Iron Defficiency in Males???

[quote]tooth wrote:

It's very rare for men to be low on iron. If you go in for testing then prepare to have the nurse or doctor laugh at you.

More likely you're probably overtrained or not eating enough (especially protein).

I've been anemic, I've had members of my team battle with it and now I see it as a coach occasionally It's more prevalent with the girls but it's still a problem for men whether the doctor is laughing or not.

I do agree it might be a training issue and I also agree he should be careful to eat protein but it's good to rule out an iron issue especially if the rest of his team is blowing by him in workouts and races.

Low iron is common in male runners too. Not a big deal, take an iron supplement, eat the right foods (spinach, red meat,etc) and you should be okay in a few weeks or months depending on how your body handles it. If it persists, you may need to get on something more intense like liquid iron.

I've had quite low iron twice in my life (ferretin level 3-5) and I feel for you. It really sucks. Thing is, once you get your iron up, you can't take a break. It's like hydration, you have to constantly be on top of eating right and (depending on your physiology) might need to stay on a supplement or multivitamin.

FWIW, many things cause deficiency. Diet is probably #1, but look up footstrike hemolysis too. Just take care of it. I don't know how quickly it develops, but you'll definitely know the symptoms. Good luck.

How hard is it to take an iron supplement? Just do it, be on the safe side. Jeez.

tooth wrote:

It's very rare for men to be low on iron.

No, it's not. Happens all the time to vegetarians and people in soft water areas.

What a lot of people don't know about minerals is that normally you should get them from your tap water. Food isn't a great source of minerals unless you eat huge amounts of weird stuff. You can get iron from meat, and calcium if you inflict dairy on yourself, but a lot of other minerals just have no good dietary sources.

Magnesium, in particular, is very hard to get enough of from food. It's as important as calcium, sodium, potassium and iron, but Mg deficiency hasn't been studied much because it's usually asymptomatic. There are studies showing significant heart-disease risk for people living in soft-water areas. Magnesium is vital for energy use as it binds to ATP when it's metabolized.

If your tap water is soft, or you don't drink the stuff, check your food, you're probably not getting your 400mg of Mg a day, and supplementation might not hurt.

Im in over my head. HELP wrote:

Just came back from my test. We shall see. I also purchased a multi vitamin and iron tablets...i hope I can salvage my season.

So, OP, you posted this several days ago - how do your results look?

Don't listen to these idiots, iron deficiency, while more common in women runners, is still prevalent In men, get checked

sf wrote:

So, OP, you posted this several days ago - how do your results look?

OP either passed away or found out he actually had the Clap.

tooth wrote:

It's very rare for men to be low on iron. If you go in for testing then prepare to have the nurse or doctor laugh at you.

More likely you're probably over-trained or not eating enough (especially protein).

Are you in college? This is the time of year where many college runners start the burn out process. Academic stress begins to kick in & you may have missed a decent meal here & there. Your nice summer base is wearing off & is now replaced with high volume speed work.

The above is misleading - in fact, while it is uncommon for a male to have low iron, it is relatively common for male runners to have low iron due to haemolytic anaemia (in this case, also called foot-strike anaemia).

I have athletes come back to me with their blood work with ferratin scores between 7 and 25 at least three or four times each season. While 25 is in the normal range, they do much better when they can get their ferratin up above 50 (and ideally above 70).

yea I had this problem too, I stopped drinking coffee with meals and started taking iron pills, 10$ will get you like 180 of them at a grocery store, anyway I started to feel significantly better, because I was under 6 min pace for 8k my senior year in hs, then later 6 pace for even a mile felt hard for this same reason

So here is the update...my feritin level is 62. HOWEVER my feritin was 79 in July. The doctor said 17 is a pretty significant drop. Although 62 is still pretty high it may not be good enough fore someone like me...very underweight and fairly high mileage. I started taking 1 slow release iron pill per day last week and I'm already starting to feel better. Yay

how has nobody else picked up on this?

"Height: 5 feet, 9 inches

Weight: 110 pounds

Your BMI is 16.2, indicating your weight is in the Underweight category for adults of your height.

For your height, a normal weight range would be from 125 to 169 pounds."

I know a few guys on my team who are in the 17-18 BMI range but 16.2 is atrociously low, put on some weight dude, aside from the fact that you're probably anemic also.

runners need more iron than average people

Run on soft surfaces as much as possible to decrease footstrike hemolysis. Less impact means less destruction of RBC's. Cook with iron skillets rather than steel. Eat red meat (heme iron) for iron sources over the vegetable sources (non-heme). Heme iron is much more readily absorbable. Also when supplementing iron. It is best to go with 1 teaspoon of liquid feosol mixed with 8oz orange juice and 1 crushed 500mg Vitamin C tablet. On a side note 110 is pretty small for 5'9". I recommend you eat whatever the hell looks good to you right now and stay hydrated. Don't restrain from giving your body what it craves. You will feel better much faster.

Don't self-medicate with iron supplements. Get a blood test.

Read this:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/iron-supplements-for-fatigue/