Iron Deficiency Protects Against Infection

This article finds iron deficiency will protect a child from
infection.
Children they have been TARGETING with iron for decades have been ..
harmed.
They have found giving iron supplements to children causes increased
death from malaria.
Giving iron to their pregnant mothers increases malarial infection in
the child.
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Evaluation of iron deficiency as a nutritional adaptation to
infectious disease: An evolutionary medicine perspective.
Wander K, Shell-Duncan B, McDade TW
Am J Hum Biol 2008 Oct 23.

An evolutionary perspective suggests that iron deficiency may have
opposing effects on infectious disease risk, decreasing susceptibility
by restricting iron availability to pathogens, and increasing
susceptibility by compromising cellular immunocompetence. In some
environments, the trade-off between these effects may result in
optimal iron intake that is inadequate to fully meet body iron needs.
Thus, it has been suggested that moderate iron deficiency may protect
against acute infection, and may represent a nutritional adaptation to
endemic infectious disease stress. To test this assertion, we examined
the association between infection, reflected by C-reactive protein, a
biomarker of inflammation, and iron status, reflected by transferrin
receptor (TfR) and zinc protoporphyrin to heme ratio (ZPP:H), among
school-age Kenyan children, and evaluated the hypothesis that moderate
iron deficiency is associated with lower odds of infectious disease.
TfR > 5.0 mg/l, with sensitivity and specificity for iron deficiency
(ZPP:H > 80 mumol/mol) of 0.807 and 0.815, was selected as the TfR
definition of iron deficiency. Controlling for age and triceps
skinfold thickness (TSF), the odds ratio (OR) for acute viral or
bacterial infection associated with iron deficiency (compared to
normal/replete) was 0.50 (P = 0.11). Controlling for age and TSF, the
OR for infection associated with an unequivocally iron replete state
(compared to all others) was 2.9 (P = 0.01). We conclude that iron
deficiency may protect against acute infection in children. Am. J.
Hum. Biol, 2009. (c) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human
Biology Council [Am J Hum Biol]


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