Iron’s role in the body: Iron has many roles, but its main job is to carry oxygen in the hemoglobin of red blood cells. Hemoglobin takes oxygen to your body cells where it’s used to produce energy. Iron also helps:

• Change beta-carotene to vitamin A
• Produce collagen (which holds tissues of your body together)
• Make body proteins (amino acids)
• Protect against infections as part of an enzyme in your immune system  

Toxicity: Excess iron is toxic, causing vomiting, diarrhea, and damage to the intestine. Iron may accumulate in the body when a person is given iron therapy in excessive amounts or for too long, receives repeated blood transfusions, or has chronic alcoholism.

Deficiencies: Severe iron deficiency results in anemia with small, pale, red blood cells that have a low hemoglobin concentration. In the US, iron deficiency anemia is relatively rare, but affects 5% of women 20 - 49 years old. Symptoms of anemia include:

• Extreme fatigue
• Weakness
• Shortness of breath
• Confusion or loss of concentration
• Dizziness or fainting
• Pale skin, including decreased pinkness of the lips, gums, lining of the eyelids, nail beds and palms
• Rapid heart beat (tachycardia)
• Feeling cold
• Sadness or depression  

Iron supplements intended for other household members are also the most common cause of pediatric poisoning deaths in the US.

Iron overload disease (hemochromatosis) is a potentially fatal but treatable hereditary disorder in which too much iron is absorbed; it affects over 1 million Americans.

Food sources: Grain products are a principal source of dietary iron, followed by meat, poultry and fish, then vegetables, then legumes, nuts, and soy.