“…supplementary iron can be dangerously toxic if you don’t need it. The body can not eliminate iron except through blood loss. Other than women who menstruate heavily, healthy people should not take iron supplements. Iron is an oxidizing agent – the sort of thing antioxidants protect us from – and too much of it can promote unhealthy changes in cells, increasing risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.”
“So never take supplemental iron unless a blood test shows you to have iron deficiency anemia (and if you do have it, make sure you arid your doctor work together to find the cause) or if you are pregnant, nursing, or have lost a lot of blood. If you are not in those categories, read labels of any multivitamin products you use to make sure they do not contain iron.”
Source: Eating Well For Optimum Health, Dr. Andrew Weil.
“As we all know, too much of a good thing can be detrimental. There are several reasons. The fact is that once iron enters the body, it has no way out. Most of it is recycled, not excreted or otherwise consumed…. Here’s the second catch. …iron (like copper) converts readily between the ferrous (with two electrons) and the ferric (three electrons) forms. This makes it a player in oxidation reduction reactions, useful for transmitting oxygen via our red blood cells, but also capable of acting like a free radical and oxidizing tissues, thereby damaging them.
This means that whatever amount of the mineral that isn't affixed to the hemoglobin in our blood or to other proteins for other use roams around in the body as unbound ‘free iron’ and is vulnerable to the rust-like process of free oxidation….”
“….Excess iron is implicated in other diseases too. It could accumulate to a toxic extent in our organs and tissues, including the joints, the liver, the gonads and the heart. It could feed the growth of harmful bacteria and malignant tumor cells as well as stimulate additional cancer promoting free radical activity.”
“Believe it or not, our bodies were designed to circumvent the iron dilemma entirely. Orthodox medicine and popular dietary practices, though, seem to circumvent nature. Two kinds of iron exist….. the two kinds are:
1. Heme iron. The natural, organic, biologically available form cannot build up to excess and is not vulnerable to free radical oxidation. Only 2 mg of heme iron, which comes from red meat, chicken and fish, can be absorbed by the body during a single meal, so no surplus accumulates.
2. Non-heme iron. This synthetic, inorganic form is the kind found in most iron supplements and fortified foods, including those made with ‘enriched’ flour. It usually appears on labels as ferrous gluconate, ferrous sulfate or ferrous fumarate. The body can absorb as much as 20 mg of non-heme iron at any one time, possibly leading to a higher level of accumulation that would, in turn, increase the heart disease and cancer risk.
To be safe, don’t take any kind of iron supplement …without first going to a doctor for a blood test.”
Source: Vita nutrient Solutions, Robert. C. Atkins. MD.