You aren't anemic.
Side rant: I think Inside Tracker has warped everyone's perception of appropriate iron stores, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. Way more people are taking iron supplements than actually need to.
You aren't anemic.
Side rant: I think Inside Tracker has warped everyone's perception of appropriate iron stores, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. Way more people are taking iron supplements than actually need to.
Girl eating cheez its wrote:
You aren't anemic.
Side rant: I think Inside Tracker has warped everyone's perception of appropriate iron stores, hemoglobin, and hematocrit. Way more people are taking iron supplements than actually need to.
nah, way more people are ferritin depleted than actually need to be.
This is nonsense !!!! Your value are well above average !!!!! Not anemic at all!!! Anemic is when you are well below 40% HTC and HB well below 12 .Also ferritin is ok , same range starts from 20. I need to take EPO to go at 47% HTC and 15,7 HB!!!! In a distance runner CLEAN AND I write again Clean these value go down as you do a lot of miles /week for many months of the year. Of course thare are genetical difference from one person to another and from men to women but in general more you train more you race and of course more you are in shape a collateral effect is that HTC and HB go down . When I m out of training my HTC is about 45% after 4 months of hard training I m at 42% or 41% . It's a phisiologial effect of the training. Richard Virenque after festina doping scandal ,and suspension came back to the tour de france , clean , he was clean man his HTC was so low that you fear if I tell you. He won a stage but he didnt have again the recovery to compete for jellow jersey. So again with 47% and 15,7% your value are quite high.
You've gotten some good input and advice, but also some not so good.
Ignore the critics who gave you crap for starting the thread. As one poster said, many doctors will tell you those levels are fine. And they are if your idea of sports is playing video games.
In terms of a medical diagnosis, it's correct that you're not anemic. But that's not the point. As another poster said, you can have an iron deficiency without being anemic. And that's even more true for an endurance athlete. Your requirements are just hugely different from an average person, even one who exercises regularly. And even more so if you're a collegiate distance runner.
A ferritin level of 25 is simply too low. Is it in the crisis stage? No. Not yet. Have I seen worse? Yes. Far worse. But it's definitely too low. And if you don't intervene, it will likely go lower.
You can consider beginning an iron supplement. Talk to your team physician or athletic trainer about which one, how much, and how often. Be sure to also talk about proper management of the rest of your diet, especially as it relates to iron absorption.
But the biggest and best thing you can do, especially in terms of gaining a short term boost, is to increase your consumption of lean red meat. This is the key! You should be eating red meat at least four to five times a week. Preferably even a little more. This will give you the best bang for your buck so to speak, especially in the short term.
Good luck!
McCree wrote:
Ferritin is your iron storage. It often gets low first before your iron levels get low and before you become anemic (anemia is defined by your hemoglobin levels). You can have iron deficiency without anemia. But if the ferritin is already low it means you are headed in the direction of anemia
They teach in medical school that if someone has iron deficiency (low ferritin is basically beginning stages of this) and are > 45-50 years old, the first thing you need to rule out is colon cancer, as that is a common cause of iron deficiency anemia in that age group. That is why they recommend colonoscopy as the first step
If you are taking iron supplements drink with juice or other high vit C things as that will help with absorption
For Vit D deficiency, recommend taking 2,000Units daily. Can get this over the counter
Calprotectin is more used for ruling out things like inflammatory bowel disease (Crohns, ulcerative colitis. It is not specific to colon cancer.
They don't do stool samples as often for anemia as often bc other things can cause it to be positive, like hemorrhoids. There are some studies that suggest taking iron can cause false positive fecal occult blood test
Also, another problem with doing stool studies is that if it is positive, then you need a colonoscopy. Normally if you are above the age of 45 insurance companies will pay for it as a "screening test." If the stool study is positive for blood, then it becomes a "diagnostic study" and the patient has to pay for larger part of it
Thanks for the response. This was really easy to understand coming from someone who is not on the med school path but has a reasonable foundation of knowledge when it comes to nutrition and biomarkers. For a few months leading up to this test, (and I am still continuing with it), I have been supplementing with 5000iu vitamin D. My vitamin D was also tested and the values came out to:
VITAMIN D, 1,25 (OH)2, TOTAL: 33pg/mL reference range: 18-72pg/mL
VITAMIN D3, 1,25 (OH)2: 33pg/mL
VITAMIN D2, 1,25 (OH)2: <8pg/mL
AnemiaSucks wrote:
The good news is that you will run faster when you get your iron back up! My ferritin was at an 8 in 2019. Others won't believe this but in 8 weeks I went from a 57 mid 10 mile race (also hot & humid) to a 2:18 marathon. I cut out gluten and dairy (still do) and added an iron supplement and things turned around pretty quickly! For training, I didn't cut any volume, just allowed workouts to be 20-30 sec/mile slower until my iron was back up.
I found I absorbed iron best early in the morning at least 30 minutes before breakfast and taken EVERY OTHER DAY. The diet changes mentioned above may not be necessary for everyone but worked well for me! Good luck! You should be able to turn it around within 3-4 weeks. I am now a big believer in frequent testing... especially during big training stints!
Hi, thanks for the input. It is definitely reassuring to hear that I am not doomed to have subpar performance (at the college level) based on one test. I drink chocolate milk pretty frequently throughout the day because of the nutrients in only a single serving (selenium, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, Vitamin D, calcium, etc.) I have always noticed when my training volume gets to roughly 8-9 hours per week that I always get tired/ lethargic. In the past, I always discounted this as just a normal response to training but it could very well be me depleting myself of essential nutrients. I am definitely an advocate for blood testing more frequently than the "once a year annual checkup" that is often only covered with insurance, but unfortunately in my state direct access testing is prohibited. It is frustrating being taken lightly by doctors just because they see a 20 year old male walk into their office worried about biomarkers that most people only wait to get checked until they're significantly older or have some underlying health condition.
va coach wrote:
You've gotten some good input and advice, but also some not so good.
Ignore the critics who gave you crap for starting the thread. As one poster said, many doctors will tell you those levels are fine. And they are if your idea of sports is playing video games.
In terms of a medical diagnosis, it's correct that you're not anemic. But that's not the point. As another poster said, you can have an iron deficiency without being anemic. And that's even more true for an endurance athlete. Your requirements are just hugely different from an average person, even one who exercises regularly. And even more so if you're a collegiate distance runner.
A ferritin level of 25 is simply too low. Is it in the crisis stage? No. Not yet. Have I seen worse? Yes. Far worse. But it's definitely too low. And if you don't intervene, it will likely go lower.
You can consider beginning an iron supplement. Talk to your team physician or athletic trainer about which one, how much, and how often. Be sure to also talk about proper management of the rest of your diet, especially as it relates to iron absorption.
But the biggest and best thing you can do, especially in terms of gaining a short term boost, is to increase your consumption of lean red meat. This is the key! You should be eating red meat at least four to five times a week. Preferably even a little more. This will give you the best bang for your buck so to speak, especially in the short term.
Good luck!
Hello, thanks for the response. Yeah, I understand now that I am not anemic but will definitely take action to bring up my ferritin levels. I plan on increasing my consumption of red meat through lean ground beef and lean cuts of steak. Due to the way I was raised, (no religious reason), I would rarely eat red meat and stick to white meat primarily through chicken. I eat red meat MAYBE once a month which definitely would not suffice for someone training as much as I do. I have always been told that too much red meat is not good for health but I guess not eating it at all isn't ideal either. 4-5 times a week is definitely a big step up from what I am used to but I'm not opposed to implementing it.