When people come to us (GPs/Family Physicians) with hair loss for example, the first thing a doctor would do would be to check their bloods, specifically looking for ferritin levels (and other things eg thyroid etc).
If the ferritin level is less than 60 then we would recommend increasing their iron intake.
Thinking about this logically, one could say that the usual lower threshold of normal iron(around 20, differss with age/sex and lab) Is too low if you can increased chances of hair loss at levels below 60, hence I recommend a goal of ferritin > 60.
I recommend that people purchase(in the UK) Ferrous Fumurate (has better bioavailabilty than ferrous sulphate), the more you take the better (upto 3 times a day; you may have GI side effects—abdo discomfort, diarrhoea/constipation/black faeces) and take with 200mg+ of Vitamin C (or fresh orange juice) which triples the absorption of iron, and don’t have tea/coffee/dairy one hour either side of taking it (which reduces absorption).
When people come to us (GPs/Family Physicians) with hair loss for example, the first thing a doctor would do would be to check their bloods, specifically looking for ferritin levels (and other things eg thyroid etc).
If the ferritin level is less than 60 then we would recommend increasing their iron intake.
Thinking about this logically, one could say that the usual lower threshold of normal iron(around 20, differss with age/sex and lab) Is too low if you can increased chances of hair loss at levels below 60, hence I recommend a goal of ferritin > 60.
I recommend that people purchase(in the UK) Ferrous Fumurate (has better bioavailabilty than ferrous sulphate), the more you take the better (upto 3 times a day; you may have GI side effects—abdo discomfort, diarrhoea/constipation/black faeces) and take with 200mg+ of Vitamin C (or fresh orange juice) which triples the absorption of iron, and don’t have tea/coffee/dairy one hour either side of taking it (which reduces absorption).