Scientists at the Medical University of Vienna have found that intestinal immune cells may be responsible for problems with iron absorption. Research published in the journal Blood.
A person needs one to two grams of iron per day. However, even with adequate consumption of iron with food, trace element deficiency may develop if its absorption in the intestine is impaired.
In the body, iron is transported by a special transport molecule, transferrin. As the study’s authors found, intestinal immune cells, macrophages, destroy this molecule when activated. As a result, the iron stays in the intestinal cells and cannot enter the bloodstream. In addition, the study showed that macrophages are also activated during starvation, eating or intestinal infection.
The discovery could lead to a real paradigm shift, as it was previously assumed that transferrin is always present in the body in equal amounts and plays no role in iron regulation.
A potential treatment for iron malabsorption already exists: In animal models, mTOR inhibitors or serine protease blockers have been able to increase its transfer and restore iron availability in the body.