Lessons From The Lowly Mineral: Iron

A good life is a balanced life.

Ahhhh, but a balanced life is harder and more elusive to achieve in today’s polarized pulling apart world.

Yet, the goal of balance is worth it. From a “balanced vista”, we see more clearly. With fewer ups and downs, we are less rattled and battered about.

It’s the same with physiology. As, of course, it is not merely a cute little saying, we are made up of body, mind, and spirit.

So it is the same with iron.

As Dr. Jack Moncrief would remind me when I worked with this nephrologist who co-invented the home unit of dialysis, has a catheter named after him, and invented telemedicine between his first dialysis center in Austin and a far-off one in Giddings, TX and then had Governor Bush sign it into a legal bill, used to always say to me, “Lindsey, circulation is life.”

What drives circulation?

Iron. Iron carries oxygen to tissues far and wide. It’s our circulatory mineral.

However, iron is ALL about BALANCE.

Too little iron and our tissues suffer and get ill.

Too much iron and our tissues suffer and get ill.

Iron is all about balance.

Once a year when younger and twice a year when older, you should track an iron panel and a storage iron level, ferritin to make sure you are balanced and your tissues are not silently under attack.

Did you know too much iron, iron in excess, promotes insulin resistance as well as fatty liver? It even can cause cell death.

Cell death caused by excess iron even has its own name: Ferroptosis.

Yet, too little iron and you are pooped, your hair falls out, nails break and you simply don’t feel well or heal, no matter what you do.

This is because circulation is life.

Life is truly about balance.

Knowledge is power.

Get and stay buffed.

Yet, balanced.

All the spiritual teachers remind us that the “middle” path is the way to contentment and health.

But like anything worthwhile, it is never easy.

As we are, after all, on planet Earth.

Dr. B.

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References:

Iron aggravates hepatic insulin resistance in the absence of inflammation in a novel db/db mouse model with iron overload. Mol Metab. 2021 Sep;51:101235. doi: 10.1016/j.molmet.2021.101235. Epub 2021 Apr 16. PMID: 33872860; PMCID: PMC8131719.

Iron metabolism and ferroptosis in type 2 diabetes mellitus and complications: mechanisms and therapeutic opportunities. Cell Death Dis. 2023 Mar 8;14(3):186. doi: 10.1038/s41419-023-05708-0. PMID: 36882414; PMCID: PMC9992652.