Iron accelerates aging
Iron is a necessary nutrient, and low levels in the diet, faulty absorption, or excessive bleeding can cause low levels of iron, leading to anemia, cognitive deficits, and immune dysfunction. The blood...
View ArticleIron the primary driver of aging?
Not long ago I wrote an article about how iron accumulation, that is, body stores of iron, could be an important cause of the maladies of aging. I set forth quite a bit of evidence in that article, but...
View ArticleEugene D. Weinberg on Iron Toxicity
A couple of my recent articles have been devoted to the topic of iron and its involvement in many disease states and in aging itself. (See Iron the primary driver of aging?, and Iron accelerates...
View ArticleExcess iron promotes obesity?
Dietary iron and body iron stores are certainly involved in obesity, the only questions remaining are to what extent and whether something else in turn drives iron accumulation. It could be that...
View ArticleIron and the brain: iron’s crucial role in aging
A I’ve written about extensively lately, accumulating iron looks like a very good candidate for the primary driver of aging. It follows that lowering iron or preventing its accumulation could...
View ArticleIron levels
This article adds to the discussion of my previous articles on iron and how its accumulation drives aging and disease. Please see them for fuller explanations of the physiology of iron and the...
View ArticleMascitelli on iron and disease
Luca Mascitelli, a doctor and Italian army officer, has written a ton of interesting papers and letters on the relationship between high iron stores and disease. This post is to highlight some of them....
View ArticleIs commercial pet food killing your pets?
Regular readers will, I hope, excuse this interruption from my usual stuff on men’s health, because I thought this issue was important. Namely, that commercial pet food may be killing your pets. Give...
View ArticleBlood donors live longer
One of the pieces of evidence used in our discussions of the health effects of iron has been the better health of blood donors. For example, blood donors have better insulin sensitivity and a greatly...
View ArticleCalorie restriction extends lifespan by lowering iron
Calorie restriction: what it is, what it does Calorie restriction – cutting back the food of lab animals by 10 to 40%, sometimes more – robustly extends lifespan, in some cases by 50%. It is the most...
View ArticleIron causes wrinkled skin
Iron: is there anything bad that it can’t do? Now there’s evidence that iron is involved in the wrinkles in skin that come with age. Since iron is a highly reactive metal and capable of causing damage,...
View ArticleIron shrinks the brain
Iron, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s Iron in the brain plays an important and perhaps leading role in both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases as well as in aging generally. Measured post-mortem,...
View ArticleJerome L. Sullivan, father of the iron hypothesis of heart disease
(There’s no Wikipedia page for this man, something I thought ridiculous, so someone suggested that I write one. I wrote a short piece with a couple of references, and it was rejected as Dr. Sullivan...
View ArticleSun damage to skin is mediated by iron
I recently wrote about how excess iron accumulates in the skin of older, post-menopausal women, and this may be the cause of wrinkled skin. This post extends that observation that sun damage to skin...
View ArticleDumping Iron
Just a bookkeeping entry here, to point you to a page I’ve set up for my forthcoming book, Dumping Iron: How to Ditch This Secret Killer and Reclaim Your Health. The endorsements are rolling in!The...
View ArticleDumping Iron e-book is available for pre-order
My forthcoming book, Dumping Iron: How to Ditch This Secret Killer and Reclaim Your Health, is now available for pre-order in e-book form. The paperback version is on its way, ready possibly in a few...
View ArticleWheat grass chelates iron, treats ulcerative colitis
Wheat grass is a supplement / cure-all touted by whole-earth, back-to-the-land types, the same people that use Dr. Bronner’s Castille soap. I’ve never used it myself, but according to the Mayo Clinic:...
View ArticleIron causes atherosclerosis
Sometimes charts and graphs are worth thousands of words. The following charts come from the article “Body Iron Stores and the Risk of Carotid Atherosclerosis”.(1) Ferritin is the most common measure...
View ArticleIron increases infections
One important aspect involving iron – one that I haven’t discussed before – is its relation to infections. Competition for iron and the evolutionary arms race Virtually all bacteria, as well as all...
View ArticleHow to Lower Iron without Phlebotomy
In my book, Dumping Iron, I wrote a section about the use of natural iron chelators to lower iron (ferritin) levels. These chelators include IP6, curcumin, green tea extract, and quercetin. Here’s what...
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