Iron Hematocrit Atherosclerosis

Apr 4, 2008 11:28 AM

In brief, Sullivan[9] proposed that the reduced risk of myocardial infarction in premenopausal women, compared with both men of comparable age and postmenopausal women, might be explained by the lower iron stores characteristic of premenopausal women. He then examined differences in the incidence of ischemic heart disease for men and women by age and showed that the change in risk over time paralleled changes in iron stores, as reflected by serum ferritin levels.[10,11] Both coronary risk and iron stores remained low during the premenopausal years in women compared with men and were independent of menopausal age.

Subsequently, it has been shown that levels of body iron stores are a strong predictor of coronary risk in men[13] and of carotid atherosclerosis in both men and women.[14,15] Higher iron stores predict poor outcome after stroke.[16] Routine voluntary blood donation is associated epidemiologically with reduced coronary risk

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