Ferritin ranges differ by age and sex

[Anthea55]

I thought this might be of general interest. I've been checking ferritin ranges as I've had recent ones coming in well above the ranges quoted and I wondered why.

Googling (as we all do) it seems that the range for men is much higher than that for women. Also that the range for older women is higher than for younger. My guess is that after the menopause the women's range may be higher than for younger women. That seems to make sense - we don't lose blood each month any longer.

Here's a couple of links

medicalnewstoday.com/articl...

Adult males 20-250, adult females 10-120, females over 40 12-263

nbt.nhs.uk/severn-pathology...

Male: 33 - 490 ug/L. Female (0-44 years): 15 - 445 ug/L, female (45yr+): 30-470 ug/L

My latest blood test showed ferritin 299 (range 13-150). I'm female and aged 82 which puts me into the higher range. However the thyroid testing labs seem to stick to a single range for women, despite having my age in the details they take.

Anyone know more about this?

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

The Health Board in my area of Wales has the same range for all adults of both sexes: 15-300

The private labs all seem to have 13-150 for all females regardless of them having date of birth information

I'm sure I've seen the male range with the private labs go up to 400 but we don't see that many results here from males.

When my surgery tested me I was lower than the result from the private lab, but I'm still lowish with those, ferritin struggling to get into 60s, usually lower, which is puzzling as I eat liver every week.

[humanbean]

I've had many tests for ferritin and only have two reference ranges.

All bar one test had a range of 13 - 150 ng/L.

The single exception was a BH test and the range was 13 - 400 ng/L.