# Iron

Category: Vitamins & Minerals

Also known as: ferritin, iron supplementation

Iron is a cumulative toxin whose routine supplementation Ray Peat considered one of the most pervasive and dangerous errors in conventional medicine. Peat argued that the body has no regulated mechanism to excrete excess iron, stating, "You can only shove it in; you can't push…

12 passages · 3 authors · 1994–2023 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/iron

## Synthesis

**Iron** is a cumulative toxin whose routine supplementation Ray Peat considered one of the most pervasive and dangerous errors in conventional medicine. [Source 5] Peat argued that the body has no regulated mechanism to excrete excess iron, stating, "You can only shove it in; you can't push it out," which causes tissue concentrations to rise inexorably with age. [Source 9] This progressive accumulation is not benign; **free iron** is a potent catalyst of oxidative stress, capable of creating *lipofuscin*, inhibiting **cytochrome c oxidase**, and damaging **pyruvate dehydrogenase**, the rate-limiting enzyme for glucose oxidation. [Source 8, 12] Peat linked this age-related iron overload directly to the U-shaped mortality curve, observing that both infants (born with a large prenatal iron surplus) and the elderly share high tissue iron concentrations and correspondingly high rates of cancer and infectious disease. [Source 9]

The diagnosis of iron deficiency anemia is, in Peat's framework, a profound and systematic misunderstanding. He insisted that low hemoglobin or red cell count is not biologically reasonable as a primary indicator of iron need, pointing out that toxins like arsenic also stimulate red blood cell production without indicating a deficiency of the toxin. [Source 5] True iron deficiency should be the last-suspected cause of anemia, considered only when specific blood tests show an abnormally low **transferrin saturation percentage**. [Source 2, 5] Even then, Peat and Dinkov have emphasized that low serum iron and ferritin are frequently not a sign of insufficient dietary intake but of a *hypometabolic state* that prevents the liver from synthesizing the iron-carrying protein **ferritin**. [Source 3, 8, 10] Dinkov has written that iron supplements often fail to resolve anemia unless overall nutrition and thyroid function are improved, because without adequate ferritin production, the supplemented iron remains in a dangerously reactive, unbound state. [Source 4, 10]

The relationship between **ferritin** and inflammation further complicates standard blood testing. Peat explained that ferritin is properly an intracellular storage protein, but under stress, inflammation, or injury, cells leak ferritin into the bloodstream. [Source 2, 6] Consequently, a high blood ferritin level can be a *marker of generalized inflammation and cellular damage* rather than a straightforward indicator of high iron stores, just as low blood iron can paradoxically coexist with iron overload in the liver and bone marrow during high-cortisol states. [Source 3, 11] Dinkov and Roddy have noted that this leakage makes blood ferritin an unreliable surrogate for tissue iron, with Dinkov specifying that the only situation warranting iron supplementation is when low iron saturation and low ferritin are accompanied by high transferrin, and only after verifying adequate thyroid and liver function. [Source 11, 12]

Peat’s practical guidance centered on avoidance and strategic inhibition. He advised strictly avoiding foods with added **ferrous sulfate** or "reduced iron," which are mandated in industrially processed grains and present in unexpected items like black olives. [Source 5] To block the absorption of the iron naturally present in a nutritious diet, he and Roddy recommended consuming **coffee** and **calcium** (such as milk) with meals. [Source 7] Peat noted that the copper in shellfish like oysters is protective against iron excess, and that traditional practices like adding milk to tea served to bind and mitigate the harmful effects of reactive iron and tannins. [Source 1] For those with confirmed overload, he acknowledged the value of **iron chelation** therapies, which have been discussed for decades in the context of infections and cancer, as both pathogens and malignant cells exhibit an avid hunger for freely available iron. [Source 2, 6, 8]

## People also ask

### Why did Ray Peat consider iron supplementation dangerous?

Peat argued the body has no regulated way to excrete excess iron, so it accumulates with age and acts as a potent oxidative catalyst that damages key metabolic enzymes and contributes to cancer and infectious disease.

### How can low iron levels indicate a metabolic problem rather than a deficiency?

The corpus describes that low serum iron and ferritin often reflect a hypometabolic state where the liver cannot synthesize ferritin, meaning the issue is poor thyroid function and nutrition rather than insufficient dietary iron.

### What dietary strategies did Peat recommend to reduce iron absorption?

Peat and Roddy recommended consuming coffee and calcium-rich foods like milk with meals to block iron absorption, and noted that copper from shellfish is protective against iron excess.

## Related concepts

- [Anemia](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/anemia/index.md)
- [Allopregnanolone](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/allopregnanolone/index.md)
- [Copper](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/copper/index.md)
- [Cortisol](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cortisol/index.md)
- [Gray Hair](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/gray-hair/index.md)
- [Iron overload](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/iron-overload/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Email Exchanges — Iron

Ray Peat · Email · 2015

> # Iron
>
> I assume that conventional medicine has misunderstood its role, I'm not sure that I can think of anything that conventional medicine doesn't misunderstand. Hypothyroidism increases inflammation and decreases kidney function; even protective antioxidants can become problems in themselves under some circumstances.Ferritin binds iron, and while it's bound it is less likely to produce random free radical damage. If there is inflammation in the liver or bone marrow, the inflammation can cause iron to be released, and ferritin apparently acts as a buffer, absorbing the released iron.
>
> [IRON RICH FOODS WITH ORANGE JUICE, COFFEE & MILK] Although orange juice would tend to increase iron absorption, that combination hasn't been studied. It isn't an issue for most people, only someone with an iron overload issue. The copper in oysters is protective against iron excess.
>
> [Proline/Gelatin and iron absorption] The tradition of adding either milk or lemon to tea has been known to protect against the tannins, by reducing reactivity in the case of lemon, or by combination in the cup with the milk protein (as defense against the carcinogenic tannins).

### Source 2 — Ask the Herb Doctor: August 2021 KMUD

Ray Peat · Interview · Aug 20, 2021

> ## Ferritin, Chelation, and Historical Context
>
> **Andrew Murray:** I saw an article on the NIH website related to COVID outcomes. They found a statistical correlation between high ferritin levels and poor outcomes. They were suggesting iron chelation to lower ferritin levels to mitigate serious outcomes. What do you say about ferritin levels and chelation as a method of helping people with known high ferritin?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Several people have been talking about protecting against disease, and now the coronavirus, by chelating iron. Going back decades, people realized that free iron is associated with infections—parasites, fungus, bacteria, viruses—and cancer. Cancer acts like an invading pathogen in its hunger for iron. Things that want to grow fast need a supply of available iron. Ferritin should basically be an intracellular storage form that is invisible to anything in the blood. But as you get stressed and overloaded, it starts leaking out of the cells. Just looking at your blood level, you can't really tell what your stored iron is because inflammation makes the iron leak out. Both transferrin and ferritin in your blood increase during inflammation. So, as you experience inflammation, your blood iron rises apart from the real level inside your cells. Fifty years ago, doctors were diagnosing iron deficiency based on low hemoglobin and hematocrit and prescribing iron to a high proportion of female patients. It was an Anglo-American custom going back to the 19th century regarding "chlorosis" or "green sickness."

### Source 3 — Ray Peat Email Advice Depository — Post 122

Ray Peat · Email · Oct 16, 2013

> **Question:** From Dr. Peat regarding iron supplementation:
>
> **Ray Peat:** As long as your hemoglobin is o.k., I wouldn't use an iron supplement, because so many things can influence the amount of iron in the blood, even when there's enough in the liver and marrow. Have you been getting enough copper and other trace minerals in your diet? Including shellfish (oysters have a lot of iron as well as other trace minerals) and liver in your diet would be the safe way to increase your iron and hemoglobin. Did you have your hormones measured? High cortisol can reduce the amount of iron in the blood while increasing it in the liver.

### Source 4 — Iron supplementation may not cure anemia, unless nutrition is also improved

Georgi Dinkov · Article · Jul 19, 2021 · https://haidut.me/?p=1574

> As many of my readers know, Peat is against supplementing with isolated iron. Aside from the well-known toxicity risks (e.g. liver damage) multiple studies have shown that in a good portion of the people treated with oral iron supplements, anemia either does not resolve or rapidly returns upon stopping the supplements. This is most likely due to insufficient production of the iron-carrying protein ferritin, which is produced in the liver and its synthesis depends on thyroid hormone, protein availability and estrogenic load (which burdens the liver independently). The study below corroborates that hypothesis by demonstrating that iron supplements on their own often do little to correct the anemia unless overall nutrition is also improved. It is the latter that supports liver function and helps with estrogen excretion, thyroid synthesis, etc thus allowing for proper ferritin synthesis to occur.
>
> [references]

### Source 5 — Iron: Cumulative Danger

Ray Peat · Newsletter · Jun 1997

> **Question:** What should I do if my doctor tells me I'm anemic? Is there any situation in which a person needs to take iron supplements?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Iron deficiency anemia does exist, in laboratory situations and in some cases of chronic bleeding, but I believe it should be the last-suspected cause of anemia, instead of the first. It should be considered as a possible cause of anemia only when very specific blood tests show an abnormally low degree of iron saturation of certain proteins. Usually, physicians consider the amount of hemoglobin or of red cells in the blood as the primary indicator of a need for iron, but that just isn't biologically reasonable. If a large amount of blood is lost in surgery, a temporary anemia might be produced, but even then it would be best to know whether the iron stores are really depleted before deciding whether an iron supplement would be reasonable. Liver (or even a water extract of wheat germ) can supply as much iron as would be given as a pill, and is safer.
>
> **Question:** What foods contain iron?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Flour, pasta, etc., almost always contain iron which has been artificially added as ferrous sulfate, because of a federal law. Meats, grains, eggs, and vegetables naturally contain large amounts of iron. A few years ago, someone demonstrated that they could pick up a certain breakfast cereal with a magnet, because of the added iron. Black olives contain iron, which is used as a coloring material. You should look for ferrous or ferric or iron on the label, and avoid foods with any added iron. Many labels list reduced iron, meaning that iron is added in the ferrous form, which is very reactive and easily absorbed.

### Source 6 — Ask the Herb Doctor August 2021

Ray Peat · Interview · Aug 2021

> ## Ferritin, COVID Outcomes, and Chelation
>
> **Andrew Murray:** I saw an article from the NIH related to COVID outcomes in patients with severe infection. They found a statistical correlation between high ferritin levels and poor outcomes. They were suggesting iron chelation as a strategy to mitigate serious outcomes. What do you have to say about ferritin levels or chelation for known high ferritin?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Several people have been talking about protecting against disease, and now especially against the coronavirus, by chelating iron. Going back decades, people have realized that free iron is associated with all kinds of infections—parasites, fungus, bacteria, viruses—and with cancer. Cancer acts like an invading pathogen in its hunger for iron. Things that want to grow fast need a supply of generously available iron. If your cells are overloaded with bound iron, any local irritation can make those cells release the iron and become a target for cancer or viruses. Ferritin should basically be an intracellular storage form that's invisible to anything in the blood. But as you start getting stressed and overloaded, it starts leaking out of the cells. Especially any cells that are stressed and injured will tend to leak their ferritin. Just looking at your blood level, you can't really tell what your stored iron is because inflammation makes the iron leak out of your cells. The transferrin and ferritin in your blood are both increased. So as you are experiencing inflammation, your blood iron rises apart from what the real level inside your cells is.

### Source 7 — Reader Comment Q&A — Excess Iron & Hair Loss: A Peat-a-tarian Perspective

Danny Roddy · Forum Q&A · Sep 27, 2011 · http://www.dannyroddy.com:80/main/2011/9/27/excess-iron-hair-loss-a-peat-a-tarian-perspective.html

> **Claudia:** Hi, i just found your blog and I was reading some of your articles when I found this one which confused me a lot. I am facing hair loss too, I'm a woman (people always think that hair loss is a men's issue) and I'm almost 21 years old. Until I was 14/15 I had an amazing hair: so thick and so much I wouldn't possible think I could get so many problems with my hair though the years. I started to diet really young (15) and I moved to a much bigger and different citty at age of 14. So I started to notice my hair getting thinner and thinner and sometimes it shedded a lot too (although not always). So I tried so many products but have never seen the results I expected. When I was 19 I finaly went to a dermatologist (before I only went to "specialized" clinics) and he said my hair loss was caused by low iron and low ferritin I had for so many years, since I was 12. But I've been always taking iron suplements (not as much or with the consisty I should) and my hair didn't get better. Now I have so thin hair, I'm so unhappy with it! I'm taking finasteride, minox and some supplements, because I thought genetics had to be the problem, but i don't know. My hair is thin all over my head, not only in some places. However I guess I didn't lose many hair folicles, I have a lot but the hair is really thin. Long story to tell that I always thought low iron was a hair loss cause, not excess. It has something to do with hemoglobine which is responsible for giving cells the oxygen they need. Never heard of excess iron as a cause of hair loss. So if I take iron supplements will it affect my hair? I guess I should take those, because I have really low ferritin, right? Sorry about the long story and I'm sorry too for my bad english.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** @Claudia, With men it's usually excess, with women low ferritin can be caused by low thyroid. Have you ever had a full thyroid panel done?

### Source 8 — [EP.11]The Shocking Truth Why Cortisol Is The Rapid Aging Hormone

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Dec 6, 2023

> **Georgi Dinkov:** And then it has to be converted to something called riboflavin five phosphates inside of the cell because that's the active form. There is some evidence that the conversion of riboflavin the precursor to the active one declines with aging, but you can solve that by administering the active version or rejecting it. You know, there are ways to circumvent that injecting copper or eating more copper does not necessarily work very well. It's been shown any hypothyroid people eat most of these, they're called trace minerals trace metals such as iron copper zinc and manganese can do more damage than than good because they lack the machinery to transport and keep them bound in a format that's usable by the protein machinery inside of the cell. So for a person, it's very common to see low ferritin in a hypothyroid person and a typical, you know, procedure, this diagnosis, they just ferritin the test iron saturation, that issue You're a higher interest rate right? But his ferritin is low, this is almost universally accepted as low iron. So doctors give iron supplements that do not usually, as you say, usually can very often do more damage than good because if that person cannot ramp up their production of ferritin, which depends on energy, which depends on metabolic rate, right, then they're going to be trouble because now that iron is unusable is a heavy metal reactive metal that is floating around in the blood and can cause a lot more damage than good. So, our utilization of the metals depends on our metabolic rate, and we should, when we are ingesting these metals, we should with increasing age, give more attention to copper than iron. One indication that iron is not very beneficial is that recent studies have demonstrated that iron collators such as the drip desferrioxamine, which is used clinically to kill eight iron, are very effective against against wide variety of tumors, both hematological especially hematological, but also solid tumors as well.

### Source 9 — Mortality Again

Ray Peat · Newsletter · Jun 1994

> The food and drug industries have their motives; we are hearing more about drugs to chelate iron and calcium from the body, than about simply leaving iron out of food, or restoring vitamin E and magnesium. And researchers like to aggrandize themselves by making problems seem more complex than they really are. And of course, disease-centered fund-raising organizations always see their business as raising funds, not finding cheap solutions to problems.
>
> At the age of 12, people are less likely to die than at any other age. The curves for mortality from cancer, and from all causes combined, are similarly shaped, with a minimum around the age of 12. The sex hormones tend to stop bone growth, at least in the sense that puberty leads to the hardening of the growth-areas of long bones. When growth stops, the concentration of iron in the tissues tends to increase (even without considering the effect of hormones on iron absorption).
>
> The high mortality of old age is associated with a high concentration of iron in the tissues, just as the high mortality of young infants is associated with a high concentration of iron. As the infant's iron is diluted by growth, mortality decreases.
>
> Infectious disease and leukemia, which have been associated with excess iron, are highest in childhood and old age.
>
> June Goodfield's book gives a nice summing up of the early research on the relation of iron metabolism to cancer and immunodeficiency:
>
> [references]
>
> It goes in as ferrous iron, and is then rapidly oxidized into ferric iron. This is then bound to a protein, transferrin, and so is carried into the bone marrow and thus given to the early red blood cells, which need it for the blood cycles. But iron is also bound to a second protein, ferritin, which is a storage protein…When red cells get old they break down in the spleen and are eaten up by the macrophages, which then make ferritin. (It enters the storage pool again.) Then there is the third protein, lactoferrin, which is synthesized by polymorphs, the white cells, and is present in milk and in our secretions. The amount we excrete per day is absolutely minimal. You can only shove it in; you can't push it out. Now if, for some reason or other, there is too much iron around, the macrophages go and mop it up.

### Source 10 — #60: PUFA as a Mitochondrial Toxin | Vitamin D, Inflammation, and Aging | Iron, Copper, and Anemia with Georgi Dinkov

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Jun 21, 2021 · https://open.spotify.com/episode/2o7YVyFGyWgLnNX6MpyqLD

> **Georgi Dinkov:** Oh, the anemia about like the iron supplements, like not being sufficient. Yeah. Let's start with that one because I think that's a great topic. Like people who tend to consume a lot of milk or dairy products, sometimes they will get like an iron deficiency anemia. And they've emailed Pete and they keep asking, should I take iron supplements or not? And he keeps saying no. He asked them to do the full test, not just serum iron, but like ferritin, saturation index, right? and like TIBC transferrin. And, you know, unless ferritin is low, then he basically says there's no need. But even when ferritin is low, his response usually is like, usually it's a result of low thyroid because ferritin is a protein, the iron-carrying protein that's produced by the liver. So usually people with liver disease or like malfunctioning liver will have low ferritin. And this new study came out saying that in many, especially children, in many people like with anemia, if you give them iron supplements, even if it's an iron deficiency anemia, their status doesn't improve. I mean, which is not surprising because, and in fact, you can probably make yourself worse because if you don't produce enough ferritin, all this iron that you take and floats around in the free form and it wreaks havoc, right? It creates all this lipophorescane. It's directly toxic to your brain and your heart and your liver and your spleen and your gonads and many other organs, pretty much every organ. So this basically article said nutritional status matters. And I think by that, by extension or by association, it also means thyroid status matters. And why some people say, well, that's too big of a jump. I have an article in the blog from like I think the week before, which showed that anemia can be cured by administering coenzyme Q10. In other words, anemia is a sign of energetic deficiency. It's a result of the energetic deficiency. I mean, also the cause, right?

### Source 11 — #89: Cancer in The Young | Loneliness | Gray Hair | Fasting | Testosterone | Aristotle vs. Plato with Georgi Dinkov

Georgi Dinkov (with Georgi Dinkov) · Interview · Oct 31, 2022 · https://open.spotify.com/episode/67Rg14fpUr5Mw1bXrAkunP

> **Danny Roddy:** that low ferritin hypothyroid connection seems to be pretty well established. I think I have a half a dozen papers on that, but like establishing the research circles,
>
> **Georgi Dinkov:** ask a doctor, doctor, what means, what does it mean when, when my ferritin and serum iron are low? Well, 99 out of a hundred, you'll get, we need more iron, right? That's like the definitive test of iron deficiency anemia is that right? Well, you may be low on iron, right? But if you're not producing sufficient ferritin, The doctor is not even thinking that if you take iron, there's nothing to carry that iron to the cell to make it bioavailable to the cell. So like I said, in 30% of the cases, people don't respond. And in fact, this is making things worse just by taking iron. Conversely, you can use this as a surrogate that about 30% of the population probably have subclinical or clinical hypothyroidism, at least 30%.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** Yeah, everybody you meet or every single person you've ever met. I had one other thing. There was a paper. I don't have access to my notes right now, but that was talking about ferritin when it's high, just being a marker of generalized inflammation. Yeah. And so I can't remember if we talked about this or not, but the cells like similar to how ATP is not supposed to be in the blood. And when it is, I think that also like triggers. inflammation yeah inflammation and so when a cell i think ray talked about like if a cell can't tidy up and commit apoptosis it will unexpectedly die and then it will release its iron content into the blood and i thought the ferritin was responding to the iron to keep it in its oxygen mop it up yeah

### Source 12 — [EP.11]The Shocking Truth Why Cortisol Is The Rapid Aging Hormone

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Dec 6, 2023

> **Georgi Dinkov:** So it's another demonstration that RNA is very heavily involved in cancer metabolism. And to be expected, because like I said, iron in exists can suppress that cytochrome c oxidase, but it can also create a lot of these per oxidation products themselves a Christian oceanic and by creating lipo foreskin, which inhibits mitochondrial function as you can damage it structurally do. And I think in higher enough amounts, iron also can damage the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase, which is the rate-limiting step for oxidizing glucose. So yeah, I will not supplement with iron unless the person has tested all of the iron biomarkers. I see low iron saturation, low ferritin, and high transfer only in this situation what I consider supplementing iron, and even then only after checking the thyroid liver matured base because these determine whether you've got to be producing the ferritin, which is currently low, just throwing ironic there and iron the patient and hoping to ramp up their production of ferritin is not warranted, you know unless you're rejecting their liver function.

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