From what I'm reading, the vegetable sources of iron aren't well
absorbed, so the "red meat" would still have more effect on
stored iron. Diets that seem to work well for heart disease,
like the Ornish diet, would have iron in them from vegetables,
but would also have a lot of iron-blockers (from whole grains)
and not have the easily-absorbable iron that is in red meat.
(the Ornish diet also doesn't have the trans-fats and veggie
fats like corn oil, both of which are associated with heart disease).
Stored iron is also associated with diabetes though,
which women get more than men, so it could be it just shows
up differently in men and women. Women can cut their risk of
diabetes by donating blood.
What gets me is that the studies on this are pretty clear,
yet it hardly gets any press. We shouldn't be "guessing",
really. Donating blood works, but only if you are well enough
that the donation center will accept you (and you don't have
risk factors like having traveled to the wrong places). If in fact
this affects, say, 10% of the population (the genes are found
in 30% of Irish folks, dunno about the rest) ... then a simple
blood test now and then could prevent a whole lot of heart
disease and diabetes. But without the tests, people who
are LOW ferritin could be doing exactly the wrong thing for
themselves.
In terms of biking though, I think any time you donate blood
you'll lose stamina. Lack of hemoglobin. Stored ferritin doesn't
really affect much ... it's the iron that is sequestered so that
it doesn't injure the tissues (iron is rather toxic). But the
hemoglobin is what carries oxygen, and losing those red
blood cells means you can't carry as much oxygen in your
blood. When the body re-manufactures the blood cells,
THEN it dips into the stored ferritin.
Another thing I'm not clear on though: there is stored ferritin
in your blood. But there is a lot more stored in your heart and
liver. That can't be measured easily, and it's only tangentially
related to the ferritin in your blood. I.e. you can have a lot stored
that doesn't get put out into your blood. But then when you do
something like take Vit. C, or too much booze, the tissue
ferritin gets released into your blood. Anyway, there was one
article where they tested for stored heart iron by using a
magnetic imaging machine. I would imagine that having a lot
of stored iron in your heart would mess up the electrical
pathways?
This is interesting to me because A-fib runs in my family
big time, and my aunt, who was in a lab working
on heart research, used to bleed herself regularly to
keep her iron stores down. She's gone now, so I can't ask her,
but I'm guessing she knew something I don't.
On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Rick Stewart<rstewart@iaff.org> wrote:
> Yeah, iron is a really interesting subject. I think the heart condition you're thinking of may be hemocromatosis. ( http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/02/iron-overload-disorder-increases-heart-attack-risk.aspx ). Iron has been shown in many studies I've seen to cause heart disease in some men. I suppose, going back to the cultural norms idea, many men like to eat steaks and burgers, while ladies (stereotypically) relegate themselves to chicken and fish. I wonder how much this has to do with men having more heart attacks than women? Though, I'll grant ya, the ladies are catching up! ;)
>
> There are lots of good vegetable sources of iron including broccoli, collard greens, spinach, kale, watermelon, and legumes. I was looking at one website that showed that a baked potato with the skin on contains more iron than a 3oz serving of steak ( http://www.bloodindex.org/Food.php#iron_rich_food_list ). And really, according to that site, a male my age only needs 8mg of iron a day. Seems like it's really easy to over-do it on the iron if we eat a well varied diet.
>
> I used to donate blood regularly until I started riding my bicycle to work. Riding a bike on low iron is quite an experience. So then I started donating platelets so I could still help out but get to keep my iron and red blood cells... that is, until I passed out twice from the apheresis machine running too fast. I guess I should just suck it up and give it another try, eh?
>
> -Rick
>
>
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