OK so I got some results back re iron and B12 and would so appreciate some expert understanding from anyone of you. I believe I might have lowish ferritin. It's 39ug but my transferritin saturation is 52%, which is high. How do I increase my iron levels if I need to, with high transferritin saturation levels? I should add that I am mostly vegetarian and take a multivitamin that has quite a low strength level of iron in it.
Active B12 is 61pmol and folate is 18.3 ug is this ok?
The company did not give me ranges just minimum requirements which are as follows...
Haemoglobin: below 120 g/L for females and below 130 g/L for males indicates anaemia
Ferritin: below 15 ug/L suggests iron deficiency
Transferrin Saturation: below 16% suggests iron deficiency
Folate: 3 ug/L or below suggests folate deficiency
Active vitamin B12: below 38 pmol/L suggests vitamin B12 deficiency
Thanks in advance!
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Auntbessy
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That's really strange they only provide the lower bound. Arguably, breaching the upper bound causes just as many issues.
For my tests, the ranges for your items were:
Name_______You___Range
Iron. ?? 5.8 - 34.5
Ferritin 39. 30-400
Trans Fer. 52%. 20%-50%
Folate. 18.3. 8.83 - 60.8
What is your iron level do you know?
Iron level test would move about depending what you eat, but would be the first step.
Ferratin is the stage 2 test as that indicates your total body store. You're just about clearing the lower bound.
Trans Saturation is the stage 3 test which measures what % of locations that could store iron, are. Or, how good is your body at moving iron around. Here, you're top of the upper bound.
What's strange for you is: Ferratin is low, whilst your Saturation is fantastic. (my saturation was abysmal, have to take 85mg iron daily!). Low Ferratin is an issue of lack of iron, but excessive Saturation is an issue of over storage of iron.
Do you have any issues associated with low iron? Generally it's the fatigue that most people notice.
- Extreme fatigue.
- Weakness.
- Pale skin.
- Chest pain, fast heartbeat or shortness of breath.
It talks about the effect of chronic illness and inflammation on ferritin levels with some good diagrams too. Basically ferritin can be increased with inflammation, so it could actually be lower than it looks.
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