I'm a vegetarian. Have been since I was 17. I was told my iron levels are low. Is this normal?

Question

I'm a vegetarian. Have been since I was 17. I was told my iron levels are low. Is this normal?

Answer 1

It's not *normal* - but it can depend on a lot of factors. I've been a vegetarian since I was 14, but never had low iron levels. In fact, I'm a regular blood-donor. My ex-wife, however, is a non-vegetarian, but she had anaemia and had to take iron tablets. With women, it's usually related to heavy menstrual bleeding putting too much of a strain on the iron reserves.

You can increase iron absorption by taking extra vitamin C with your iron-rich foods.

Answer 2

well yea of course its gonna be low ur a veggie without meat you get run down and ur iron levels go down but you can get tablets to bring them up again

Answer 3

yes because we get most of our iron from meat products but if u eat beets and spinach it should help

Answer 4

low iron levels are common, even for meat eaters. In fact, iron deficient aneamia is the largest nutritional deficiency in the western world

This page will help you by explaining what iron is used for , how much you need and where you get it from on a veggie diet:

http://www.vegsoc.org/info/iron.html

Answer 5

you should go to the health food store & they can give you help with that.

Answer 6

Yes, I'm a vegetarian also. I take 1 slow fe a day. you can get them at walmart or sams. sams is cheaper. I was also on these when I was preg....doc put me on them, cause this iron pill has no side effects.

Answer 7

It is common in your situation but, not normal for your body.

Iron is found in food in two forms, heme and non-heme iron. Heme iron, which makes up 40 percent of the iron in meat, poultry, and fish, is well absorbed. Non-heme iron, 60 percent of the iron in animal tissue and all the iron in plants (fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts) is less well absorbed. Vegan diets only contain non-heme iron. Because of this, iron recommendations are higher for vegetarians (including vegans) than for non-vegetarians. The RDA for iron is 14 milligrams per day for vegetarian men and for women after menopause, and 33 milligrams per day for women prior to menopause.

Like vitamin B-12, iron is a crucial component of red blood cells. Dried beans and peas, lentils, enriched cereals, whole-grain products, dark leafy green vegetables, and dried fruit are good sources of iron. To help your body absorb nonanimal sources of iron, eat foods rich in vitamin C — such as strawberries, citrus fruits, tomatoes, cabbage and broccoli — at the same time you consume iron-containing foods.

Here is more defined list;

beans, including kidney, lima, navy, black, pinto, soy beans, and lentils

iron fortified whole grains, including cereals, breads, rice, and pasta

greens, including collard greens, kale, mustard greens, spinach, and turnip greens

tofu

vegetables, including broccoli, swiss chard, asparagus, parsley, watercress, brussel sprouts

chicken and turkey

blackstrap molasses

nuts

dried fruits, such as raisins, prunes, dates and

Answer 8

I am also a vegetarian and have been told to look out for this. The easiest way is taking vitamins. Even the simple Flintstones complete vitamins have 100% of the daily requirement of iron. Pair the vitamin with a bowl of cream of wheat and some sweetner. To get 170% of your iron intake.

My favorite is taking an instant cream of wheat packet, and mixing it with a carnation sugar free instant breakfast, french vanilla flavor it's super tasty only 160 calories and plenty of protien, calcium and iron!

Hope you love it!

Answer 9

Yes it can be normal as long as it doesn't say your ferritin is low. Here is a more indepth study and information. Hope it helps and you could check out this web site for more questions on vegetarian health questions.

Iron

Summary

If you think your iron stores might be low, you can probably increase iron absorption by:

Avoiding tea and coffee at meals.

Adding a source of vitamin C at meals.

Increasing legume (peanuts, beans, lentils, peas) intake.

Cooking foods (especially water based acidic foods like tomato sauce) in cast iron skillets.

If you think you might have iron deficiency anemia, see a doctor to find out. Supplements are available for people diagnosed with deficiency.

Iron Deficiency and Anemia

Iron deficiency is the most common nutrient deficiency in the U.S. There are two types of iron problems:

Iron deficiency (ID) - low iron stores; typically measured by a serum ferritin of less than 18 ng/ml.

Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) - typically measured by a hemoglobin of less than 120 g/l.

IDA symptoms include pale skin, brittle fingernails, fatigue, weakness, difficulty breathing upon exertion, inadequate temperature regulation, loss of appetite, apathy, and hair loss. Many of these are symptoms of other nutritional deficiencies and diseases and therefore only a medical doctor can properly diagnose IDA. It is relatively inexpensive to have your iron levels tested by a doctor.

Some health professionals believe in "sub-clinical iron deficiency" in which someone has blood measurements in the normal range but is still having symptoms of ID or IDA. According to the National Academy of Sciences, "The bulk of experimental and epidemiological evidence in humans suggests that functional consequences of iron deficiency (related both to anemia and tissue concentration) occur only when iron deficiency is of a severity sufficient to cause a measurable decrease in hemoglobin concentration."1 However, other iron experts suggest that some people have a higher-than-average normal hemoglobin level and can suffer from IDA even though their hemoglobin is in the (presumably lower end of the) normal range.

Meat Iron vs. Plant Iron

Iron is prevalent in a wide variety of plant foods, especially beans and grains. In fact, vegans' iron intakes are as high or higher than non-vegetarians. Below are tables showing iron content of some plant foods as well as the Dietary Reference Intakes for iron.

Table 1. Iron Content of Common Foods

   Serving  mg  

fortified cereals  1/2 C  varies  

soybeansA  1/2 C  4.4  

blackstrap molasses  1 T  3.3  

pumpkin seeds  2 T  2.5  

chickpeasA 1/2 C  2.4

pinto beansA 1/2 C  2.2  

apricots, dried  1/4 C  1.5  

spinachA 1/2 C  1.5  

oatmealA 3/4 C  1.2  

raisins  1/4 C  1.1  

A - Cooked; T - tablespoon  

   Table 2. Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) for Iron

Age

(years)  DRI

(mg)  Vegetarian DRI

(mg)  Upper limitA

(mg)

0 - 6 mos .27  .27  40  

7 - 12 mos 11  11  40  

1 - 3  7  12.6  40  

4 - 8  10  18  40  

9 - 13  8  14.4  40  

boys, 14-18  11  19.8  45  

girls, 14-18  15  27  45  

breastfeeding females, 14-18  10  18  45  

men 19+  8  14.4  45  

women 19-50  18  32.4  45  

breastfeeding women 19-50  9  16.2  45  

women 50+  8  14.4  45  

pregnancy 27  48.6  45  

A - The Upper Limit for iron intake is set to prevent gastrointestinal distress rather than to prevent any possible chronic diseases from iron overload.1

Those who engage in regular, intense exercise may need an additional 30%.5  



In meat, 65% of iron is bound to the heme molecule (from hemoglobin and myoglobin), which is relatively easily absorbed. The rest of the iron in meat and all iron in plants is non-heme iron.3 Non-heme iron requires being released from food components by hydrochloric acid and the digestive enzyme pepsin in the stomach.3 Non-heme iron also needs to be shuttled from the digestive tract into the bloodstream by a protein called transferrin.

Vitamin C aids in iron absorption (the iron and vitamin C must be eaten at the same meal). In one study, vegetarian children with iron deficiency anemia in India (who probably did not have high vitamin C intakes) were given 100 mg of vitamin C at both lunch and dinner for 60 days. They saw a drastic improvement in their anemia, with most making a full recovery.2 Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits, strawberries, green leafy vegetables (broccoli, kale, collards, swiss chard, brussel sprouts), bell peppers (yellow, red, and green), and cauliflower.

Calcium supplements, coffee, and black and green tea inhibit iron absorption if eaten at the same time as iron, so avoid them at meals in which you are trying to increase iron absorption.3 I want to emphasize this point because I think many people read this info about coffee and tea, but dismiss it. It is the tannins in coffee and black and green tea that prevent the iron absorption.

Cooking foods in cast iron pans can increase iron consumption. A 2007 study in Brazil showed that cooking tomato sauce in an iron skillet increases the amount of iron in the sauce and also increased iron status among teen-aged and young adult lacto-ovo vegetarians.9 The authors considered it important for the food cooked to be both acidic and water-based, such as tomato sauce.

The amino acid, L-lysine, plays a part in the absorption of iron and zinc. Among plant foods, L-lysine is only found in high amounts in legumes (peanuts, beans, lentils, peas), and a vegan who doesn't eat many legumes could find themselves falling short on lysine.

Iron Deficiency in Vegetarians

The American Dietetic Association's Position Paper on Vegetarian Diets says, "Incidence of iron deficiency anemia among vegetarians is similar to that of nonvegetarians. Although vegetarian adults have lower iron stores than nonvegetarians, their serum ferritin levels are usually within the normal range."8 This statement is based on cross-sectional studies and, to my knowledge, the iron status of vegetarians or vegans on self-selected diets has never been followed through time.

I have met many ex-vegetarian women (and a few men) who claimed to become anemic after becoming vegetarian. In most cases, they did not have a doctor diagnose them but assumed they were anemic because they were tired. This could be due to numerous things, such as not eating enough calories or protein, eating too many high-sugar foods, and possibly not getting enough sleep. However, I have heard it enough to think there is a real possibility that some women have a hard time with the lower iron absorption of plant foods, especially when first becoming vegetarian.

Iron absorption may be more of a problem when people first become vegetarian because long-term studies of vegetarian women have not shown high dropout rates. These studies usually require that someone has been vegetarian for at least a year and anyone who gets IDA within the first few months of becoming vegetarian would not be included in such a study. Physiologically, it makes some sense that the problem would tend to show up right away or not at all, for the following reason.

The body secretes transferrin into the digestive tract when iron stores are low in order to increase absorption of iron into the blood. If someone has been a meat-eater all her life, her body has not had a need to manufacture as much transferrin as she might need as a vegetarian. This might cause a quick drop in iron absorption once she becomes a vegetarian. Someone's body may or may not become more efficient at producing transferrin over time, but if she becomes anemic right away she will likely quit the diet and not give her body the chance.

More evidence of this theory is that I have not heard of any children who were vegan from birth (and otherwise well-nourished and living in a developed country) who developed IDA. Because vegan infants have no prior history of depending on heme iron, they start their lives efficiently absorbing non-heme iron and retain this ability throughout life.

It could also be that some new vegetarians drink more tea and coffee with meals, eat less vitamin C wih meals (though research to date has not linked lower vitamin C intake with ID among Western vegetarians), eat less legumes, or have lower stomach acid, and they are the ones who develop ID or IDA more readily.

Low Iron Stores: Not Necessarily Unhealthy

Anemia is a possible downside to lower iron absorption, but there are a few potential upsides:

Low iron stores are associated with higher glucose tolerance and might help prevent diabetes.7

High iron stores have been linked to heart disease. Based on an early study, this was believed to be a strong link for a number of years. Now that more evidence has come in, the link appears to be only in cases of very high iron storage levels, such as greater than 200 mcg/l (vegans' ferritin levels are rarely above 100 mcg/l). For now, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine says, "This body of evidence does not provide convincing support for a causal relationship between the level of dietary iron intake and the risk for CHD [coronary heart disease]."  1

High iron stores have been linked to cancer.

Hemochromatosis

Hemochromatosis is a disease of unhealthfully high iron absorption. Its most serious, homozygous form occurs in about 1 in 100 blacks and 1 in 200 nonblacks. Its less serious, heterozygous form occurs in 30% of blacks and 12% of nonblacks.4 Most affected people do not know they have the disease.4 People with hemochromatosis are at risk for cirrhosis,4 liver cancer,1 and other diseases. Alcoholic cirrhosis, other liver diseases, iron-loading abnormalities, and other rare diseases can also cause iron overload.1

Hemochromatosis affects men more often than women because women lose iron through menstruation. Because of the possibility of hemochromatos

Answer 10

Vegetarians are really prone to low iron levels- so don't worry, it's normal to have it! But, it's not normal to keep it (if you know what I mean?!). In other words, your lack of iron could be and will start to affect your body- tiredness, pale gaunt look, aching bones- it's called anaemia. I've had it before!

Basically, because you don't eat meat (the highest source of protein and iron) your body isn't getting what it needs. Start taking an iron supplement, PLUS, start enriching your diet. Foods such as: eggs, dark green leafy vegetables, nuts, pulses and lentils are all good sources of iron. If your still worried, visit your doctor.

Hope this helps! :D