Iron is an essential but potentially hazardous biometal. Mammalian cells require sufficient amounts of iron to satisfy metabolic needs or to accomplish specialized functions. Iron is delivered to tissues by circulating transferrin, a transporter that captures iron released into the plasma mainly from intestinal enterocytes or reticuloendothelial macrophages. The binding of iron-laden transferri...

The iron-regulatory hormone hepcidin is a 25-amino acid peptide that is synthesized in hepatocytes. Hepcidin binds to the cellular iron export channel ferroportin and causes its internalization and degradation and thereby decreases iron efflux from iron exporting tissues into plasma. By this mechanism, hepcidin inhibits dietary iron absorption, the efflux of recycled iron from splenic and hepat...

Given its potential toxicity and low bioavailability, iron metabolism in humans is a tightly regulated process. Two main levels of regulation have been described: a cellular regulation that, through the binding of iron-responsive proteins (IRPs) to iron-responsive elements in mRNA from genes encoding proteins of iron metabolism, controls the synthesis of transferrin receptor (necessary for cell...

background: iron chelators are an important part of management of patients with thalassemia. it is prudent to compare efficacy of different iron chelators in treatment of iron overload in these patients who receive regular blood transfusion. we aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of available oral iron chelator; deferasirox (exjade®) with deferasirox (osveral®) in reducing iron overload in...

in this study the iron status of pregnant women in two different socio-economic groups and also the effect of multigravidity on iron status of the mothers were investigated. blood samples were with drawn from 165 mothers (91 from farah and 74 from missaghieh maternity hospital) immediately after delivery and hemoglobin, hematocrit, serum iron, total iron-binding capacity (tibc) and total protei...

Iron deficiency is prevalent in children and infants worldwide. Zinc deficiency may be prevalent, but data are lacking. Both iron and zinc deficiency negatively affect growth and psychomotor development. Combined iron and zinc supplementation might be beneficial, but the potential interactions need to be verified. In a randomized, placebo-controlled trial using 2 x 2 factorial design, 609 Thai ...

OBJECTIVE : To determine the impact of contaminant iron and geophagy on iron intake and status of persons living in developing countries. DESIGN : Literature for review was identified by searching Medline and Agricola, from appropriate other texts and from three reports from the Opportunities for Micronutrient Interventions (OMNI) Project of USAID. SETTING : The dietary intake of iron by pe...

Standard parenteral iron preparations such as ferric sucrose and ferric gluconate are considered to be degraded in the reticuloendothelial cells. The iron is subsequently incorporated into transferrin. It was also reported that these iron preparations donate iron directly to plasma transferrin. Hepatocytes seemed unaffected. We show that this picture is incorrect. To obtain quantitative data, i...

The iron stores of 32 healthy pregnant women were evaluated longitudinally during pregnancy and 6 months post partum by serum ferritin assay and by bone marrow iron content. Half of the women were receiving oral iron while the others were not given iron supplementation. Women receiving iron could maintain their iron stores throughout the pregnancy. By contrast, women without iron therapy had lo...

background: the world health organization estimates that 58% of pregnant women in developing countries are anemic. in spite of the fact that most ministries of health in developing countries have policies to provide pregnant women with iron supplementation, prevalence of maternal anemia has not declined significantly. the aim of this study was to assess adherence to the current recommendation i...