Iron supplments possible cause???? what!

I just read in another post that there may be a link between iron supplements and uc??? I took major doses of iron after childbirth and literally, immediately had my first flare. For the first time I'm really feeling like other areas of my life are being affected by the UC since I've had several bad reactions to other meds and started flaring on them. I'm basically limited to Tylenol and sudafed.....ugh.... Wondering if they can figure out the definite link between iron an uc if they can then figure out how to reverse it. I'd be old by then anyway. I'm in the UC sucks mind frame right now, sorry :(

I took huge iron doses then immediately after started seeing mucous for the first time in my life. I had other weird symptoms before this but i think the iron triggered something. I now take Spatone iron which is a natural iron supp that doesn't cause constipation or upset your stomach.

Here is a post on iron I wrote on 5/25/12.

Old Mike

Well I have nothing better to do this morning so I thought I

would revisit Iron and UC,since I have not looked in a long time.

I will be adding studies as I find them.

Iron fortified flour started in the USA early 1940's.

You will notice today that just about any store bought processed food is fortified with iron and other

nutrients. Some of the iron is in the form of ferrous sulfate/fumerate,other may be

metallic reduced iron.

Iron is also a limiting nutrient for bacteria.

Are we getting toooo much iron from the diet.

Here is one to start off with,I never saw this one before but it is scary.

Old Mike

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18801890

Here is a table from the gov.

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/iron-HealthProfessional/

Looks like adult females need 18 mg while males need 8.

I serving of 100% fortified cereal = 100% required non heme iron

for an adult female.

Looks like about 10% is absorbed.

What happens to the other 90% I think it goes into the colon,some could go into urine,not sure.

They made me hunt again,looks like the 90% goes out in the poo. So if it is in the poo

then the bacteria can get at it, and it can also cause oxidation.

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/53/3/351.full.pdf

So if you eat a lot of processed fortifed snack foods,you are getting a lot of iron. Natural foods not so much.

In the above water report there only talking about 0.1mg increase,

cant seem to find the absolute amount of iron in the water though.

But one bowl of fully fortified cereal is 18mg.

They made me hunt.It looks like the average is 0.3mg/liter from water,most iron intake is

from food. But this above study was only talking about 0.1mg increase.

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/chemicals/iron.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10711457

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16165718

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16133010

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16043990

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16038040

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15235867

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12663492

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22190022

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558046

Another of real interest,since this population is not eating a sad diet.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20962160

Interesting stuff.

http://sickle.bwh.harvard.edu/iron_absorption.html

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2036.2002.01378.x/full

Post Edited (Old Mike) : 8/21/2012 7:07:35 AM (GMT-6)

When we talk about iron supplements, do we talk about oral or IV?

I've been on iron supplements since I was in my late teens, and my first flare started pretty recently, so for me I don't think there's any connection. That doesn't mean that it's not true for other people, though.