How The Body Gets Its Iron
Most of the iron in the body is hoarded and recycled by the reticuloendothelial system, which breaks down aged red blood cells. However, people lose a small but steady amount by sweating and by shedding cells of the skin and the mucosal lining of the gastrointestinal tract. The total amount of loss for healthy people in the developed world amounts to an estimated average of 1 mg a day for men, and 1.5–2 mg a day for women with regular menstrual periods. People with gastrointestinal parasitic infections, more commonly found in developing countries, often lose more.
This steady loss means that people must continue to absorb iron. They do so via a tightly regulated process that under normal circumstances protects against iron overload.
Read more about this topic: Human Iron Metabolism
Famous quotes containing the words body and/or iron:
“The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents.... It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community.... It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“In the course of history, men come to see that “iron necessity” is neither iron nor necessary.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)