Are you looking at your blood tests and finding that you have elevated ferritin in your blood? Maybe you're wondering what this means for you. Is it dangerous? What do you need to know about high ferritin levels in your blood? In this video, we're going to look at high ferritin levels in your blood and also what the dangers are associated with high ferritin and high iron states in general.
In this video, we're going to look at high ferritin levels in the blood and the dangerous things that high ferritin levels could be leading to. So high ferritin in the blood doesn't necessarily tell us why it's high. An important aspect of managing high ferritin and what to do about it is understanding why it's high.
00:00 Introduction to High Ferritin Levels
01:16 Understanding the Basics of High Ferritin
01:41 Common Causes of High Ferritin in the Blood
02:57 The Dangers of Excess Iron and Oxidative Stress
04:21 Inflammation and Iron: The Body's Response
07:14 Conclusion and Next Steps
So some of these reasons can include things like hemochromatosis, which we've discussed in other videos, inflammation, iron overload, and dietary iron intake. With hemochromatosis, it's a genetic problem with too much iron being absorbed from the diet, leading to iron accumulation and potentially damage to organs such as the liver, heart, pancreas, and even other endocrine areas of the body.
The second thing is inflammation. The elevation in ferritin levels can be due to chronic inflammation, which can be caused by conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or even long-term occurrences of infections like COVID-19 and other viral and bacterial infections.
Iron overload disorders, such as thalassemia or sideroblastic anemia, can also cause high ferritin levels. And then with diet, it's just that you're consuming too much iron from your diet, whether that's from an iron supplement or a natural food source that's high in iron.
So these are some of the common reasons or causes for high ferritin in the blood. But what's the problem with that? Does iron make you strong? Don't our bodies need it to be healthy? Why is high ferritin really a problem? The answer is, yes, our bodies do need iron, but no, we don't want too much either. So high ferritin suggests that it's well above the normal ranges. So we're not going to talk about the specific ranges in this video, but mostly want to get into a little bit more of the problems caused by high ferritin and high iron. In general, like most things in our bodies, you need a balance of just the right amount of things, and the same thing is true for iron.
So our bodies definitely need iron to make things like hemoglobin, which carries oxygen around our bodies. Our bodies also need iron for white blood cells to produce their killing activities. Certain white blood cells need iron to produce some of their powerful antimicrobial effects. We also need iron in our mitochondria so we can make energy.
So it's when there's too much iron in our bodies that our bodies can become overburdened with the iron. And that iron can participate in reactions that generate reactive oxygen species, also referred to as ROS. These are free radicals, and these molecules are highly reactive molecules that can damage cells and tissues. This overall process is called oxidative stress. When the overall oxidative stress in our bodies exceeds the capacity of our bodies to quench those free radicals or reduce the oxidative stress via our antioxidant systems like glutathione, vitamin C, vitamin E, and things like that, it leads to inflammation. Now, what is inflammation? Of course, inflammation, as we said in other videos, is increased immune activity. So those free radicals are acting almost like signals to the immune cells to tell them that there's actually a problem going on.
And that increased immune activity also occurs on a spectrum. You can have very low levels of inflammation, moderate levels, high levels, and then you can have really high levels, like in cases like severe COVID-19 or other chronic infections or autoimmune-type reactions. So our bodies developed this special way to transport iron around to protect our cells and tissues from these potential problems. Because of the high potential for these reactive oxygen species, and these systems work really well, except when they're overwhelmed from too much iron coming in for whatever reason.
So a little bit of excess iron from, let's say, you consumed a meal with a lot of beef, you're going to be fine. But as that accumulation of iron goes up and up, the systems get taxed more, which can lead to larger problems. So large amounts of excess iron lead to those reactive oxygen species, cell and tissue damage, and a process called lipid peroxidation. Once lipid peroxidation occurs, it's kind of hard for your body to reverse it, and it leads to programmed cell death. This programmed cell death, coming from iron, is called ferroptosis.