Low Iron/Ferritin in Women: Symptoms & Natural Fixes

Low Ferritin and Common Symptoms 0:00

If you are a woman watching this right now, then there is an 80% chance you have something which is damaging your body and causing you to feel tired, have hair fall or hair thinning issues, it is causing brain fog issues plus it also leads to mood changes and mood swings and also is a major reason of thyroid and other hormonal problems. And here's a kicker that most likely your doctor has not even tested you for it. I am not talking about a disease or a very rare condition. This is very common in women of any age and I am talking about low ferritin.

And before you click away thinking that it is only about a low iron deficiency, then stay with me because what I'm going to share with you is literally going change your life. Hi, I m Dr Anshul Gupta, a former Cleveland Clinic functional medicine physician from US. I help people improve their chronic diseases by making personalized functional medicines plans. Are you exhausted by 2pm? Do you have hair fall or hair thinning issues? Are losing your mental focus or have brain fog? Feel anxious, stressed out or do you hormonal issues, specifically thyroid?

You guessed it right, it is low ferritin.

What Ferritin Is and Why Hemoglobin Can Look Normal 1:14

So let me first tell you what exactly is this ferritin and why such a common condition which is present in majority of the women is not being addressed. So ferretin is the molecule in the body which stores your iron and you know that iron is very important to make hemoglobin in your body, which carries oxygen across all of your bodies. Now you might say over here, my doctor already checked my hemoglobin levels and they were perfectly normal. Well, that's where the problem starts. By the time the blood work results will show that your hemoglobin is low, your ferritin levels have been low for a very long time.

Even just checking your iron levels is not enough because you need those ferritin stores in your body to have adequate and long term supply of iron all the time in the body. Another problem with the lab test is that when you get your ferretin level tested, it has a very wide range in labs. It goes anywhere from 30 to 200. Most of the women are in lower end of ferrate between 30 and 50. Research studies suggest that that is not the optimal level of ferritin that you need to function at your peak performance.

That is why there are some estimates that 8 in 10 women have suboptimal ferretin levels and that's the reason women are more prone to getting chronic diseases

Why Women Are More Prone to Low Ferritin 2:37

as well as have more severe symptoms. So the next question is that why women are more prone to low ferritin as compared to men. So let me share the reasons and then after that I am going to share with you the lab test to get for it and how to read those lab tests to your levels to the optimal level and in the end I'm going share how you can naturally raise your ferretin levels. The first reason is very obvious that is the menstrual periods. Every month when you are having those menstrual periods, you lose a lot of blood and iron during that time.

Approximately you're losing 1-2 mg of iron per day of those periods. Just imagine, months after months, your body does get deficient into that iron which affects your ferritin stores. The second reason is that women have naturally low stores of Iron as compared to men. Even in the lab tests, the ranges of ferritin for women and men are different. So that's the reason naturally women's body have low ferretin which makes them even prone to having low iron stores in their body. The third reason is the diet.

On an average, women consume less amount of animal and meat products. And these meat product have heme containing compounds which raises your iron. If you are a vegan or vegetarian, or even you are a non-vegetarian but not eating enough animal products. You are at risk for low iron and low ferritin issues.

Symptoms of Low Ferritin 4:11

So these are all the reasons that women are more prone to low Iron and Low ferretin levels. Now let me also share quickly with you all these symptoms which are associated with low Ferritins so you're aware of it. The very first symptom is that you get tired very easily. Even after minimal work or in the afternoon around 2-4 pm, if you feel that your energy is getting low, then that is because of low ferritin. If you have noticed recently that you hair is thinning or you are losing more hair than usual, that's because iron is needed for proper hair health.

If you do suffer from hormonal issues like PCOS or you have thyroid issues that can also be because of low iron and ferritin because again iron is needed to support all of your hormones in your body. If your feel anxious or get stressed out very easily that is again another sign. if you feel dizziness or shortness of breath very easy that's another low-iron sign and if your weakened immune system that you get sick or common colds very easily or sinus infections very easy. That is again a sign of low iron or low ferritin.

So these are all the symptoms. Now let's talk about the testing. How you can know your ferretin levels. The very first thing is that whenever you get your blood work done, majority of the time you are only getting a CBC. which is only checking your hemoglobin levels. And as I told you before, hemoglobin is not telling you the complete picture. So you need to get a complete iron profile which includes iron levels, ferritin levels as well as you get TIBC which total iron binding capacity also checked.

How to Test Ferritin and Iron Levels 5:41

Now as I shared with you, different labs will have different ranges but most of the ranges are very wide. They go from anywhere from 30 to 200 and that is a very range. For optimal functioning of your body, you need your ferritin levels at least more than 50. So optimal levels are between 50 to 70. Now, as a caution over here, we do not want too much ferretin either because you can get toxic on iron too. So if your ferritin levels are going beyond hundreds, that is the time to cut back on your iron supplementation.

So you are feeling all of these symptoms and plus your Ferritine is suboptimal. What is a best way of increasing it? So the best of way to increase it is by taking an Iron supplement. Now here's the problem. Most of the iron supplements which is available over the counter is ferrous sulphate or ferous carbonate. Those are useless. They actually give you constipation and irritate your gut. and they are not very well absorbed. So the best form of iron that is absorbed is ferrous glycanate or ferous bisglycanates and that will not give you stomach upset.

And the typical dosage is between 25 to 65 mg on the daily basis. Now couple of other tips over here. Do not take your iron supplementation with tea, coffee or calcium supplements because it interferes with its absorption.

Best Ways to Raise Ferritin 6:58

The best way to take iron is to use vitamin C containing fruits like either a vitamin c supplement or either add lemon or lime to a glass of water and take that with your Iron supplement. And again, your iron or ferritin stores are not going to get better in a day or two. You need a minimum of 3-4 months of taking these supplementations so that you will notice a difference in how you are feeling plus for your levels to increase high also. Along with taking the supplementation, I am also a big fan of optimizing your diet so make sure you are including iron rich foods on a regular basis too.

The highest source of iron containing foods are red meats, oysters, sardines. For people who are vegan or vegetarian, they can eat spinach and other green leafy vegetables. Lentils and legumes also have some iron in them. Plus pumpkin seeds are also good sources of Iron. And again, whenever you are eating iron containing foods, try to have some vitamin C with it which can be easily a lemon or lime that enhances the absorption of iron in your body. So today I shared with you a very common problem with lot of females are going through and that leads to having several symptoms as well as several diseases that they might be going though.

But unfortunately, you're unaware of your ferritin levels. So, it is very important to make yourself aware of optimal iron and optimal ferritin levels so that you can take your health under control and start improving your iron & ferretin level so, that way you feel better again. Trust me, this has made a huge difference in several of my patients and it's an easy fix and that's the reason I wanted to share that with you. So I hope you like this video. If you do, please like and subscribe to my channel so you keep on getting this information in the future too.

Plus share this information with others who can benefit from it. Until next time, take care, bye bye.