The lowdown on iron: it’s impact to your health and hormones

FertilityPregnancyMotherhoodHormones
Written By Alexandra Emerson-White

Photo by Siobhan Calder

We know that females are more at risk of nutrient deficiencies that men.

If you missed the article discussing why this is, you can find it here.

How can potential iron deficiencies impact your health and wellbeing?

Intakes of iron, its role in the body + HORMONAL HEALTH:

  • Over a quarter of women are getting less iron than they need. During your period, blood (and therefore iron) is lost. Around 70% of your bodies iron is stored in the blood, hence blood loss = iron loss.

  • However, it is not only heavy periods where we need to be considering iron status. Gut disorders can also play a role in impacting iron absorption, along with celiac disease (often undiagnosed), and even intestinal parasites (including the common worm) feed off iron, lowering our stores.

  • Iron is a mineral that your body needs for growth, development, producing haemoglobin (to carry oxygen from the lungs around the body), and to make some hormones.

  • In the short-term, if you are not getting enough iron, your body will use its stored iron. However, when stored iron becomes low, iron deficiency anaemia can set in.

  • Globally, anaemia is said to impact 39% pregnant women and 29% of non-pregnant women (3).

  • This is where your red blood cells become smaller and contain less haemoglobin and as a result less oxygen is carried from the lungs throughout the body. Symptoms include weakness, fatigue, problems with concentration, memory and weakened immunity.

  • Iron is an important consideration for fertility and TTC, particularly when deficiency is so common for women during their reproductive ages. Research is emerging in the critical role iron deficiency may play in infertility and egg quality (4).

  • During pregnancy, the number of your red blood cells needs to increase to supply enough oxygen to the baby. Your body’s need for iron increases. Getting too little iron in pregnancy can increase the bub’s risk of low birth weight, and even impair brain development.

  • Building up iron stores before pregnancy and evaluating stores early in pregnancy can be key, given a study found first trimester anemia was associated with low birth weight and fetal growth ratio (5). This is why (in an ideal world) I love to work with clients at least three months prior to conception to really optimise nutrient levels.

  • It is not only the little one’s health that can be impacted, there is also a relationship between iron deficiency and postpartum depression (read more on this here).

Top food sources of iron:

  • Liver, red meat, poultry, seafood, dark-green leafy vegetables, legumes.

Top iron food tip:

  • Iron in food comes in two forms, non-heme and heme iron. Plant foods only have non-heme iron. Non-heme iron is harder for the body to absorb (aka less bioavailable) due to its structure. The body absorbs around 2-20% of non-heme iron vs 15-35% of heme iron (6).

  • Eating non-heme iron with vitamin C (citrus fruits, peppers, tomatoes, leafy greens) and heme iron can improve absorption. Whereas consuming iron with calcium (milk, cheese, other dairy etc), tea and coffee (due to certain polyphenols it contains), and plant food high in phytates (wheat, brain, nuts + seeds) can inhibit absorption.

SHOULD I SUPPLEMENT IRON:

  • I cannot stress this enough, don’t supplement iron without knowing your levels - test, don’t guess.

  • High levels of iron can be toxic, iron can also act as a pro-oxidant (the opposite of an antioxidant) so can cause cellular damage and contribute to inflammation. This is particuarly important to consider for women who can have inflammatory hormonal conditions, such as endometriosis.

  • There can also be genetic variations in how well we absorb iron from food, with a condition known as haemochromatosis leading to excessive absorption.

I CANNOT TOLERATE MY IRON SUPPLEMENT:

  • If you have been prescribed an iron supplement or advised to take them following testing. You may find that the iron supplements can cause unpleasant symptoms such as nausea and constipation. This sadly can really reduce compliance to taking them. However, there can be something done about this as their are gentler forms available with reduced side-effects. These are forms I tend to use in clinic. Always discuss with your GP, or nutrition practitioner rather than just avoiding them.

Photo by Siobhan Calder

How do you know if you’re deficient in any nutrients?

A motto I use with all my clients, test don’t guess. The best thing you can do (aside from eating a well balanced healthy diet), to ensure you aren’t deficient in any key nutrients is to test. It may not only be a waste of money to supplement without knowing levels, but it can actually do more harm than good to supplement certain nutrients without knowing your baseline levels. This is particularly true for minerals such as iron.

In my clinic, I always try to work collaboratively with a client’s GP to organise any blood tests. Sometimes more in-depth blood panels are required and I work directly with private labs for this. If you are concerned about your nutrient status, going through a stage in your life where nutrient demands change (e.g. pregnancy, TTC, menopause), or want to just find out more about the functional testing I use in my clinic; feel free to book in here for a complimentary nutrition review call where we can chat more about this.

Alexandra Emerson-White
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The gender gap: Why are women suffering from more nutrient deficiencies?