. However I recently have been eating a diet relatively low in iron (lots of milk and gelatin, not much iron there), a decent amount of caffeine (depletes iron), and lots of manganese from maple syrup (also depletes iron doesn't it?) so it's possible I could be getting my iron stores too low now. BTW I'm not doing all that to deplete iron on purpose, its more incidental because of other goals I have like PUFA depletion.

Chris Masterjohn thinks Ferritin is not sufficient to judge your iron deficiency (or iron overload) condition. What about the other markers of iron?

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/01/27/need-manage-iron-status/

 

[Douglas Ek]

Interesting find, I think Peat has mentioned in the past that the dangers of iron are related to the presence of PUFA. Suggesting elevated iron and too much polyunsaturated fats have a synergistic negative effect. When you are PUFA depleted, iron is less toxic. Higher then normal ferritin levels are associated with an increase in CVD as well, but again, it's unclear how much of a role PUFA is playing in the process. Likewise iron deficiency will cause some problems as well. I think the important thing to stress is it's really hard to avoid iron in the modern western diet, even when you proactively try to avoid it.

Of course they have the are both oxidants and would require more antioxidants. But in my opinion keeping PUFA low and iron normal is what you want

 

[Douglas Ek]

If I recall correctly the last time I had my iron tested I had a ferritin of... I wanna say like 130? Wasn't too low or too high, I know that. However I recently have been eating a diet relatively low in iron (lots of milk and gelatin, not much iron there), a decent amount of caffeine (depletes iron), and lots of manganese from maple syrup (also depletes iron doesn't it?) so it's possible I could be getting my iron stores too low now. BTW I'm not doing all that to deplete iron on purpose, its more incidental because of other goals I have like PUFA depletion.

Chris Masterjohn thinks Ferritin is not sufficient to judge your iron deficiency (or iron overload) condition. What about the other markers of iron?

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/01/27/need-manage-iron-status/

Yes not always reliable indicstor because you can have elevated ferritin but still low iron due to inflammation. But i think thats not the case whats happening in the body. The body sense low antioxidant status due to inflammation thus the liver ties up the free iron to ferriti thus resulting in increased ferritin and low bioavailable iron. The problem then might not be low iron status but low antioxidant status.

 

[Douglas Ek]

If I recall correctly the last time I had my iron tested I had a ferritin of... I wanna say like 130? Wasn't too low or too high, I know that. However I recently have been eating a diet relatively low in iron (lots of milk and gelatin, not much iron there), a decent amount of caffeine (depletes iron), and lots of manganese from maple syrup (also depletes iron doesn't it?) so it's possible I could be getting my iron stores too low now. BTW I'm not doing all that to deplete iron on purpose, its more incidental because of other goals I have like PUFA depletion.

Chris Masterjohn thinks Ferritin is not sufficient to judge your iron deficiency (or iron overload) condition. What about the other markers of iron?

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/2017/01/27/need-manage-iron-status/

If you want to get full picture serum-iron, saturation, ferritin and transferrin are what you want. Hemoglobin doesnt tell you anything about iron status unless you are completely depleted of iron because iron is not what signals hemo production zinc, copper, cobalt/cobolamine and retinol does that job. Thus you can have low iron and ok hemo and you can have high iron and low hemo.

I know you’re also interested in iodine and its importance. Iron is very important for the proper function of iodine and its effects on the thyroid system google and research. I think iron gotten a bad rep because of actual antioxidant deficiency being so common today.

 

[Cirion]

If you want to get full picture serum-iron, saturation, ferritin and transferrin are what you want. Hemoglobin doesnt tell you anything about iron status unless you are completely depleted of iron because iron is not what signals hemo production zinc, copper, cobalt/cobolamine and retinol does that job. Thus you can have low iron and ok hemo and you can have high iron and low hemo.

I know you’re also interested in iodine and its importance. Iron is very important for the proper function of iodine and its effects on the thyroid system google and research. I think iron gotten a bad rep because of actual antioxidant deficiency being so common today.

I like your posts man. I like that you challenge the status quo, and that you're even willing to stand up to the giant man himself (RP). What you say really makes a lot of sense. A lot of things about iron that people post here really didn't sit well with me, because their explanations simply didn't make sense. After all iron gets FAR more demonization than zinc, copper, or other minerals, even though I am sure those are also bad in excess.

I may very well be deficient in Iron. You have motivated me to really look at getting a test soon. I say this because I don't seem to do as well as I'd like on Iodine supplementation, so that might be the answer as to why.

People in the medical world and even on these forums look at things too 1-dimensionally. Even RP has fallen into this 1-dimensional trap with Iodine and Iron. If something is bad, usually it's only bad in context. Even PUFA's aren't necessarily harmful, in a healthy metabolism. Keyword - healthy metabolism though.

 

[TeaRex14]

Of course they have the are both oxidants and would require more antioxidants. But in my opinion keeping PUFA low and iron normal is what you want

Yeah I agree with that. But it's probably best to lower dietary oxidants rather then to increase dietary antioxidants. Several antioxidants have some negative effects along with the positive effects. Vitamin E probably being the safest antioxidant, when derived from wheat germ. Anthocyanin is another antioxidant that's been linked to some great positive outcomes.

 

[Douglas Ek]

I like your posts man. I like that you challenge the status quo, and that you're even willing to stand up to the giant man himself (RP). What you say really makes a lot of sense. A lot of things about iron that people post here really didn't sit well with me, because their explanations simply didn't make sense. After all iron gets FAR more demonization than zinc, copper, or other minerals, even though I am sure those are also bad in excess.

I may very well be deficient in Iron. You have motivated me to really look at getting a test soon. I say this because I don't seem to do as well as I'd like on Iodine supplementation, so that might be the answer as to why.

People in the medical world and even on these forums look at things too 1-dimensionally. Even RP has fallen into this 1-dimensional trap with Iodine and Iron. If something is bad, usually it's only bad in context. Even PUFA's aren't necessarily harmful, in a healthy metabolism. Keyword - healthy metabolism though.

Thank you for your kind words i appreciate it. Well if you follow blindly and never question how are we gonna evolve? I have a great deal of respect towards ray peat and @haidut I think their work is fantastic. I want to contribute and if I need to challenge them a bit to rethink things Im willing to do that. Sometimes admitting that you’ve might been wrong is the most noble thing to do. So many health people take a defensive stance once they are argued against but a real scientist might look at the data and reconsider. I dont want to offend anyone but I see a pattern around here with iron. I just want to help and to people to keep an open mind about things.

 

[Douglas Ek]

I like your posts man. I like that you challenge the status quo, and that you're even willing to stand up to the giant man himself (RP). What you say really makes a lot of sense. A lot of things about iron that people post here really didn't sit well with me, because their explanations simply didn't make sense. After all iron gets FAR more demonization than zinc, copper, or other minerals, even though I am sure those are also bad in excess.

I may very well be deficient in Iron. You have motivated me to really look at getting a test soon. I say this because I don't seem to do as well as I'd like on Iodine supplementation, so that might be the answer as to why.

People in the medical world and even on these forums look at things too 1-dimensionally. Even RP has fallen into this 1-dimensional trap with Iodine and Iron. If something is bad, usually it's only bad in context. Even PUFA's aren't necessarily harmful, in a healthy metabolism. Keyword - healthy metabolism though.

We know aspirin increases tyrosine hydroxylase and I bet vitamin E do so aswell since it can lower prolactin. I actually bet that they increase tyrosine hydroxylase by inhibiting inflammation thus less iron gets tied up to ferritin and more iron can safely work its magic boosting dopamine production. If you wiki tyrosine hydroxylase it says in the second sentence iron is a co-factor. This makes complete sense.

Instead of focusing on eliminating iron focus on reducing its harmful effects

 

[Cirion]

I take 1000 IU of vitamin E every day now. I know Haidut posted something very favorable towards vitamin E awhile back quoting the Schute brothers who used massive doses to help cure people of various woes. Haidut also toyed around with a high T protocol which included 2000 mg (not 2000 IU) of vitamin E every day.

I used aspirin for a bit but stopped due to bruising. I also took vitamin K but still got the bruising.

And yes - I think it is very important to question everyone, including people you respect a lot (Ray Peat) and even yourself.

I am very honest with myself and open to admitting I am wrong and even learning from people I mostly disagree with. I think that is why I am fairly confident I will eventually heal myself.

 

[Douglas Ek]

I take 1000 IU of vitamin E every day now. I know Haidut posted something very favorable towards vitamin E awhile back quoting the Schute brothers who used massive doses to help cure people of various woes. Haidut also toyed around with a high T protocol which included 2000 mg (not 2000 IU) of vitamin E every day.

I used aspirin for a bit but stopped due to bruising. I also took vitamin K but still got the bruising.

And yes - I think it is very important to question everyone, including people you respect a lot (Ray Peat) and even yourself.

I am very honest with myself and open to admitting I am wrong and even learning from people I mostly disagree with. I think that is why I am fairly confident I will eventually heal myself.

Yes everything works in a synergy. That’s why not doing blood tests and just taking supplements on the premise that you get super healthy is really dangerous. I think that all the vitamins and minerals that I’m able to tie their functions together in some way. Iron to vitamin C to vitaminE to vitamin K to calcium to magnesium to vitamin D to vitamin A to copper to zinc etc... they all work in synergy and protect each other. You have to be quite knowledgable and careful if you wanna tincture with nutrients in the body. I just think about all the people who never read any scientific studies and have no knowledge how a supplement work except that zinc is good when you have a cold. So im just gonna take reckless amounts because a blogger wrote an article about it. Its madness.

 

[Douglas Ek]

Interesting find, I think Peat has mentioned in the past that the dangers of iron are related to the presence of PUFA. Suggesting elevated iron and too much polyunsaturated fats have a synergistic negative effect. When you are PUFA depleted, iron is less toxic. Higher then normal ferritin levels are associated with an increase in CVD as well, but again, it's unclear how much of a role PUFA is playing in the process. Likewise iron deficiency will cause some problems as well. I think the important thing to stress is it's really hard to avoid iron in the modern western diet, even when you proactively try to avoid it.

Also obviously PUFA is a major contributor to compromised antioxidant system and metabolic stress. If you like most peaters are low PUFA and eat take plenty of vitamin C from juices and high vitamin E will most likely have a sufficient antioxidant system in place to handle iron correctly in the body.

 

[Cirion]

Interestingly when I went meat free for 2 weeks I started to have strong meat cravings which I wonder now if a lack of Iron was part of the craving. I now have liverwurst at least 1x a week to avoid that problem again.

 

[tankasnowgod]

Iron Deficiency in Infancy Predicts Altered Serum Prolactin Response 10 Years Later

There’s many studies linking iron deficiency to disabled dopamine function resulting in symptoms as fatigue, brain fog, ADD and RLS all of which are shared symptoms of dopamine deficiency and iron deficiency.

As we know high prolactin is symptom of low dopamine. Another thing we know high prolactin causes is alopecia. You know what a common iron deficiency symptom is? Hair loss.

Also iron deficiency is linked to cold hands and feet. Probably by causing poor thyroid function since the liver rely on iron for the proper function of deiodinaise enzyme which primary function is to convert T4 to the more active T3 thus resulting in elevated TSH.
Lower than normal T3 would result in lower than normal DHT thus iron deficiency might contribute to lower DHT levels aswell. But on labs showing elevated T levels.

@Dezertfox among with many others here on the forum posted lab works where his prolactin, TSH and T was all high. His doctor suspected it was a adenoms on his pituitary. He later came to me since Ive previously written lot about iron. And told me he had a lowish ferritin at 30. I my self have had low ferritin and also elevated TSH, prolactin and Test levels.
So I got dezertfox to supplement with iron for awhile and one of his symptoms was in fact hair loss. Guess what. His hairloss went away. I havent heard from dezertfox in awhile and I’m intrigued to know now how he’s doing after restoring his iron levels from suboptimal.

But the funny thing about it is how important low prolactin, TSH and high dopamine and DHT seems to be to ray peat and peaters. But they all are against iron because of its oxidating effects. I argue that iron is not dangerous if you dont have a compromised anti-oxidant system in place. Look at the american diet high iron low anti oxidants. Thats the reason for diabetes and metabolic disorders and not normal iron levels. Its anti-oxidant deficiency that makes iron dangerous.

And so many people come here with symptoms and lab results indicating iron deficiency and everyone recommends against iron. So this people try everything with no results and are stuck in missery.

I know dezertfox was in touch with haidut sending PMs about his health problems and that his doctor wanted to prescribe him an anti androgen. The doctor should had prescribed and iron supplement instead. People need to start recognizing this as a real problem and statrt to adress the real cause of irons destructive nature. Low vitamin C and vitamin E. Makes sense why vit C would allow the body to absorb more iron. Because with more anti oxidant power the body is not afraid to absorb more iron.

Sorry for typos. Written on phone at work.

@haidut any thoughts on this?

The study you posted to start off this thread measured iron deficiency in infants. Babies are born with very high iron stores (ferritin usually measures about 400 ng/ml), but they "grow" into it. Since they grow so much, children usually have declining iron levels until about 12. As such, a study on iron deficiency in infants and toddlers really won't give much insight into what a good iron level is for an adult, as infants are growing rapidly, and adults aren't really growing at all.

The reason Vitamin C leads to more iron absorption is due to the fact that it binds with iron, and this complex is better absorbed by the body, at least in single meal studies with non-heme iron. The longer term study of 16 weeks did not find a consistent raising of ferritin levels with vitamin C taken with meals, and in fact, some participants saw a significant drop in ferritin.

From the Zacharsky studies and other material I have read from Weinberg and such, the range of 25-75ng/ml for ferritin seems to be the range that drastically reduce heart disease, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. Again, if you have studies showing that ferritin in the range of 75-150 can be beneficial for the markers you mention in adults, I would be interested in seeing them.

 

[Cirion]

In the studies that reportedly say 25-75 ng/ml for ferritin is ideal, what is the context? As douglas mentions, we can't look at iron in a vacuum, other things matter like anti-oxidant status, possibly iodine status, etc...

it's quite possible 25-75 ng/ml is ideal for average joes who eat junk food and thus have low anti-oxidants.

 

[sunraiser]

An interesting excerpt from chris masterjohn's article, just to add some balance to the anti iron notion...

But even beyond energy production, what is iron doing? Well, iron is needed to synthesize nitric oxide which is a dilator of our blood vessels. So you don’t just not have enough oxygen in your blood when you’re anemic, but your blood vessel dilation is compromised. You have poorly oxygenated blood and you can’t deliver it as well to your tissues. There is an enzyme called guanylyl cyclase that’s involved in regulating a lot of metabolic pathways in response to things that are changing in your physiology, and that enzyme is dependent on iron. So a lot of your cellular regulation is going to fail in iron deficiency as well.

The enzyme thyroid peroxidase is TPO. That is the enzyme that makes thyroid hormone. It’s dependent on iron and that means that if you don’t have iron, your thyroid hormone production is going to fall, and no matter how much iodine or selenium or protein or whatever else you throw in that, you’re just not going to be able to fix the problem if the problem is the TPO enzyme doesn’t have the iron that it needs to function.

Myeloperoxidase is an enzyme that produces bleach for the purpose of killing pathogens. Just like you would sterilize countertops or the floor or a laboratory counter space with bleach, your immune system cells are doing that in your body in safe compartments where they can kill pathogens in a very controlled way. And if you don’t have iron, you can’t engage in that particular pattern of pathogen destruction, and that’s a major tool in the kit of your immune system that is now failing, which means your immune system is going to fail. That’s not just going to make you immune to acute infections, but imagine the potential for chronic infections or for gut dysbiosis when your immune system is compromised. That’s another reason why yes, maybe you have this list of other problems like chronic infections and dysbiosis and hypothyroidism. If you also have anemia, you can’t expect to fix any of those things without fixing the anemia.

I find the role in immunity to be particularly interesting as people often have a degree of immune burden when there's a chronic health issue and lots would advise to attack the pathogen instead of restoring immune function and letting the body do its' thing.

Eating Peat inspired leaves rather a poor ratio of b12/copper/zinc to iron, even without using iron blocking substances during meals.

 

[Douglas Ek]

The study you posted to start off this thread measured iron deficiency in infants. Babies are born with very high iron stores (ferritin usually measures about 400 ng/ml), but they "grow" into it. Since they grow so much, children usually have declining iron levels until about 12. As such, a study on iron deficiency in infants and toddlers really won't give much insight into what a good iron level is for an adult, as infants are growing rapidly, and adults aren't really growing at all.

The reason Vitamin C leads to more iron absorption is due to the fact that it binds with iron, and this complex is better absorbed by the body, at least in single meal studies with non-heme iron. The longer term study of 16 weeks did not find a consistent raising of ferritin levels with vitamin C taken with meals, and in fact, some participants saw a significant drop in ferritin.

From the Zacharsky studies and other material I have read from Weinberg and such, the range of 25-75ng/ml for ferritin seems to be the range that drastically reduce heart disease, cancer, and other degenerative diseases. Again, if you have studies showing that ferritin in the range of 75-150 can be beneficial for the markers you mention in adults, I would be interested in seeing them.

The fact that I myself had high prolactin and in my opinion low ferritin at 50 and once I raised it closer to 100 my prolactin went down my tsh went down I felt healthier. There’s a lot of other people here with exact same symptoms and results like i mentioned dezertfox had low ferritin at 30 and high prolactin above range. He was experiencing hair loss. Iron removed his hairloss symptoms and lowered prolactin. I have 30 other private messages since 1 year back here on ray peat forum with people contacting me with high tsh, high prolactin and low ferritin. All same thing happens when they take iron. Prolactin goes down. Symptoms goes away. What is your point?
Dont be stubborn and ignorant
Obviouslt a lot of people are struggling with this and have low thyroid function and high prolactin from low iron stores. You’re just ruining their lives propagating blood donations and aspirin, coffee with food. Just because it works for you doesnt mean it works for everyone.
Google iron and dopamine NCBI and read all the studies.
Besides how can babies be immune to the effects of having such high iron concentrations in their blood? Probably because their antioxidant systems are stellar with very low PUFA