Iron in Food and Nutrition

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Iron in Food and Nutrition Iron and hemoglobin depend on one another. Iron is a part of the hemoglobin. It is what carries the oxygen in the blood. They together carry oxygen through the blood all over our bodies. Iron is found in protein found in many foods. Through the food, it is then carried throughout the body. Iron is also very important for cell growth and the survival of those cells. They are used by our bodies to bring oxygen to the tissues in our bodies. Iron can exist as a ferric or ferrous ion in the body. The difference between the two is that your body absorbs ferrous iron more easily. You and your body need iron and it doesn’t have to work as hard to absorb the ferrous iron. The minimum daily requirement is different for different age groups and for male and females. In my age group, males from 19 to 50 years old should get 8.0 mg a day while females from 19 to 50 years should get 18 mg a day.There are negative effects for having too much iron or too little iron in your body. Too little iron gives you anemia and an overload of iron gives you a disease called hemochromatosis.Hemochromatosis is the absorption of high levels of iron that become toxic and begin to damage your tissues. There is not much known to what the disease does and how if effects the rest of the body It is also genetic and mutates iron metabolism genes. Screening is recommended if you have a family history of the disease to prevent severe organ damage. Works Cited 1 Ho, C. and Yuan, Y. Haemoglobin: Cooperativity in Protein–Ligand Interactions. 2010 April 19. eLS. Wiley Online Library. 2 Erdman, John W; MacDonald, Ian A; Zeisel, Steven H. Present Knowledge in Nutrition. Wiley-Blackwell. 2012. 506-520 p. 3 Murray John. Iron Metabolism. In: Access Science @ McGraw-Hill. Available from: http://www.accessscience.com/. 4 Erdman, John W; MacDonald, Ian A; Zeisel, Steven H.
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