Dumping Iron: How to Ditch This Secret Killer and Reclaim Your Health by P. D. Mangan

Author:P. D. Mangan [Mangan, P. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Phalanx Press
Published: 2016-03-17T03:00:00+00:00

Skin wrinkles

The skin of old people becomes wrinkled, and old people also have higher levels of iron. Is there a connection? Yes – of course!

A group of researchers looked at a group of 12 women, all Caucasian, half of them pre-menopausal, average age 42, half of them post-menopausal, average age 59. They took skin biopsies, and measured ferritin (iron) and antioxidant capacity in the skin.[107]

In the post-menopausal women, ferritin levels were 42% higher than in the pre-menopausal women. Antioxidant capacity was 45% lower in the post-menopausal women. Very straightforward.

After menopause, women no longer lose large amounts of iron through menstrual blood flow. The iron then begins to build up in their bodies until, after a couple decades or so, iron levels begin to approach that of men.

Their rates of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes also rise.

Their skin becomes more wrinkled. Oxidative damage is a prime cause of skin wrinkling. This study shows that the buildup of iron in the women’s bodies also includes the skin. Normally, the skin doesn't contain much iron, but a general buildup of iron in the body “spills over” into the skin. Antioxidant capacity in the skin is lower probably precisely because iron is higher. The antioxidant system becomes overwhelmed by highly reactive iron and a state of oxidative stress in the skin comes into being.

Damage including wrinkles results.

Importantly for this study, the measure of iron was ferritin, not free iron. The body strives to keep free iron under control by locking it down in the ferritin molecule, as free iron is a dangerous reactant. In this case, the fact that ferritin went up shows the association between it and free iron: the higher the ferritin, the higher the free iron. They are closely correlated in otherwise healthy people.

The addition of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun to iron-loaded skin causes even more oxidative damage. When UV radiation from the sun hits skin cells, it causes degradation of the safe-storage ferritin molecule and the release of free iron, causing oxidative damage to the skin; in fact, this is probably the main way that the sun inflicts damage to skin.[108] Iron chelators – chemicals that remove iron from the body – actually protect cells from solar radiation damage.[109]

Release of iron in the skin after sun exposure could also be a prime mechanism in the development of skin cancer.

Since solar radiation causes the release of free iron from ferritin, then the best way to ensure against skin damage from the sun is to have low ferritin in the first place so less free iron is released. So in the case of wrinkled or damaged skin, the same methods for lowering iron that prevent or treat other conditions work here.

Topical iron chelators, which remove iron from the skin, may be useful in combating wrinkles, although keeping body iron levels from becoming elevated and thus preventing wrinkles in the first place is a better strategy. Whether lowering iron in the skin either directly with topical chelators or indirectly by whole-body lowering would help already wrinkled skin isn't known just now, but I would certainly give it a try.

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