Does low iron make you tired?

Why we need iron

Iron is an essential mineral that we need to help maintain normal bodily functions. Specifically, iron is crucial for our blood to carry oxygen around our body. 

In fact, iron is the major component of a protein called haemoglobin. Red blood cells contain haemoglobin which carries oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. 

Moreover, iron is also an important component of myoglobin which comes from the latin word “myo” meaning muscle. In fact, myoglobin is a protein which carries and stores oxygen in our muscles. 

Not only is iron essential for oxygenation of organs and tissues, it is also crucial for healthy brain development and growth in childhood. 

In addition, iron plays a role in the normal production and function of several cells and hormones. Clearly iron is a key player in many functions of our body. 

Our body stores iron in the form of ferritin in our muscle tissue, liver, spleen and bone marrow, another protein called transferrin delivers iron throughout the body where it is needed.

A helpful analogy to understand how iron moves around the body is to think about a bus, where the number of passengers waiting at the bus stop represents ferritin, and transferrin represents the number of buses on the road. 

Iron from food, also called dietary iron, comes in two forms: haem and non-haem. 

Haem iron is found exclusively in animal flesh such as in meat, poultry and fish. On the other hand, non-haem iron is found in plant foods such as nuts, legumes, seeds and leafy greens. It turns out that haem iron is better absorbed by our body compared to non-haem iron. (1) 

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