Should I be taking an iron supplement?

[WhyAmISoTired]

Hi all,

I tested my iron level and I got:

Iron 13 μmol/l (11-32)

Transferrin 2.2 g/l (2.0-3.6)

Transferrin saturation 23.5% (16-45)

In 2020 I had the following:

Serum iron 20.9 μmol/l (13-32)

Serum transferrin 2.17 g/l (2.00-3.60)

Serum unsaturated binding capacity 49μmol/l (45-70)

Saturation of iron 43% (no range given)

Do I understand correctly that saturation of iron and trasferrin saturation are the same thing? And if so, do you know what it means that the transferritin is the same amount but the saturation is so much lower? I have never taken an iron supplement. Since 2020 I went gluten free and started B12 injections, I wonder if my body used up the iron after I started the injections!

Unfortunately I didn't realize my last ferritin result was more than a year ago and didn't retest it. It was ok last year at 108 μg/l (15-291) but since the iron results are so different I would not trust that to still be the case.

[WhyAmISoTired]

Relevant paper: Cobalamin Deficiency Can Mask Depleted Body Iron Reserves ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

[SlowDragon Administrator]

Will flag up to humanbean and SeasideSusie

Our iron gurus

[WhyAmISoTired in reply to SlowDragon]

Thank you SlowDragon