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Iron deficiency is an enormous problem around the world.
It is estimated that at least 2 billion people in the world are short of iron
Now why does that Matter? well I think that you all know that iron is essential for
Hemoglobin for transporting oxygen around the body
for many Enzymes and for particulary developing and functioning of our brain
so to be short of iron can be a serious issue particularly for the
poorest people in the world and the young ones, children as they are developing that brain
What can we do about that? Well we thought it was simple, iron supplements are incredibly cheap
so we should just get out there and give iron as tablets, or in syrups or in fortified food
to these mothers and children and everything will be well
Unfortunately life is not so simple as that
and a number of very large recent studies that have given iron supplements to children
have discovered that these children have a series excess of adverse events
indeed an increase in the number of deaths
Why should this happen? well we are pretty certain that is because fo
for hundred thousands of years there has been a battle between
we humans and the bugs the microbes that like to invade us
for this one nutrient iron, we both need it and we fight over it
and if we as physicians or public health workers come and give extra iron to children
then it seems in some cases the microbes that pantheons benefit
more than the children. so we are to some extent back to base
what can we do about this? Well there is help on the horizon
in particularly in the form of a discovery in a new molecule called Hepcidin
now you may almost certainly be familiar with insulin and how it controls glucose
but most of you wont have heard about hepcidin. Well hepcidin is
as to iron is to what insulin is to glucose. Its a incredibly cleverly little molecule
and we think it is going to help us to understand how and when to give iron
Its the conductor of the orchestra as to how iron is moved around
the body and our hope is to tell us when we can safely give iron to pregnant women
and children. So what we are currently trying to do is to use this new molecule as the basis of
a test a very cheap test on little piece of paper that would allow us to either use a
a urine sample a plasma cell or saliva sample so we could test children before giving
giving them iron and decide which ones and when it was safe to give iron to
There is much work yet to be done but were optimistic that this is going
to open up a new method for giving irons safely to the mothers and children of the world