As late as 1890, the median life expectancy in Europe was only 40 years, meaning that most people with hereditary hemochromatosis died of other causes before developing complications of the disorder. Medical researchers discovered blood antigens only at the beginning of the 20th century. Routine blood transfusion was not feasible until the 1940's. Prior to the 1960's when repeated transfusion therapy became widespread in the industrialized world, patients with chronic severe anemias, such as thalassemia major, succumbed to complications of the anemia. The manifestations of iron overload are relatively uniform, irrespective of cause.
Cardiac dysfunction is a primary cause of death in people with iron overload.
The heart does not accumulate iron disproportionately to other organs. The key to the heart s central role in the pathology of iron overload lies in the need for the complex array of cells and structures in the heart to function coordinately. Half of the liver can be lost to fibrosis or cirrhosis, and a person can still survive. This is not true of the heart. As importantly, the consequences of disrupted signal transduction between the AV node and the ventricles can be catastrophic and even fatal.