iron deficiency anemia can be a
debilitating condition
as you may already know if you've been
diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia
this video is going to help you a lot
because i'm going to give you some
information in it that you may
never have heard before iron deficiency
anemia is very very common across the
world
more than a billion and a half people
suffer from it
symptoms include fatigue weakness pale
skin
shortness of breath dizziness pica which
means you have the
overwhelming desire to eat dirt or clay
or ice
and leg tingling those are the most
common symptoms
the most common causes of iron
deficiency anemia are either just not
eating enough iron
or not absorbing enough iron and that's
what this video is really going to help
you understand
or you're losing blood from your body
somewhere that you may or
may not know about so if you're having
any of these symptoms or if you've been
diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia
definitely follow up with your doctor to
make sure you don't have
some occult or hidden bleeding that
you're not aware of
but then after you've got that situated
then it's time to worry about
number one eating enough iron number two
absorbing
enough iron that's very very important
i'm dr ken berry a family physician with
20 years of clinical experience
and i'm going to give you what may be
your iron deficiency anemia
solution the majority of the iron you
eat is absorbed through
your duodenum which is the first part of
your small intestine
most doctors know this you may or may
not have known this
uh but there is a bell curve
distribution
for your personal ability
to absorb iron from your diet and it
it is partly genetic but it's also
partly the food
that you're eating or the food that
you're not eating many many doctors
think that we all absorb iron the same
exact way and in the same exact
amount and that's just not true some
people are very good at absorbing iron
from their diet some people are very
bad at absorbing iron from their diet
there's a bell curve distribution like
this
this graphic so most people are right in
the middle of this chart they
absorb iron color blue well some people
are on one end of the curve and they
absorb it very very well
out of their diet other people absorb
iron very very poorly from their diet
especially if they're not eating the
right kind of iron
in their diet there are two basic kinds
of iron you can get from your diet
there's plant-based iron which is called
non-heme iron and we won't get into what
that name means
uh this is by far the most common iron
that everybody around the world
gets in their diet uh the problem is
is that there are things in plants
called phytic acid
called polyphenols and call fiber which
can inhibit
your absorption of the iron that's
contained in the plant-based food
the most common sources of plant-based
iron that you've probably been told to
eat lots of
are spinach kale fortified cereals
uh dried fruit apricots raisins
and beans lentils soybeans and then you
may have also been told to take
an iron supplement or a multivitamin
with iron
the problem with plant-based non-heme
iron is that we don't absorb a lot of it
none of us do
even the very best absorbers can only
absorb up to 12 percent
give or take of the non-heme iron in
plant foods
some of us only absorb two percent of it
because of the polyphenols the phytic
acid and the fiber
and so if you are a poor absorber you
can eat all the spinach and kale
and soybean stuff that you want and
you're just not going to get enough iron
absorbed into your body that your body
can actually use
and the iron found in iron supplements
and prescription iron pills are
notoriously
poorly absorbed and much of them remain
in your
your gastrointestinal system and wind up
in your colon which leads to the most
common side effect
of iron supplements and iron
prescriptions which is constipation
so if you've been eating tons of
fortified cereals that are supposedly
high in iron
and lots of dark green leafy vegetables
which are
high in iron but perhaps you can absorb
them then what i'm about to talk about
next may surprise you but it also may be
the key that unlocks your prison
of iron deficiency anemia the iron found
in
animal foods like meat and eggs is
called
heme iron and it is a different
uh molecular kind of iron than you would
find in plants
it is much much more absorbable
and so even if a animal-based source of
iron has less iron than a plant-based
source
you're probably still going to get more
usable iron
from the animal-based source meat and
eggs than you would get from a
plant-based source because you're able
to absorb
so much more of the heme iron versus the
non-heme iron
great sources of heme iron in
animal-based foods are
any liver at all from any animal is
going to be a great source of heme iron
many of the a serving of many livers
will give you almost a full day supply
of the iron that your body actually
needs to and can absorb
to use to correct your iron deficiency
anemia
other great sources are anchovies and
sardines
any beef any any meat uh
muscle flesh of an animal is going to be
a good source of iron some are a little
better than others
but if you if you are one of those
people who just can't bring yourself
to eat soft fluffy mammals which i
totally get that i understand you can
still get great sources of animal based
heme iron
from clams oysters mussels
uh any poultry chicken or turkey or any
other poultry is a good
source of iron uh any seafood whatsoever
and then any egg and pasture raised eggs
whether the chickens or turkey have
actually been allowed to go out and eat
real
chicken and turkey food have better iron
and
more absorbable iron but even the cheap
eggs from the grocery store even the
cheap canned oysters or clams or mussels
any of these are really good sources of
highly absorbable
heme iron most heme iron is absorbed at
a rate from
20 to 40 percent and so
if you go back to the bell curve if
you're one of those very very poor
absorbers
of non-heme iron then adding just a
little bit of animal food
into your diet meat and eggs or
hopefully liver
you're going to get so much more iron
from just a small portion
of the meat than you would get from the
plants
most dairy foods are not really that
great of a source of
heme iron definitely skim milk low fat
milk two percent milk those are not
going to give you much iron if any at
all
uh parmesan cheese and then all of the
different
goat cheeses are the best dairy options
if you're trying to get iron
from dairy now listen up this is very
important
if you have made an ethical or religious
decision
not to eat meat in your diet
that's okay but here's what you've got
to understand if you're a poor absorber
on the bell curve then you're never
going to correct your iron deficiency
anemia
unless you add in some kind of animal
based heme iron into your diet so that
you can actually absorb it
and your body can actually use it this
is what i call
therapeutic meat okay now there are
multiple examples
where religions have made exemptions for
people's health care
a good example is a jewish rabbi
has said that it's okay for jews to use
desiccated pork thyroid in the form of
armor nature
wp or thyroid because it's therapeutic
and so even though jews are told not to
eat pork
they can use this product because it has
a therapeutic benefit that they perhaps
can't get
from the synthetic thyroid replacement
hormones so i want you to consider
having a therapeutic meat exemption
in whatever your ethical diet vegan the
vegetarian
whether it's just ethical or whether
it's religious
you really need to think your health
takes
precedent over most of the things in
your life if you're not healthy if
you're constantly fatigued and short of
breath
and considering eating the ice out of
the inside of your freezer because
you're so iron deficient
think how much more productive you would
be think how much more uh
successful you would be promoting things
that you believe in
making money taking care of your family
if you actually could get rid of those
symptoms and get rid of your iron
deficiency anemia
so i want you to really think about this
and consider a therapeutic meat option
and not that you're going to enjoy the
eggs or meat not that you're going to
proclaim that you're doing this not that
you're going to
espouse this to other people you're
doing this for your health
and i think that is ethical and and it
makes very good sense to me
now you don't have to eat mammals to get
your therapeutic meat
treatment you don't even have to eat
things with faces animals with faces you
could literally
get your heme iron from clams oysters
and mussels and from eggs so you never
had to eat anything with a face and so
i'm i hope you understand i'm being very
respectful i understand you've made a
choice
ethically to not eat animals or to not
eat mammals or wherever
your line of ingestion happens to fall
and i respect that but at the same time
i don't want you to suffer for the rest
of your life
with iron deficiency anemia or wind up
having heart failure or wind up having
to have blood transfusions because of
this
disabling iron deficiency anemia that
you currently have
the most at risk populations for
developing iron deficiency anemia
are children of all ages uh reproductive
age
women pregnant women and then the
elderly these are the people most at
risk for developing this
and these are the people that regardless
of what ethical decisions you've made
about what you're going to eat or not
eat
you really need to think about the
therapeutic meat option
in order to reclaim your health people
who are frequent blood donors can have
this congestive heart failure patients
can have iron deficiency anemia
people with gut conditions like
ulcerative colitis crohn's
celiac disease or if you've had a row
and y
gastric bypass surgery you are at
increased risk for iron deficiency
anemia
and even though you may not think it's
ethical to consume
animal products i really think you
should consider the therapeutic meat
option
another big population of people who
suffer from iron deficiency anemia
and oftentimes they don't know why and
maybe even their doctor doesn't know
is people who take proton pump
inhibitors like ass effects
prevacid protonix and nexium these block
your stomach acid and stomach acid is
vital for the proper absorption of iron
from your diet and so if you're taking
one of those pills and you've been iron
deficient anemic
and your doctor didn't know why i
couldn't figure it out that's probably
why
in children iron is absolutely mandatory
for them to develop into their full
potential as adults
and one there there are many parts of
the world where there's just no animal
food available or
religious uh rules prevent children from
eating enough
heme iron and animal based products in
order to not be iron fishing anemic
in the u.s and other modern societies
it's very common for a child to be an
accidental vegan
and i've got a video about that i'll
have it pop up
here or here so that you can make sure
that your child is not an accidental
vegan
but that can lead to very severe iron
deficiency anemia
and the doctor may not even be able to
figure that one out either
i've included some research links in the
show notes down below
if in case you want to do some further
reading this is dr berry i'll see you
next time