#183

I don’t think so. They also tried an iron chelator in a recent RCT in PD and it made symptoms worse despite lowering iron levels.

I’m not arguing for or against blood donations. Just pointing that iron metabolism is probably very complex and we can’t conclude “Lower iron = good so blood donation = good”.

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#184

I agree Iron metabolism is complex. However, there is an association between lower ferritin and better health and iron overload is clearly an issue.

I give between 10 and 25ml blood a week for testing. Gradually ferritin has come down as well.

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#185

I haven’t said lower is better. High iron is clearly bad, and iron accumulates in tissues with age.

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#186

In your current thought process, what would you speculate a good range for ferritin to be in?

#187

These are my most recent values (weekly apart from a period of time when it was twice a week)

40.8 24.22 52.63 39.92 38.59 36.08 35.83 33.15 28.84 34.3 20.2 37.40 44.3 30.1 36.2 28.08

I think under 100 micrograms per Litre is a good place to be. In early 2022 I was normally above 300 and sometimes above 400.

My last set of results including transferrin saturation look a bit anaemic, but haemoglobin is quite high.

#188

Fascinating. My ferritin used to be around 350 until l made changes to my diet and life style. I seem to hover around 100 unless l am taking testosterone replacement. While taking testosterone my hemoglobin seems to continuously rise and to combat it, l donate blood but that eventually tanks my ferritin.
I am not sure if it is correlation or causation but when my ferritin drops below 20 l feel awful and my anxiety goes through the roof… Especially when l try to sleep.

#189

I presume you measure haemoglobin at the same time. Obviously if ferritin is really low that may been something close to anaemia.

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#190

A 350 ferritin could have been acute inflammation that falsely elevated it. Ferritin is a very sensitive lab test that can easily be jacked up after a hard workout.

Always get a full iron panel in addition. TIBC, Saturation %, etc

#191

I do measure both at the same time. My ferritin and hemoglobin diverge while lm on trt. When l go off testosterone historically it’s taken 2 to 3 to go back to normal.

#192

I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case

#193

Since l mentioned it and l had blood tests performed yesterday, my hemoglobin was 16.6 g/dl and my ferritin was 88 ng/ml. I have been off testosterone therapy since August but have been using galantamine (4mg daily).

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#194

If your ferritin was 88 this time and 350 last time, that essentially confirms that the first reading was falsely elevated from acute inflammation. 88 is a great number. Your hemoglobin is totally fine too since you’re on TRT. That comes with the territory and there’s no risk as long as your platelets aren’t elevated and you don’t have any clotting mutations like Factor V or Jak2, etc.

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#195

It’s worth mentioning the chelator pentetic acid/DTPA extends mean lifespan in female mice by ~16%, according to the Longevica patent. The control mice lived pretty long also (50th percentile somewhere close to 900 days), which is good, although the mice used have significantly less heterogenous genetics than the ITP mice. Also, I don’t think they disclose the dose used anywhere.

But DTPA is FDA-approved (as Ca-DTPA or Zn-DTPA) for decorporation therapy, where the standard dose is 1g intravenously. Longevica used oral dosing in their study, although the absorption is poor with this route.

One possibility is getting a baseline for arsenic, mercury, and cadmium, all which are considered toxic and to play no essential roles in the body. Each is chelated by DTPA and you can test them at Marek. Next, you could start with some small dose (10mg DTPA daily) over the course of some weeks and then test heavy metals. If nothing moves, raise the dose for awhile and test again. And basically repeat this process until you can significantly lower these heavy metals.

Similarly, you could test aluminum and iron, which are toxic at too high of concentrations (although obviously iron plays important physiological roles), and try to bring their levels down. Although, as alluded to in this thread, it might be difficult to interpret the iron results. You could also test other essential metals (calcium, zinc, magnesium) to ensure they aren’t being depleted and supplement if needed.

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#196

Now, researchers from the University of Kentucky have found that including certain nutrients in a person’s usual diet may help lower the amount of iron buildup in the brain, potentially lowering a person’s risk for cognitive issues.

The study was recently published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

Certain nutrients help lessen iron accumulation in the brain

However, researchers also found that study participants who had higher baseline consumption of antioxidants, vitamins, iron-chelating nutrients, and polyunsaturated fatty acids presented significantly less brain iron accumulation during the three-year period.

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#197

“For the average adult, three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit a day from a variety of sources (a reminder that 1/2 cup cooked = a serving and 1 cup raw = a serving) will be beneficial to provide the nutrients and antioxidants that would be helpful,” she detailed. “Further dietary pattern considerations would be to monitor heme (primarily found in animal products) and non-heme (primarily from plants) sources of iron intake per individual to make sure that the animal sources are not in excess and appropriate as well as a wide variety of non-heme sources are provided.”

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