Iron Deficiency Alters Serum Prolactin (high Prolactin)

[Douglas Ek]

This statement is 100% false. I never once was trying to shut you down, I was genuinely looking for studies on iron levels that I might have missed. Since the very beginning, I was intrigued by your experience, and asked for more information to see if I missed something in my research. Go back and read what I wrote, it is always along the lines of the ferritin number you mentioned were higher than the target areas that I had seen, so I was interested in reviewing any studies you had, so I could see if I missed something, more for myself. I understand your personal experience, but all the info I can gleen from that is already posted.

I accept your apology, and I apologize as well if I seemed to come off as dismissive, but every single time, I was simply asking for studies or other information that I might have missed.

Okay thank you well I guess we are just different and have a hard time agreeing over this conundrum. Im very intrigued as to if I missed something aswell. So if you find anything or can figure out why this is happening to me while youre doing fine on low iron then enlighten me and help me

 

[dbh25]

Having a ferritin between 15-30 for 1.5 years was not optimal for me. I support what Chris MJ recommended, donating blood 1x per year.
YMMV

 

[Douglas Ek]

This just drives me more to want to understand how some people do well with low and some do well on a bit higher iron. Has to be something genetic.

 

[Cirion]

This just drives me more to want to understand how some people do well with low and some do well on a bit higher iron. Has to be something genetic.

honestly the interaction between hormones and vitamins/minerals is probably more complex than we can possibly imagine. We pretend like we understand it, and to some degree we do, but somehow I feel like we have only scratched the surface. And yeah, then throw unique genes in the mix, and then it becomes even more crazy complicated.

 

[Douglas Ek]

honestly the interaction between hormones and vitamins/minerals is probably more complex than we can possibly imagine. We pretend like we understand it, and to some degree we do, but somehow I feel like we have only scratched the surface. And yeah, then throw unique genes in the mix, and then it becomes even more crazy complicated.

Yes just like everything else in the universe. But we wont develop, learn or go forward unless we try, experiment, discuss and yes even argue and fight.
The important thing to is to try to keep an open mind.

 

[Cirion]

Speaking as an engineer professionally who often does multi-dimensional optimization problems where you see how individual tweaks affect the whole system but also how tweaking multiple things simultaneously affects the whole system, our body is probably similar.

The vast majority of studies look at just one change, maybe a couple at most. This doesn't tell you how everything interacts with each other though.

The only way we could truly begin to grasp how it all plays together is somehow do what we call a massive Design of Experiments -> Multi Dimensional Analysis & Optimization, but to do that we might need as many as literally millions of people as volunteers and trillions of dollars to pull off a scientific study of this magnitude... sadly, will never happen probably.

 

[dbh25]

For the record, Chris Masterjohn has the iron overload gene and even he only needs to donate blood 1x a year, and despite only 1x a year can eat all the iron rich foods he wants to no negative effect.

Did Chris give a ferritin number as a guideline?

 

[Douglas Ek]

Speaking as an engineer professionally who often does multi-dimensional optimization problems where you see how individual tweaks affect the whole system but also how tweaking multiple things simultaneously affects the whole system, our body is probably similar.

The vast majority of studies look at just one change, maybe a couple at most. This doesn't tell you how everything interacts with each other though.

The only way we could truly begin to grasp how it all plays together is somehow do what we call a massive Design of Experiments -> Multi Dimensional Analysis & Optimization, but to do that we might need as many as literally millions of people as volunteers and trillions of dollars to pull off a scientific study of this magnitude... sadly, will never happen probably.

Yes it feels like a lot of guessing and trying to tie knots together.

Did Chris give a ferritin number as a guideline?

I don’t know. Its generally quite hard to find information on so called ”optimal levels” specially at these very broad reference ranges we have on everything. The reason for the broad ranges though take into account that everyone is different and actually seem healthy with varying numbers.

 

[tankasnowgod]

If @tankasnowgod can teach me how he got healthy by lowering his iron so low id like to learn. I know excess iron is bad and if there’s a way that I could have minimum iron in the blood without getting high prolactin, high tsh and all the symptoms it gives me and other people I’ve spoken to then please go ahead and teach me. My hemoglobin is at 15-16 so well within range but even if my iron drops I get symptoms. Ive tried it all. But please enlighten me how you managed? Im actually honestly really interested because if I’m unhealthy like this then I wanna change but it seems to me that its opposite for me. I feel very unhealthy with low iron. And I know im not the only one.

Cool. I think first thing, let's scrap terms like "high levels" and "near deficiency" and stick to ranges or numbers. That's caused some issues.

As for the ranges, I have seen that 25-75 range for ferritin lots of places, and I personally did not come up with that range, but that's the target range from the Weinberg books and the iron disorders institute. For most who look for the benefits of iron reduction, they seek to hit that 25 number "on one occasion." So, that assumes a higher iron burden to start with (probably ferritin over 200). That also doesn't suggest staying around that 25 number is ideal. Anthony Colpo suggested active individuals not go below 40.

I had seen that 150 level of recommendation at Stop The Thyroid Madness. I remember them seeming to have some justification years ago, but when I went back to that site, all that info was gone (and they admit it all disappeared from the web).

Now, my personal experience: I finally tested my iron levels (5 years ago or so), after knowing about the benefits, Ferritin was at 444, and TSAT was in the 40% range. That's when I decided to start donating blood, as that is out of range high. I donated monthly, and also used complementary strategies like IP6. Everything was fine for the first six months. As I approached that 150 mark, I started to look for possible known issues (like low energy and poor mood). I think they even recommend keeping a journal. No issues came up, but in the area of about 120 for ferritin, I noticed my hemoglobin was getting very low at donation. I think once it tested at 13.7, after being near 15.5 at the beginning.

Knowing about the B vitamins role, and pernicious anemia and such, I started using either a B complex or an iron free multivitamin (I think LE for either, with 2 per day being the multi). One month after starting the multi, hemoglobin was back over 15.0, while ferritin continued to drop. I did hit the area of 25 "on one occasion." No anemia like symptoms of any kind, in fact, mood and energy was much better. At that point, I had two surgeries I needed (another story, but they could be scheduled). Those surgeries and recoveries took 4 months time, and there was another 3 months after I did not donate any blood.

After all that, when I retested ferritin, it was at 70. So, I started donating every 2 months again. After 3 donations, I tested ferritin, and it was at 28. Since I hadn't noticed any symptoms of deficiency up to that point, I simply continued donating every 2-3 months. Always looks for issues. I was regularly eating liver at this time. I did this for another year, that's when I re-tested ferritin, and it was 18. There were no anemia like symptoms whatsoever for me, and in fact, energy and mood was great. I decided to stop donating for 6 months at that time, as a precaution. When I retested ferritin, it was 47 (winter, this time), and I felt worse than I had during the summer at 18, and was noticeably getting more colds.

So, that's my background.

Since so many studies point to both long term and short term benefits under 80, I think that 25-75 range is a pretty good target for everyone. Based on my personal experience, I suspect (highlighting that word) that issues people seem to have in the 80-150 ferritin range that are anemia like are likely due to B vitamin deficiency, and/or low hemoglobin. I think that some sort of B complex, or even liver, could take care of this issue, if doing regular blood donation. Because that matches with the warning signs I had (that I was looking for because of that STTM posts), and my experiences after.

Final note, the studies Douglas posted in this thread where prolactin improved after being high in iron deficiency all seemed to target that 40-80 ferritin range for improvement. This might be the sweet spot for most adults. Personally, I seem to do fine (and even better) nearer to that 25 mark. I believe most teenagers would have ferritin levels in that 15-50 range.

EDIT- The best place to hear Colpo talk about iron levels is from his appearance on "That Paleo Show." I think he locked up his old blog posts talking about iron- That Paleo Show Interviews Anthony Colpo – Anthony Colpo

 

[Douglas Ek]

honestly the interaction between hormones and vitamins/minerals is probably more complex than we can possibly imagine. We pretend like we understand it, and to some degree we do, but somehow I feel like we have only scratched the surface. And yeah, then throw unique genes in the mix, and then it becomes even more crazy complicated.

My guess for the differences in experience regarding iron is it has to do something with oxidation levels. There might be something as high oxidizers and low oxidizers. Low oxidizers might tend to need more iron while high need less. Could have something to do with endogenous oxidants like gluthatione and SOD and that these enzymes are tied to genetics. Just pure speculation though.

 

[tankasnowgod]

Also, I mentioned this long term study on taking Vitamin C with meals earlier in the thread-

http://www.bloodjournal.org/content/bloodjournal/64/3/721.full.pdf?sso-checked=true

It's interesting that Ferritin did not consistently increase, and one subject had ferritin drop from 199 to 46.

Also.... the two subjects that had TSAT levels over 50% also saw a significant ferritin drop from taking Vitamin C with meals.

 

[foodandtheworld]

@Douglas Ek , do you think food alone can raise one's iron levels enough if they are somewhat deficient? I had once tried an iron bisglycinate supplement (25 mg) but I had diarrhea soon after ingesting it. I saw another poster here who raised his levels just by eating oysters everyday (I Suffer From Iron Deficiency - How Do I Go About Dealing With This?) Any thoughts/alternate food intake strategies if going this route, or would you lean towards supplementation?

 

[Douglas Ek]

Cool. I think first thing, let's scrap terms like "high levels" and "near deficiency" and stick to ranges or numbers. That's caused some issues.

As for the ranges, I have seen that 25-75 range for ferritin lots of places, and I personally did not come up with that range, but that's the target range from the Weinberg books and the iron disorders institute. For most who look for the benefits of iron reduction, they seek to hit that 25 number "on one occasion." So, that assumes a higher iron burden to start with (probably ferritin over 200). That also doesn't suggest staying around that 25 number is ideal. Anthony Colpo suggested active individuals not go below 40.

I had seen that 150 level of recommendation at Stop The Thyroid Madness. I remember them seeming to have some justification years ago, but when I went back to that site, all that info was gone (and they admit it all disappeared from the web).

Now, my personal experience: I finally tested my iron levels (5 years ago or so), after knowing about the benefits, Ferritin was at 444, and TSAT was in the 40% range. That's when I decided to start donating blood, as that is out of range high. I donated monthly, and also used complementary strategies like IP6. Everything was fine for the first six months. As I approached that 150 mark, I started to look for possible known issues (like low energy and poor mood). I think they even recommend keeping a journal. No issues came up, but in the area of about 120 for ferritin, I noticed my hemoglobin was getting very low at donation. I think once it tested at 13.7, after being near 15.5 at the beginning.

Knowing about the B vitamins role, and pernicious anemia and such, I started using either a B complex or an iron free multivitamin (I think LE for either, with 2 per day being the multi). One month after starting the multi, hemoglobin was back over 15.0, while ferritin continued to drop. I did hit the area of 25 "on one occasion." No anemia like symptoms of any kind, in fact, mood and energy was much better. At that point, I had two surgeries I needed (another story, but they could be scheduled). Those surgeries and recoveries took 4 months time, and there was another 3 months after I did not donate any blood.

After all that, when I retested ferritin, it was at 70. So, I started donating every 2 months again. After 3 donations, I tested ferritin, and it was at 28. Since I hadn't noticed any symptoms of deficiency up to that point, I simply continued donating every 2-3 months. Always looks for issues. I was regularly eating liver at this time. I did this for another year, that's when I re-tested ferritin, and it was 18. There were no anemia like symptoms whatsoever for me, and in fact, energy and mood was great. I decided to stop donating for 6 months at that time, as a precaution. When I retested ferritin, it was 47 (winter, this time), and I felt worse than I had during the summer at 18, and was noticeably getting more colds.

So, that's my background.

Since so many studies point to both long term and short term benefits under 80, I think that 25-75 range is a pretty good target for everyone. Based on my personal experience, I suspect (highlighting that word) that issues people seem to have in the 80-150 ferritin range that are anemia like are likely due to B vitamin deficiency, and/or low hemoglobin. I think that some sort of B complex, or even liver, could take care of this issue, if doing regular blood donation. Because that matches with the warning signs I had (that I was looking for because of that STTM posts), and my experiences after.

Final note, the studies Douglas posted in this thread where prolactin improved after being high in iron deficiency all seemed to target that 40-80 ferritin range for improvement. This might be the sweet spot for most adults. Personally, I seem to do fine (and even better) nearer to that 25 mark. I believe most teenagers would have ferritin levels in that 15-50 range.

EDIT- The best place to hear Colpo talk about iron levels is from his appearance on "That Paleo Show." I think he locked up his old blog posts talking about iron- That Paleo Show Interviews Anthony Colpo – Anthony Colpo

Nice work thank you for your input. So in background you seem to be a person that if you dont donate your ferritin tend to go up?
If I dont eat iron my ferritin tend to go down long term. Alright but we don’t know short term what serum-iron is. Listen to this.
So if I’m genetically a poor absorber of iron and you are a great absorber of iron. You absorb more iron instantly at a meal. One meal wont be enough to increase your ferritin but within a month your ferritin will increase a bit. But one meal is enough to increase your serum-iron thus enough iron in your blood to exert its effect on thyroid and dopamine production. One meal is not enough for me to increase my serum-iron so if I dont take supplements every now and then my stores will decrease over time eventually causing depletion and symptoms. Thus for me a higher then average ferritin is needed to maintain an ok serum-iron level and for you a lower then average ferritin is needed for you to keep your ferritin low but still you get enough from diet to keep iron in the serum free and bioavailable. That actually make sense. And I know my mom also has a problem absorbing iron from diet alone. Thats probably genetic im more like my mom than my dad in general. While you probably genetically have a tendency to have a high iron absorption. Coz i think its the serum-iron that is the free iron that the body needs to maintain a certain level for tyrosine hydrox and thyroid etc to work properly. I need a back up of ferritin to keep my serum from not falling to low. And you’re over producing ferritin to keep your serum-iron/free iron low because of your increased absorption of iron from diet.

 

[Cirion]

Well based upon what I have read here maybe some guidelines for Iron for people may be as follows

-> If someone is pretty low Iron level and still feels bad (like <50), consider supplementation of Iron
-> If someone is at a moderate Iron level (say 100 ferritin) but feels bad, consider playing with both less iron and more iron
-> If someone is kinda high (say 150-200 ferritin or more) and feels bad, consider playing with decreasing iron and see how that goes
-> If someone is definitely high (250+) and feels bad, almost definitely donate blood etc

 

[Douglas Ek]

I think it has to do with absorption of dietary iron affectin serum iron thus shfting a low absorber of iron to need higher stores than a great absorber of iron would need lower stores to counter the high absorption. It would explain the differences in optimal ferritin levels

If this is the case then vitamin E would have different effects for me and for @tankasnowgod
For me vitamin E would have a prolactin lowering dopaminergic effect since it would allow me to have higher serum iron and lower ferritin. For tankasnowgod it would have a heart protecting, anticancer, diabetes protecting effect protectin him from his higher iron absorption which would not be a problem for me and vice versa

 

[Douglas Ek]

@Douglas Ek , do you think food alone can raise one's iron levels enough if they are somewhat deficient? I had once tried an iron bisglycinate supplement (25 mg) but I had diarrhea soon after ingesting it. I saw another poster here who raised his levels just by eating oysters everyday (I Suffer From Iron Deficiency - How Do I Go About Dealing With This?) Any thoughts/alternate food intake strategies if going this route, or would you lean towards supplementation?

Depends on your genetics. Some people absorb too much iron from diet. Have you done labs?

 

[Douglas Ek]

@Pete073
Alright so pete here reached out to me after feeling terrible and displaying symptoms of iron deficiency. His hemoglobin was actually above range but ferritin really low. He started taking iron supplements and it has improved him and makes him feel better. Now tomorrow he’s going to take new blood test to see if hemoglobin has risen more. If so he says he will have to donate blood again even with low ferritin. I didnt recommend this if he’s actually feeling better when he is supplementing iron and have low ferritin. Any reason you think why he would have high hemoglobin? He has previously taken high doses of zinc and from what I know zinc promotes red blood cell production and hemoglobin production so Im trying to tell him that it might be cause of this. Anyway is there any acute dangers of having high hemoglobin? Sports athletes use doping techniques to keep hemoglobin above reference range so I suspect its not the end of the world at least and that he should take iron and avoid blood donation which only will sett him back.

@Cirion @tankasnowgod
Any opinions?

And @Pete073 care to elaborate?

 

[Douglas Ek]

@tankasnowgod
Also if you’re good at absorbing iron and im crap at absorbing iron there must be people who absorb just enough iron not too much like you and not too little like me. U tend to feel best at 20 and i feel best close to 100. Whats the middle inbetween that would be 60. So the sweet spot is probably 60 in ferritin if you dont have problems with absorption maintaining or overloading iron.

 

[haidut]

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?

Low thyroid function can cause low ferritin and iron deficiency in general. Peat spoke about it in a few of his articles. Eating nothing but dairy, without the recommended liver once weekly, could also lead to low iron status since some proteins in milk chelate iron. Ingesting free iron can be dangerous if there is liver dysfunction and as such not enough ferritin is produced to properly bind/carry the extra iron from the diet.
But, if his iron numbers improved then I guess the supplementary iron helped. Usually just eating more liver, other organ meats, or just lowering TSH can help recover ferritin and iron status back to normal.

 

[Dezertfox]

Bear in mind my hemoglobin was always in 14 range, reason being I think smoking falsely increases hemoglobin. Which would also explain why I crave smoking.

I also added lot of dairy over last few months so that also reduced my iron. And no it wasn't copper deficiency ONLY cos i have been taking copper since my HTMA showed low copper and iron. I am starting iron supplementation again. I did the whole iron panel and everything pointed to low iron.

Reason iron went down so much i think is also partly due to the copper supplement i was taking had a lot of manganese and zinc in it and both deplete iron.

@dbh25 you said you had poor sleep with low iron. I have poor sleep too with low thyroid pretty much all my life. I can't sleep more than 4 hours at night and wake up with hunger. I wonder it's a cortisol problem as well since my weight is very low.

Did your sleep improve with iron supplementation?