Re: Iron deficiency in pseud. infections.../ Iron and Immunity...

[Guest guest]

All I know is that supplementing with iron doesn't necessarily address your defeciency (or anemia) anyway. Since iron is antagonized by other minerals, like zinc and copper, you have to address the whole imbalance, which is a whole lot easier said than done. I spent two or three years trying to balance my minerals, and seriously, it is not an easy feat. That said, I think focusing on a few key minerals can probably be beneficial (i.e. electrolyte balance), but I'm not sure iron is one of them based on everything I've ever read about pwc's. I could be totally wrong. All I can say is I gave up on supplementing iron and ferritin after having no effect other than becoming constipated. Even way back when I was pregnant, I intuitively felt that prenatal vitamins were not good for me, they made me feel lousy (and were loaded with iron), but I forced them down and still ended up mildly anemic. But of

course, I was unaware that I was actually as sick as I was back then. Then after becoming seriously debilitated with cfs/thyroid issues, I tried really hard supplementing all my mineral deficiencies but never really made any lasting headway. I'm not saying I'm against supplementing though. For me personally, magnesium and chromium always give me very noticable effects, so I take them off-and-on as the mood hits me. But I think it's a really good idea to get some testing from a lab like Spectra Cell to find out exactly which nutrients you're defecient in and then research them really well. Then methodically supplement using the appropriate balance based on your test results. Otherwise, it's easy to make some very bad choices. penny kdrbrill <kdrbrill@...> wrote: I've often wondered if the ubiquitous recommendation to avoid iron supplementation may not always be a good thing. After all, iron delivers oxygen throughout the body, it's essential to proper immune function, but there's always the claim that it feeds infections.I've no doubt that it does, but it also gives us healthy red blood cells, and helps fight infections, doesn't it?After reading a month or two back that pseudomonas loves iron, I just now found this study that suggests (help me here!) that perhaps it's safe to take. ??? It doesn't say that it HELPED the

patients, but then again, it wasn't that type of study.Hope some of you can help sort this out. Would love to hear your comments! :)d.Arch Fr Pediatr. 1989 May;46(5):331-4.Links[iron deficiency and Pseudomonas aeruginosa colonization in cystic fibrosis][Article in French]de Montalembert M, Fauchère JL, Bourdon R, Lenoir G, Rey J.Département de Pédiatrie, Hôpital des Enfants-Malades à Paris.The incidence of iron deficiency and its relationship with the concentration or iron in sputum and the number of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) colonies was studied in an unselected group of 53 cystic fibrosis (CF) patients with an age range of 3 months to 21 years. Parameters used to assess the iron status included serum iron, the % saturation of transferrin (n = 53). The number of subjects with depletion of iron stores was estimated by levels of ferritin (n = 50). The concentration of iron and of PA

was measured in a subgroup (n = 24) and compared to a control group (n = 8) with pulmonary infections of varying etiology. A close correlation was found between serum iron and the % saturation of transferrin (r = 0.952; p less than 0.001). Between 22.6 to 28.3% of patients were found to be iron deficient. An abnormally low ferritin (less than 12 ng/ml) was noted in 28% of cases but no correlation could be established between changes of serum iron and ferritin levels as a function of the degree of infection and/or of inflammation. In 62% of cases (n = 15) the concentration of iron in sputum was found to be within the range of control values (12-27 mumols/l). In 38% of cases (n = 9), ferritin values were above 27 mumols/l. No correlation was found between the concentration of iron and the number of PA colonies in sputum. We can therefore conclude the following: 1) iron deficiency is more common in CF than previously

reported; 2) ferritin levels constitute a poor index of iron deficiency; 3) colonisation with PA is not associated with iron content of bronchial secretions.