And now see the millions that have iron overload. Iron is essential for every cell in the body, yet too much is toxic. Excess iron stores in the body tissues and organs where it injures to the point of death. A normal metabolism for iron protects the body by refraining to absorb more iron than the daily need. Iron once absorbed is not excreted.
Blood loss is the only way stored iron levels are lowered.
Hemochromatosis is the most common of the iron overload diseases. In the Greater New York City Area there are 115,000 people with the double gene expression for hemochromatosis. Homozygosity or double gene expression is 1 in 200. This means that 1.5 million Americans are going to overload iron at some point in their lives even from an ordinary diet. Estimates for this group is 32 million.