The body of an adult human contains 3 to 4 g of iron, of which more than two thirds is present in hemoglobin, the pigment of the red blood cells.
Iron serves as the redox agent in a large number of enzymatic reactions involving substrate oxidation and reduction.
Human iron requirements include, more specifically, needs for growth and replacement of physiologic losses and uterine loses due to menstruation and pregnancy.
Physiological iron losses from the body include bleeding from the intestine, iron in bile, exfoliation of iron-containing mucosal cells from the intestine, urinary iron, and skin desquamation.
Basal iron losses that average about 0.7 to 1.0 mg/d are exhibit by the adult male and the post-menopausal.
In addition to the physiological losses of iron, women who are menstruating normally lose up to 2 mg per day in the menstrual blood.
Menstrual losses can be significant as can non-physiological losses resulting from parasitism, diarrhea and enteritis which are thought to account for half of the cases of global iron-deficiency anemia.
Loss of iron from human body
