Iron deficiency

[messtafarian]

So all summer I have been battling and trying to figure out various health problems, which include anemia, fibroids, a thyroid nodule, high blood pressure and a hypertrophic ( enlarged) left ventricle of the heart muscle. I can't take thyroid medication because of my high blood pressure but I have absolutely tried to be meticulous with RP recommendations. So I eat coconut oil, take aspirin, eat sugar, niacinamide, magnesium, and milk products.

One thing I became really sure of was that I had too much iron in my system. I have anemia which doctors told me was from excessive bleeding, so I took outrageous amounts of iron for two years only to end up feeling worse than before and actually scared. After reading Peat I just stopped taking iron because I thought I was poisoning myself. The rest of the picture fit -- organ damage can be caused by iron overload; hypertension can be caused by iron overload, etc.

So I talked my doctor into testing to see how deficient I was in iron. If I was not deficient in iron, I reasoned, then this was not the reason for all my health problems.

So the labs say:

YES I am extremely iron deficient, and I was wrong. I am not iron overloaded, I am iron deficient. This can somewhat explain the hypertrophy since a heart has to work harder to pump blood through that is not oxygenated enough. I have no idea what the thyroid nodule is from but then neither does anybody.

So I'm back to square one with this iron thing. I have the choice now of trying to supplement iron, which I don't want to do since I reason that if it's bad to have I don't want to start loading it if it's deficient now. But my big question is -- is it really *bad* to be slightly anemic and iron deficient? Does iron deficiency allow other heavy metals to overload and is it better to try to fix the deficiency? I'm confused.

 

[j.]

Peat thinks anemia is often caused by hypothyroidism. Anemia caused by low iron is rare, he thinks. How to tell the two apart, I don't know.

 

[messtafarian]

This is genuine iron deficiency, according to labs. The thing I wonder is whether it's better to stay iron deficient given that RP thinks iron is poisonous; or better to try to supplement because the absence of iron means other heavy metals will take their place.

 

[j.]

I think that's a hard one. Maybe it deserves an email. My labs numbers are these, should I supplement iron?

My guess is that he'll say supplement thyroid. haha.

 

[messtafarian]

Sucks that all I have are hard questions, you know? Lol.