Most hemochromatosis carriers, for example, will live full, healthy lives despite absorbing twice as much iron as the average person. The bottom line, he adds, is that people who take iron are twice as likely to be hurt by a supplement as they are to be helped by it. What's needed, Herbert and his colleagues maintain, is a sharp increase in doctors' awareness of how serious a problem hemochromatosis is as well as universal screening for patients' iron status. The old definition for hemochromatosis won't do anymore, says David Witte, a University of Iowa pathologist who's written new guidelines on hemochromatosis due out sometime in early 1996. For one thing, the condition affects as many women as men.
Women just have an early advantage, which they lose after menopause.
For another, he adds, we're doing patients an inexcusable disservice by refusing to recognize hemochromatosis as a chronic, genetic disorder that makes people absorb excess iron. Using this new definition, he says, the challenge becomes to find these people and treat them before their excess iron causes complications. Screening would go a long way in reducing such damage, Witte and other experts insist. A few patients are still being sent to psychiatrists, because their doctors pass them off as hypochondriacs. Roberta Crawford remembers when doctors told her she was crazy.