At some point, roughly 50% of women experience low iron.
Sometimes, women can rectify it with iron tablets.
Other times, women need iron infusions.
In the most intense situations, women need multiple iron infusions.
Iron is important to pay attention to because of its impact on thyroid hormones.
So, in the time [when you have low iron], one can be laser focused on the fatigue, and the intensity of the heavy flooding, BUT there is also a key impact on thyroid function.
It also goes vise-versa. When a patient is diagnosed with hypothyroidism, low iron can be mentioned as something that needs to be corrected. It is important that the low iron and low thyroid function are addressed.
Let’s cover what causes low iron, then I’ll cover what happens to the thyroid and how to rectify it.
Heavy periods are commonly experienced with low iron levels.
With some women reporting 120mls or more of blood or more a day, with multiple heavy days like this.
The most common reasons for low iron are:
1. Fibroids, Polyps or Cysts.
When fibroids are present, often heavy periods ensue and iron becomes low. Sometimes, there is excessive tissue in the uterus, for example polyps or adenomyosis that are connected to the iron reserves being low.
It’s important to get an ultrasound to see what’s happening. Ask for an ultrasound.
D&C’s or ablations are common solutions for fibroids or heavy bleeding, medically. This is often followed by an insertion of a Mirena IUD.
2. Autoimmune Conditions
Low iron or anaemia is very common for patients that have an intestinal or digestive condition like coeliac disease, autoimmune gastritis, or inflammatory bowel disease like ulcerative colitis, or Crohn’s disease.
You are also more likely to experience heavy menstrual cycles during peri-menopause when you have an autoimmune condition.
For instance, patients that have been diagnosed with coeliac disease are known to have period problems and have needed a hysterectomy in their 40s.
3. Peri-menopause
The changes in the body can cause more intense bleeding than other times in your menstrual history.
Women need to be mindful of:
- Menorrhagia
- PCOS
- Fibroids
- Endometriosis
- Adenomyosis
Cofactors of heavy bleeding and draining iron reserves during peri-menopause are linked to obesity. This is another reason why we talk so extensively about weight gain and looking deeper into the source.
4. Bleeding in GI Tract
Ulcers, polyps, and colon cancer are medical conditions that cause GI tract bleeding.
5. Helicobacter pylori infection in your stomach.
We can find a myriad of symptoms in our patients that have Helicobacter pylori.
Roughly 50% of the world’s population has this bacteria.
Yet unless there are gastrointestinal irritations that push one to get an endoscopy or see a doctor, many people go without the testing.
We test for this bacteria and find it in so many patients with fatigue, mood changes, anxiety, period problems, and gastrointestinal irritations.
This bacteria can also further aggravate thyroid hormones. But I’ll leave this conversation for another day…
6. Hyperthyroid OR Hypothyroidism – can both cause low iron.
Research shows as many as 43% of people with symptomatic hypothyroidism have iron deficiency anaemia [ida]. That’s compared to 29% in the general population. Persistent fatigue is a main feature of the condition.
Hyperthyroidism, often increases levels of ferritin, a protein that helps your body store iron.
It seems logical that increasing iron storage would prevent anaemia. The opposite is often true, though. High ferritin appears to trigger an inflammatory response that prevents the body from using iron normally.
This is seen most often in Graves’ disease (autoimmune hyperthyroidism). Graves’ is associated with IDA and low levels of several kinds of blood cells.
In this case though, by treating the hyperthyroidism and/or Graves, it often improves the low iron.
Is iron the cause of thyroid problems? Or a thyroid problem the cause of low iron?
When you are lacking in iron, your thyroid hormones may not be produced in large enough quantities. They may also not be able to work correctly in the cells themselves.
At the same time, the relationship is shared. If thyroid hormones are too low or too high, it can be harder for the body to regulate iron. They influence one another.
What does iron do that is so important to thyroid function?
- Iron plays a key role in delivering iodine to the cell that helps release thyroid hormones.
- Iron is an element that is essential for the human body to synthesise and metabolise the thyroid hormones.
- The body is dependent upon iron to convert thyroxine (T4) into the active hormone triiodothyronine (T3) via thyroid peroxidase (TPO).
How to find out if you have low iron?
Iron deficiency is diagnosed with a serum ferritin test. It measures the amount of iron storage in your body.
See image to the right for ranges.
Iron has a close impact to other vital nutrients that affect the immune system, metabolic function, and reproductive hormones.
Iron also has a close relationship with (and can affect levels of):
- Vitamin B6
- Vitamin B12
- Folic acid
- Copper
- Vitamin C
Copper has a close relationship to zinc.
And zinc is one of the most important nutrients during peri-menopause.
An imbalance in the zinc and copper ratio can show up as oestrogen dominance, but may really be a copper to zinc imbalance in the blood stream.
Vitamin C can help the body absorb iron.
Both vitamin c and zinc also have a key impact on the immune system.
Many of our patients can start to catch colds more easily and feel a weakened immune system, when it can be linked to low iron pulling reserves of other key immune nutrients out of balance.
We often can ask for a nutrient test to look and see if there are other deficiencies in key nutrients to help identify if this is a problem.
Iron deficiencies are common sources of symptoms.
And it’s not uncommon for low iron to be present with another diagnosis.
Sadly too many people try to treat low iron, don’t make progress, and then give up. They often assume their symptoms must be from some other cause because iron did not help.
Usually, the iron did not help because the right nutrient deficiencies and hormones weren’t balanced.
I wanted to discuss iron today because we see lots of patient’s post-menopause, during menopause, or peri-menopause. And we see lots of patients with thyroid conditions.
Low iron not only is an alarm bell for us, but it also has us dig deeper into whether or not you are nutrient depleted, which could be what’s pulling down the iron and not allowing it to absorb properly – thus manifesting into a myriad of other symptoms that created the diagnosis.
I hope this all makes sense and encourages you to get tested. If you’d like more clarity on what is going on for you or help with getting treatment with your recent tests, I encourage you to organise a Free Introductory Consultation with us here:
Looking forward to connecting with you again soon!
Warmly,
Tiaan
