How is iron found in the body and anaemia?

[scilearner]

Hello everyone,

 

I have found out that iron exists as plasma iron, plasma transferrin and plasma ferritin. Now what is plasma iron, I thought iron can not exist alone in the plasma it has to bind to something, is this wrong? Also ferritin is inside cells (eg liver cells) so why is there plasma ferritin.

 

My main question is if we lose blood this can lead to iron deficiency anaemia, the thing is I'm confused how the iron is lost. If the iron is lost via plasma I'm confused due to above reasons I mentioned. Also iron is in red blood cells, so what contributes more to loss, loss of iron via red blood cells or plasma iron?

 

Thank you

[CharonY]

A part of the ferritin is secreted. Also the free iron is in healthy individuals is very low but a not everything is bound to proteins. They do associate with whatever is there, so they are technically not free. But not as tightly bound as in chelators or iron scavenging proteins. The overall amount is relatively low.

Blood loss anemia is the result of massive loss of red blood cells.

[scilearner]

A part of the ferritin is secreted. Also the free iron is in healthy individuals is very low but a not everything is bound to proteins. They do associate with whatever is there, so they are technically not free. But not as tightly bound as in chelators or iron scavenging proteins. The overall amount is relatively low.

Blood loss anemia is the result of massive loss of red blood cells.

 

Hey thanks a lot for the answer That makes sense. Also just to clarfiy the last sentence, so iron is mainly lost via red blood cells right?

[an701]

Hey thanks a lot for the answer That makes sense. Also just to clarfiy the last sentence, so iron is mainly lost via red blood cells right?

 

the liver and kidney removes iron